Case Brief

CASE BRIEF YOUNGSTOWN SHEET & TUBE CO. V. SAWYER 343 U. S. 579 (1952) MR. jUSTICE BLACK FACTS Steel management workers unions had a dispute over wages and other conditions. As a result., they could not reach a collective bargaining agreement. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and Federal Wage Stabilization Board attempted unsuccessfully to settle the dispute. The workers' union gave notice of intent to strike. The indispensability of steal as a component of substantially all weapons and other war materials led the President to believe that the work stoppage would immediately jeopardize our national defense and that governmental seizure of the steel mills was necessary in order to assure the continued availability of steel. Reciting these consideration for his action, the President, a few hours before the strike was to begin, issued executive order 10340. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of most of the steel mills and keep them running. The Secretary immediately issued his own orders, calling upon the Presidents of the various seized companies to serve as operating managers for the United States . . . . The next morning, the President sent a message to Congress reporting his action . . . . Congress never took action . . . . The companies complied, but filed suit in federal court seeking an injunction prohibiting the order from being enforced . . . . The companies prevailed in the district court. ISSUE Did President Truman act within his constitutional power when he issued an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate most of the nation's steel mills? JUDGMENT (HOLDING) . . . . Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress . . . . 1. When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate . . . . If his act is held unconstitutional under the federal government as an undivided whole, it lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it. 2. When the President acts in the absence of either a Congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers. But there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority of, in which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, Congressional inertia, indifference or acquiescence may sometimes, at least in practical matters, enable, if not invite, presidential matters. 3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional power minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. . . . RATIONALE The broad executive power granted by Article II to an officer on duty 365 days a year cannot, it is said, be invoked to avert disaster. Instead, the President must confine himself to sending a message to Congress recommending action. Under this messenger-boy concept of the office, the President cannot even act to preserve legislature programs from destruction so that Congress will have something left to act upon. . . . CONCURRING OPINIONS MR. JUSTICE BURTON . . . . The present situation is not comparable to that of an imminent invasion or threatened attack. . . . We do not face the issue of what might be the President's constitutional power to meet such catastrophic situations nor is it claimed that the current seizure is in nature of a military command addressed by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to a mobilized nation waging, or imminently threatened with, total war. MR. JUSTICE CLARK The Constitution does grant to the President extensive authority in times of grace and imperative national emergency. In fact, to my thinking, such a grant may well be necessary to the very existence of the Constitution itself. As Lincoln aptly said, "Is it possible to lose a nation and yet preserve the Constitution?" . . . . DISSENTING OPINION MR. CHIEF JUSTICE VINSON WITH WHOM MR. JUSTICE REED AND MR. JUSTICE MINTON JOIN The President of the United States directed the Secretary of Commerce to take temporary possession of the nation's steel mills during an existing emergency because a work stoppage would immediately jeopardize and imperil our national defense and the defense of those joined with us in resisting aggression, and would aid to the continuining danger of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen engaged in combat in the field." . . . . MY ASSESSMENT Had the workers' union strike caused a work stoppage that would have jeopardized our national defense, it seems the President would have been within his constitutional powers to seize the nation's steel mills.