Yakus v. United States | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Argued January 7, 1944 Decided March 27, 1944 | |
Full case name | Albert Yakus v. United States |
Citations | 321 U.S. 414 ( more ) 64 S. Ct. 660; 88 L. Ed. 834; 1944 U.S. LEXIS 1311 |
Case history | |
Prior | Rottenberg v. United States, 137 F.2d 850 (1st Cir. 1943); cert. granted, 320 U.S. 730(1943). |
Holding | |
An administrative agency could “save” an otherwise unconstitutional delegation of power through a narrowing construction that constrains the agency's own discretion. | |
Court membership | |
| |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Stone, joined by Black, Reed, Frankfurter, Douglas, Jackson |
Dissent | Roberts |
Dissent | Rutledge, joined by Murphy |
Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414 (1944), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court [1] which upheld congressional power to fetter judicial review and to delegate broad and flexible law-making power to an administrative agency in this constitutional challenge to the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. The wartime anti-inflation measure, intended to expedite price control enforcement, conferred on the federal district courts jurisdiction over violations of Office of Price Administration (OPA) regulations made under the act. But judicial power to consider the constitutionality of such regulations was excepted. Congress specified that challenges to their validity be initially reviewed under stringent time limitations by the OPA and on appeal exclusively by a special Article III tribunal in the District of Columbia—the Emergency Court of Appeals —and thereafter by the Supreme Court.
Massachusetts meat dealer Albert Yakus, criminally prosecuted for violating the wholesale beef price ceiling, had failed to launch a procedurally difficult pre-enforcement attack on the OPA regulations constitutionality and was barred from collateral challenges during his trial. The Court affirmed his conviction, holding that “so long as there is an opportunity … for judicial review which satisfies the demands of due process,” the bifurcated enforcement and constitutional proceedings were permissible (p. 444). In dissent, Wiley Rutledge, with Frank Murphy, asserted that once Congress conferred jurisdiction, it could not compel the district judges to ignore Marbury v. Madison or violate the Constitution by enforcing the criminal sanctions, a statute, and regulations devoid of due process.
A Yakus‐like incontestability provision reached the Court in Adamo Wrecking Co. v. United States (1978). [2] Statutory construction facilitated evasion of the constitutional issues, but Lewis Powell, concurring, questioned the validity of Yakus except as an exercise of war powers. Nevertheless, modern environmental legislation contains judicial review schemes similar to that upheld in Yakus.
Justice Roberts, who also dissented, embraced the non-delegation doctrine argument and held that the OPA had exercised unconstitutionally delegated congressional powers. The New Deal Court majority reacted by stipulating that statutory standards need only be sufficiently defined to permit ascertainment of the administrative agency's obedience to the congressional will.
The Supreme Court's decision of Yakus v. United States was a major decision in determining the development of American administrative law. in particular, Yakus addressed the misunderstood nondelegation doctrine. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Stone argued that an administrative agency could correct a problem of delegation if it limited its own power:
The standards prescribed by the present Act, with the aid of the "statement of the considerations" required to be made by the Administrator, are sufficiently definite and precise to enable Congress, the courts and the public to ascertain whether the administrator, in fixing the designated prices, has conformed to those standards . . . Hence we are unable to find in them an unauthorized delegation of legislative power. [3]
Thus, Yakus held that an administrative agency could "save" an otherwise unconstitutional delegation of power through a narrowing construction that constrains the agency's own discretion. This would become a key principle in American constitutional law and would be followed by lower courts in striking down challenges to laws based on the nondelegation doctrine for the next fifty years. This Yakus principle was logically flawed however: how could an administrative agency itself cure a problem of delegation? If the problem of delegation is one of excessive legislative power transferred to the executive branch, then the actual delegation problem happens at the time of the passage of the statute—the act of an executive agency limiting that power is too late and does not correct the problem (it really only limits the problem). As some say, allowing the agency to correct a delegation problem is liking locking the barn doors after all the horses have already escaped.
![]() |
The Supreme Court finally came to this conclusion in Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc. . In so doing, Justice Scalia denied that the Supreme Court had ever adopted such a stance on constitutional law: "We have never suggested that an agency can cure an unlawful delegation of legislative power by adopting in its discretion a limiting construction of the statute." Thus, in striking down its previous jurisprudence, the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten about its holding in Yakus.
Administrative law is the division of law that governs the activities of executive branch agencies of government. Administrative law concerns executive branch rule making, adjudication, or the enforcement of laws. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law.
The politics of Finland take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy. Finland is a republic whose head of state is President Sauli Niinistö, who leads the nation's foreign policy and is the supreme commander of the Finnish Defence Forces. Finland's head of government is Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who leads the nation's executive branch, called the Finnish Government. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament of Finland, and the Government has limited rights to amend or extend legislation. Because the Constitution of Finland vests power to both the President and Government, the President has veto power over parliamentary decisions, although this power can be overruled by a majority vote in the Parliament.
