United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp.

299 U.S. 304 (1936)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

A resolution of Congress authorized the President to decide the legality of the sale of weapons to countries involved in the Bolivian war. The President issued a proclamation prohibiting the sales of arms to countries involved in the conflict. Curtiss Wright Corp. (D) ignored the proclamation and sold machine guns to Bolivia. D was indicted. D demurred in that the joint resolution affects an invalid delegation of legislative power to the executive and that the joint resolution never became effective, because of the failure of the President to find essential jurisdictional facts, and third, that the second proclamation operated to put an end to the alleged liability under the joint resolution. The court below sustained the demurrer upon the first point but overruled them on the second and third points. The government appealed.