In a suit by the Government under § 8a(6) of the Agricultural
Marketing Agreement Act to enforce an order issued by the Secretary
of Agriculture under § 8c, requiring handlers of milk to pay money
into a Producer-settlement Fund, the defendants sought to justify
their failure to pay on the ground that the demand was based upon
faulty inspection of their accounts and improper tests of their
milk and milk products.
Held: they cannot assert this defense in an enforcement
proceeding under § 8a(6), but are left to the administrative remedy
specifically provided by § 8c(15).
Stark v. Wickard,
321 U. S. 288,
differentiated. Pp. 290-296.
152 F.2d 167 reversed.
In a suit by the Government under § 8a(6) of the Agricultural
Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 against certain handlers of milk to
enforce their obligation to make payments into a
Producer-settlement Fund, the District Court gave judgment for the
Government. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. 152 F.2d 167.
This Court granted certiorari. 327 U.S. 776.
Reversed, p.
329 U. S. 296.
Page 329 U. S. 288
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
We brought this case here, 327 U.S. 776, because it raises
questions of importance in the administration of the Agricultural
Marketing Agreement Act of 1937. 50 Stat. 246, 7 U.S.C. § 601
et seq. The general scheme of the Act and its operation
have been before us in a series of cases.
United States v. Rock
Royal Co-op., 307 U. S. 533;
United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.
S. 110;
Stark v. Wickard, 321 U.
S. 288. Our immediate concern is with the provisions of
the Act that distribute enforcing authority between the courts and
the Secretary of Agriculture. These become relevant to the
enforcement of Milk Order No. 41, an "Order Regulating the Handling
of Milk in the Chicago, Illinois, Marketing Area," and more
particularly the portion of that elaborate Order which defines the
rights and obligations of "handlers" of milk. Section 941.1(5). The
Order was issued under the powers delegated to the Secretary of
Agriculture to effectuate the purposes of the Act. Section 8c of
the Act.
Order No. 41 classifies milk received into the Chicago area
according to its uses. To milk in each of the four classes the
market administrator assigns a uniform "use value." All handlers
are required to report to the market administrator the quantity of
milk purchased and put to its classified uses. On the basis of
these reports, the administrator, taking into account the total
quantity of milk produced and the amount devoted to each
classification, as well as the balance in the Producer-settlement
Fund, and making authorized adjustments, announces monthly a
uniform minimum price to be paid by handlers to producers. Since a
handler's receipts from the resale of milk, or the sale of milk
products, vary with the amount of the milk distributed in each
class, the uniform price paid by
Page 329 U. S. 289
handlers will create inequities unless adjustment is made, based
on the comparative use value of the milk distributed by a
particular handler. The mechanism for adjustment is the
Producer-settlement Fund. Handlers are required to contribute to
this Fund whenever the use value of the milk handled by them during
the month is greater than the norm on which the uniform price is
based. Conversely, handlers whose milk distribution is of low use
value and whose fixed minimum costs are therefore out of line with
their receipts, are recompensed from this Fund. Effective
enforcement of such a marketing scheme rests on proper accounting,
reliable reports and alert inspection. At best, however, errors are
inevitable, which may call for payments by handlers into the Fund.
The reliance of the industry upon that Fund makes prompt payments
into it imperative.
An order for payment into the Fund and its resistance led to
this litigation. The Ruzickas, handlers of milk, filed with the
market administrator required reports and received from him a
transcript of their account with the Fund for the period in
controversy. Deficiencies were disclosed which the Ruzickas refused
to pay, in disregard of § 941.8(e) and (g) of Order 41 requiring a
handler to pay within five days "the amount so billed." Under §
8a(6) of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, this suit was
begun in the Northern District of Illinois for enforcement. The
Government prayed for a mandatory injunction commanding compliance
with Order 41 by payment of the sums alleged to be due to the Fund.
If it be relevant, it was not alleged that there was danger of
irreparable loss because of insolvency of the Fund. By their
answer, the Ruzickas justified their failure to pay chiefly on the
ground that the demand was based upon faulty inspection of their
accounts and improper tests of their milk and milk products. The
District Court ruled that "the defendants
Page 329 U. S. 290
having failed to avail themselves of the administrative remedy
provided by said Act, may not raise such issues of fact before this
Court." On the issue in the suit thus limited, the District Court
granted the Government's motion for judgment on the pleadings. The
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, one judge
dissenting, reversed the District Court, ruling that the validity
of the demand by the Secretary of Agriculture may be contested in
an enforcement proceeding under § 8a(6). 152 F.2d 167.
Thus, the question before us is whether a handler may resist a
claim against him by the Secretary of Agriculture, made according
to the procedure defined in the Act, without previously having
sought to challenge the claim in a proceeding, also defined in the
Act, before the Secretary of Agriculture. The answer is found on a
fair reading of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act in the
context of its purposes and of the scheme designed by Congress for
their realization.