In law, standing or locus standi is a condition that a party seeking a legal remedy must show they have, by demonstrating to the court, sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. A party has standing in the following situations:
In United States law, ripeness refers to the readiness of a case for litigation; "a claim is not ripe for adjudication if it rests upon contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all." For example, if a law of ambiguous quality has been enacted but never applied, a case challenging that law lacks the ripeness necessary for a decision.
The doctrine of nondelegation is the theory that one branch of government must not authorize another entity to exercise the power or function which it is constitutionally authorized to exercise itself. It is explicit or implicit in all written constitutions that impose a strict structural separation of powers. It is usually applied in questions of constitutionally improper delegations of powers of any of the three branches of government to either of the other, to the administrative state, or to private entities. Although it is usually constitutional for executive officials to delegate executive powers to executive branch subordinates, there can also be improper delegations of powers within an executive branch.
Separation of powers is a political doctrine originating in the writings of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws, in which he argued for a constitutional government with three separate branches, each of which would have defined abilities to check the powers of the others. This philosophy heavily influenced the writing of the United States Constitution, according to which the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the United States government are kept distinct in order to prevent abuse of power. This United States form of separation of powers is associated with a system of checks and balances.
Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998), is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United States the power to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of statutes that had been duly passed by the United States Congress. The decision of the Court, in a six-to-three majority, was delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens.
United States federal administrative law encompasses statutes, common law, and directives issued by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Executive Office of the President, that together define the extent of powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets.
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of a statute which it administers. The decision articulated a doctrine now known as "Chevron deference". The doctrine consists of a two-part test applied by the court, when appropriate, that is highly deferential to government agencies: "whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction [emphasis added] of the statute", so long as Congress has not spoken directly to the precise issue at question.
Industrial Union Department v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U.S. 607 (1980), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. This case represented a challenge to the OSHA practice of regulating carcinogens by setting the exposure limit "at the lowest technologically feasible level that will not impair the viability of the industries regulated." OSHA selected that standard because it believed that (1) it could not determine a safe exposure level and that (2) the authorizing statute did not require it to quantify such a level. The AFL Industrial Union Department served as the petitioner; the American Petroleum Institute was the respondent. A plurality on the Court, led by Justice Stevens, wrote that the authorizing statute did indeed require OSHA to demonstrate a significant risk of harm in order to justify setting a particular exposure level.
Jim Rossi is the Judge D.L. Lansden Chair in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, where he specializes in Energy Law and Administrative Law.
Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22 (1932) is the landmark United States Supreme Court administrative law decision that outlined the adjudicatory authority of administrative agencies under Article III of the Constitution. The Court held that the United States Employees' Compensation Commission satisfied Fifth Amendment Due Process and the requirements of Article III with its court-like procedures and because it invests the final power of decision in Article III courts.
John F. Manning is an American educator and lawyer. Manning is currently the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Harvard Law School.
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review, may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority: an executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers: the power of the judiciary to supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries.
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as various civil liberties. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of Acts of Congress, treaties ratified by the Senate, regulations promulgated by the executive branch, and case law originating from the federal judiciary. The United States Code is the official compilation and codification of general and permanent federal statutory law.
United States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506 (1911), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The case tested the constitutionality of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, which delegated to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to make rules and regulations regarding the use of federal Forest Service lands and to punish violations of these rules as a criminal offense. The Court ruled, after a reargument, that such a delegation of rulemaking power was permissible because it was separate from true legislative power.
Primary legislation and secondary legislation are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democracies. Primary legislation generally consists of statutes, also known as 'acts', that set out broad outlines and principles, but delegate specific authority to an executive branch to make more specific laws under the aegis of the principal act. The executive branch can then issue secondary legislation, creating legally enforceable regulations and the procedures for implementing them.
The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 is a United States statute imposing an economic intervention as restrictive measures to control inflationary spiraling and pricing elasticity of goods and services while providing economic efficiency to support the United States national defense and security. The Act of Congress established the Office of Price Administration (OPA) as a federal independent agency being officially created by Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 11, 1941.
Gundy v. United States, No. 17-6086, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that 42 U.S.C. § 16913(d), part of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act ("SORNA"), does not violate the nondelegation doctrine. The section of the SORNA allows the Attorney General to "specify the applicability" of the mandatory registration requirements of "sex offenders convicted before the enactment of [SORNA]". Precedent is that it is only constitutional for Congress to delegate legislative power to the executive branch if it provides an "intelligible principle" as guidance. The outcome of the case could have greatly influenced the broad delegations of power Congress has made to the federal executive branch, but it did not.
In Jarkesy v. Securities and Exchange Commission (2022), the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that