These cases involve the constitutionality of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 as applied in an order of the Secretary of Agriculture regulating the handling of milk in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts, Marketing Area.
The petitioners, H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc., and Noble's Milk Company of No. 772 and Whiting Milk Company of No. 809, original defendants below, are engaged in handling milk in the marketing area in the current of interstate commerce or in a manner which burdens that commerce. Producers intervened as defendants, petitioner E. Frank Branon on the side of H. P. Hood & Sons and Chester D. Noyes beside the Whiting Company. The respondents, plaintiffs below, are the United States of America and the Secretary of Agriculture. The parties will be referred to as defendants and plaintiffs, respectively.
It is unnecessary to detail the facts of each case. They are two of many instituted by the plaintiffs to secure obedience to the Order. On October 1, 1937, bills of complaint were filed in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 21 F.Supp. 321, for the purpose of enjoining Hood & Sons, Noble's Milk Company and Whiting Milk Company from violating the terms of Order No. 4 as amended. A temporary mandatory injunction issued on November 30, 1937. A supersedeas followed soon after, conditioned upon payment by the three handlers into the registry of the court of the amounts billed to them by the Market Administrator for equalization charges and marketing services under the Order. Answers to the bills asserted constitutional infirmities in the Act and fatal weaknesses in the Order as amended. A Special Master was charged with the duty of finding the facts in these and similar suits. His report was filed on January 27, 1939. Shortly thereafter, the District Court confirmed the report, sustained both the Act and the Order, and entered a decree for the plaintiffs. 26 F.Supp. 672. The defendants took an appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals and, after the cases were docketed, filed petitions for writs of certiorari. The writs were granted because important questions of Federal law undecided by this Court were involved and pending appeals in other cases with similar issues were ready for argument. 306 U.S. 627, 59 S.Ct. 647, 83 L.Ed. --; 306 U.S. 629, 59 S.Ct. 791, 83 L.Ed. --.
The pertinent provisions of the Marketing Act have been summarized in United States v. Rock Royal Co-operative, 307 U.S. 533, 59 S.Ct. 993, 83 L.Ed. --, decided today. They will not be repeated here.
Order No. 4, as amended, which the plaintiffs seek to enforce, is the culmination of an extended effort by the Secretary to work out a plan to regulate the marketing of milk in the Boston area. Order No. 4 was originally issued on February 7, 1936, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act. All steps leading to its issuance were taken. On November 30, 1935, the Secretary gave notice of a public hearing on a proposed marketing agreement and order. Hearings were held. A marketing agreement was tentatively approved which handlers failed to accept. On January 25, 1936, the Secretary found and proclaimed that the purchasing power of milk could not be satisfactorily determined for the pre-war base period from available statistics in the Department of Agriculture, but could for the post-war period. August, 1919, to July, 1929, was declared the base period for the purpose of issuing an order. On February 5, 1936, the Secretary made a determination, as required by Section 8c(9), as to the necessity for issuing an order. The President approved the determination, and the Order issued. It remained in effect until August 1, 1936, shortly after the District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that the Act under which the Order was issued was unconstitutional. On that day the Secretary suspended the Order for an indefinite time.