The sections of the statute directly relevant to our problem are
set out in the margin. [
Footnote
1] Briefly, the district courts
Page 329 U. S. 291
of the United States are "vested with jurisdiction specifically
to enforce" orders issued pursuant to the Act. [
Footnote 2] The Act authorizes a handler to
challenge before the Secretary of Agriculture his order "or any
obligation imposed in connection therewith" as "not in accordance
with law," and to ask to have it modified or to be exempted from
it. When the order is so challenged, the determination of the
Secretary of Agriculture, after hearing, is final, but only "if in
accordance with law." Section 8c(15)(A). To test whether such
ruling is "in accordance with law," the handler may bring the
Secretary's action for review before the appropriate district
court. Section 8c(15)(B). But the very subsection, (15), which
gives the handler access to the Secretary of Agriculture for
administrative relief and opportunity for judicial review of his
determination provides that the pendency of the proceedings
before
Page 329 U. S. 292
the Secretary, or in the district court to review the
Secretary's ruling, "shall not impede, hinder, or delay the United
States or the Secretary of Agriculture from obtaining relief" under
§ 8a(6). It is only when "a final decree has been rendered in
proceedings between the same parties, and covering the same subject
matter, instituted pursuant to this subsection (15)" that
proceedings brought for enforcement under § 8a(6) "shall abate."
Section 8c(15)(B).
To be sure, Congress did not say in words that, in a proceeding
under § 8a(6) to enforce an order, a handler may not question an
obligation which flows from it. But meaning, though not explicitly
stated in words, may be embedded in a coherent scheme. And such we
find to be the provisions, taken in their entirety, as a means for
attaining the purposes of the Act, while at the same time
protecting adequately the interests of individual handlers.
The procedure devised by Congress explicitly gave to an
aggrieved handler an appropriate opportunity for the correction of
errors or abuses by the agency charged with the intricate business
of milk control. In addition, if the Secretary fails to make amends
called for by law, the handler may challenge the legality of the
Secretary's ruling in court. Handlers are thus assured opportunity
to establish claims of grievances while steps for the protection of
the industry as a whole may go forward. Sections 8a(6) and 8c(15)
thus form a complementary procedural scheme. Contrariwise, it would
make for disharmony to extrapolate from these provisions of the
statute the right to consider independently, in a proceeding by the
Government for the enforcement of the Secretary's order, questions
for which Congress explicitly furnished the handler an expert forum
for contest with ultimate review by a district court.
The situation before us indicates how disruptive it would be to
allow issues that may properly come before a
Page 329 U. S. 293
district court in a proceeding under § 8c(15) to be open for
independent adjudication in a suit for enforcement under § 8a(6).
After a presumably careful study by those technically equipped, a
program was devised for the dairy farmers in one of the large areas
of the country. The success of the operation of such
Congressionally authorized milk control must depend on the
efficiency of its administration. Promptness of compliance by those
subject to the scheme is the presupposition of Order No. 41. Thus,
definite monthly deadlines are fixed by the Order for every step in
the program. In large measure, the success of this scheme revolves
around a "producers" fund which is solvent and to which all
contribute in accordance with a formula equitably determined and of
uniform applicability. Failure by handlers to meet their
obligations promptly would threaten the whole scheme. Even
temporary defaults by some handlers may work unfairness to others,
encourage wider noncompliance, and engender those subtle forces of
doubt and distrust which so readily dislocate delicate economic
arrangements. To make the vitality of the whole arrangement depend
on the contingencies and inevitable delays of litigation, no matter
how alertly pursued, is not a result to be attributed to Congress
unless support for it is much more manifest than we here find. That
Congress avoided such hazards for its policy is persuasively
indicated by the procedure it devised for the careful
administrative and judicial consideration of a handler's grievance.
It thereby safeguarded individual, as well as collective,
interests. In the case before us, administrative proceedings were
instituted before the Secretary of Agriculture and, apparently, are
awaiting his action. Presumably the Secretary of Agriculture will
give the respondents the rights to which Congress said they were
entitled. If they are dissatisfied with his ruling, they may
question it in a district court. The
Page 329 U. S. 294
interests of the entire industry need not be disturbed in order
to do justice to an individual case. [
Footnote 3]
It is suggested that Congress did not authorize a district court
to enforce an order not "in accordance with law." The short answer
to this rather dialectic point is that whether such an order is or
is not in accordance with law is not a question that brings its own
immediate answer, or even an answer which it is the familiar,
everyday business of courts to find. Congress has provided a
special procedure for ascertaining whether such an order is or is
not in accordance with law. The questions are not, or may not be,
abstract questions of law. Even when they are formulated in
constitutional terms, they are questions of law arising out of, or
entwined with, factors that call for understanding of the milk
industry. And so, Congress has provided that the remedy in the
first instance must be sought from the Secretary of Agriculture. It
is on the basis of his ruling, and of the elucidation which he
would presumably give to his ruling, that resort may be had to the
courts. Congress seems to have emphasized the different functions
in the enforcement of the Act that § 8a and § 8c serve by
explicitly directing that the proceedings for relief instituted by
a handler under § 8c shall not "impede, hinder, or delay"
enforcement proceedings by the United States under § 8a.
Page 329 U. S. 295
We are dealing here solely with the rights of handlers. This is
not
Stark v. Wickard, 321 U. S. 288. In
that case, it was concluded that, since Congress had provided no
administrative remedy for a producer to review the legality of an
order against him, presumably the courts were not closed to him.
But, by § 8c(15), Congress has made precisely such provisions for
handlers. As to them the procedural scheme is complete.
The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act is one of many
enactments by which Congress in regulating economic enterprise has
divided the duty of enforcement between courts and administrative
agencies. But there is the greatest variety in the manner in which
Congress has distributed this responsibility. Those who are
entitled to speak tell us that the development of the natural
sciences has often suffered from premature generalization.
Certainly the recent growth of administrative law counsels against
generalizations regarding what is compendiously called judicial
review of administrative action. And so we deem it desirable, in a
case like this, to hug the shore of the precise problem before us
in relation to the provisions of the particular Act immediately
relevant. One general observation, may, however, be permitted. Both
courts and administrative bodies are law-enforcing agencies,
utilized by Congress as such. In construing the enforcement
provisions of legislation like the Marketing Act, it is important
to remember that courts and administrative agencies are
collaborative "instrumentalities of justice," and not business
rivals.
See United States v. Morgan, 307 U.
S. 183,
307 U. S. 191;
Federal Communications Commission v. Pottsville Broadcasting
Co., 309 U. S. 134,
309 U. S. 141
et seq. And so we are not called upon to decide what
powers inhere in a court of equity, exercising due judicial
discretion, even in a suit such as was here brought by the United
States for the enforcement of an order under § 8a. We say this
because it appears that at a stage in the proceedings
Page 329 U. S. 296
in the district court a motion for a stay, pending disposition
of the petition by the Ruzickas before the Secretary of
Agriculture, was made by the respondents. With the court's leave,
this motion was subsequently withdrawn. The power of the district
court to have acted on it is therefore not before us.
Compare
Scripps Howard Radio v. Federal Communications Comm'n,
316 U. S. 4;
Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U. S. 321.
Judgment reversed.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs in the result.
[
Footnote 1]
"8a(6) The several district courts of the United States are
hereby vested with jurisdiction specifically to enforce, and to
prevent and restrain any person from violating any order,
regulation, or agreement, heretofore or hereafter made or issued
pursuant to this title, in any proceeding now pending or hereafter
brought in said courts."
"8c(15)(A) Any handler subject to an order may file a written
petition with the Secretary of Agriculture, stating that any such
order or any provision of any such order or any obligation imposed
in connection therewith is not in accordance with law and praying
for a modification thereof or to be exempted therefrom. He shall
thereupon be given an opportunity for a hearing upon such petition,
in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of
Agriculture, with the approval of the President. After such
hearing, the Secretary shall make a ruling upon the prayer of such
petition which shall be final, if in accordance with law."
"8c(15)(B) The District Courts of the United States (including
the district court of the United States for the District of
Columbia) in any district in which such handler is an inhabitant,
or has his principal place of business, are hereby vested with
jurisdiction in equity to review such ruling, provided a bill in
equity for that purpose is filed within twenty days from the date
of the entry of such ruling. Service of process in such proceedings
may be had upon the Secretary by delivering to him a copy of the
bill of complaint. If the court determines that such ruling is not
in accordance with law, it shall remand such proceedings to the
Secretary with directions either (1) to make such ruling as the
court shall determine to be in accordance with law, or (2) to take
such further proceedings as, in its opinion, the law requires. The
pendency of proceedings instituted pursuant to this subsection (15)
shall not impede, hinder, or delay the United States or the
Secretary of Agriculture from obtaining relief pursuant to section
8a(6) of this title. Any proceedings brought pursuant to section
8a(6) of this title (except where brought by way of counterclaim in
proceedings instituted pursuant to this subsection (15)) shall
abate whenever a final decree has been rendered in proceedings
between the same parties, and covering the same subject matter,
instituted pursuant to this subsection (15)."
[
Footnote 2]
Section 8a(8) is also invoked by petitioner. But that section
adds to the Government's remedies. It implies no judicial review in
favor of handlers.
[
Footnote 3]
"During the period while any such petition is pending before the
Secretary and until notice of the Secretary's ruling is given to
the petitioner, the penalties imposed by the act for violation of
an order cannot be imposed upon the petitioner if the court finds
that the petition was filed in good faith and not for delay. The
Secretary may, nevertheless, during this period proceed to obtain
an injunction against the petitioner pursuant to section 8a(6) of
the Agricultural Adjustment Act. . . . It is believed that these
provisions establish an equitable and expeditious procedure for
testing the validity of orders, without hampering the Government's
power to enforce compliance with their terms."
S.Rep. No. 1011, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 14.