343 U.S. 579 (1952)
In the latter part of 1951, a dispute arose between steel companies including Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. and their employees represented by the United Steelworkers of America, C.I.O., over terms and conditions to be included in new collective bargaining agreements.1 Long-continued conferences failed to resolve the dispute. On December 18, 1951, the union gave notice of an intention to strike when the existing agreements expired on December 31.2 The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service intervened without success. On December 22, 1951, President Truman referred the dispute to the Federal Wage Stabilization Board to investigate and make recommendations for fair and equitable terms of settlement.3
The Board's report resulted in no settlement. On April 4, 1952, the union gave notice of a nationwide strike to begin at 12:01 a.m. on April 9.4 The President believed that the proposed work stoppage would immediately jeopardize national defense because steel is an indispensable component of substantially all weapons and other war materials.5 A few hours before the strike was to begin, on April 8, 1952, the President issued Executive Order 10340 directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of most of the steel mills and keep them running.6 The Secretary immediately issued possessory orders calling upon the presidents of the seized companies to serve as operating managers for the United States.7
Obeying the Secretary's orders under protest, the companies brought proceedings against him in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.8 Their complaints charged that the seizure was not authorized by an act of Congress or by any constitutional provision and asked the court to declare the orders invalid and to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions.9 The Government opposed the motion for a preliminary injunction, asserting that the President had inherent power supported by the Constitution, historical precedent, and court decisions.10 On April 30, 1952, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction restraining the Secretary from continuing the seizure and possession of the plants.11
On the same day the Court of Appeals stayed the District Court's injunction.12 Deeming it best that the issues be promptly decided by the Supreme Court, the Court granted certiorari on May 3, 1952, and set the cause for argument on May 12.13
Whether the constitutional validity of the President's order directing seizure of the steel mills should be determined at the preliminary injunction stage?14
A court should decide the constitutional validity of executive action at the preliminary injunction stage when the record shows that seizure inflicts irreparable damages difficult to measure.15 Available legal remedies such as Court of Claims recovery are doubtful.16 This makes the question ripe for determination without awaiting further proceedings.17
Yes. The District Court saw no reason for delaying decision of the constitutional validity of the orders.18 Seizure and governmental operation of these going businesses were bound to result in many present and future damages of such nature as to be difficult, if not incapable, of measurement.19 Prior cases cast doubt on the right to recover in the Court of Claims for properties unlawfully taken.20
The Supreme Court agreed with the District Court.21 There is no reason why that question was not ripe for determination on the record presented.22 The companies faced immediate and ongoing harm from governmental operation that could not be adequately compensated later.23 This rendered further delay inappropriate.24
The constitutional validity of the seizure order should be determined at the preliminary injunction stage.25
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Frankfurter emphasized that the extraordinary nature of injunctive relief and the public interest in resolving the separation of powers question required reaching the merits rather than avoiding the constitutional issue.26 He noted that the damage from seizure could not be translated into dollars and cents and that Congress had already struck the balance against seizure in the Taft-Hartley Act, making equitable discretion to avoid the issue inappropriate.27 He concluded that he could not escape consideration of the legality of the Executive Order.28
Justice Douglas joined the majority in reaching the constitutional question, stressing that the emergency did not create power and that the allocation of powers under the Constitution required immediate resolution to prevent expansion of executive authority.29 He viewed the seizure as a legislative act of condemnation that only Congress could authorize, making the ripeness determination essential to preserving the separation of powers.30 He explained that the seizure constituted a taking requiring just compensation under the Fifth Amendment, and only Congress possesses the power to authorize such a condemnation and appropriate funds for it.31
He warned that sanctioning the seizure would rewrite Article II to give the President legislative authority, undermining the deliberate choice of separated powers to prevent autocracy.32
Justice Jackson agreed that the case was ripe, classifying the seizure as action in contravention of congressional will and thus at the lowest ebb of presidential power, which demanded prompt judicial scrutiny to maintain constitutional equilibrium.33 He placed the seizure in the third category of presidential power where the President acts incompatibly with the expressed or implied will of Congress, reducing his authority to its lowest ebb.34 He found no remainder of executive power sufficient to sustain the seizure after subtracting congressional powers over property and labor disputes, and he rejected claims of inherent or emergency powers as inconsistent with the constitutional design.35
His analysis demanded immediate review to preserve the equilibrium established by the constitutional system.36
Justice Burton concurred that the validity of the order was ripe for decision because Congress had prescribed specific procedures exclusive of seizure.37 The President's choice of another route without statutory authority for seizure made judicial resolution necessary to uphold the separation of powers.38 He noted that the controlling fact was that Congress had prescribed for the President specific procedures, exclusive of seizure, for his use in meeting the present type of emergency.39
Upon the failure of those procedures, the President issued an executive order to seize the steel properties in the face of the reserved right of Congress to adopt or reject that course as a matter of legislative policy.40 This invasion of congressional jurisdiction required prompt judicial intervention.41
Justice Clark joined in reaching the merits, noting that where Congress has laid down specific procedures the President must follow them, and the failure to do so in this emergency required immediate judicial determination of the constitutional limits.42 He concluded that the Constitution grants the President extensive authority in grave emergencies but that where Congress has prescribed specific procedures the President must follow them.43 His analysis required immediate resolution to enforce the statutory limits on executive action in crisis.44
Joined by Justices Reed And Minton
Chief Justice Vinson, in dissent, would have reversed the injunction and thus implicitly viewed the constitutional question as properly before the Court but reached a different result on the merits, arguing that the President's duty to execute the laws and protect national defense justified the action without awaiting further proceedings.45 He maintained that the President was faithfully executing multiple legislative programs for defense production and price stabilization by acting to prevent their destruction through a steel shutdown.46 Executive inaction in such a situation would be foreign to the concept of energy and initiative in the Executive as created by the Founding Fathers.47
Whether the President had constitutional power to issue an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate most of the Nation's steel mills?48
The President's power to issue such an order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.49 No statute expressly or impliedly authorizes the seizure to prevent a labor dispute interruption.50 The Constitution does not grant the President inherent power to seize private property for that purpose when Congress has withheld such authority.51
No. There is no statute that expressly authorizes the President to take possession of property as he did here.52 The Government admits that the conditions in the two statutes authorizing property taking were not met.53 The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President's military power as Commander in Chief.54 Keeping labor disputes from stopping production is a job for the Nation's lawmakers, not its military authorities.55
Nor can it be sustained under the executive power to see that the laws are faithfully executed.56 The President's order directs that a presidential policy be executed in a manner prescribed by the President rather than a congressional policy in a manner prescribed by Congress.57 The Founders entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times.58
The President did not have constitutional power to issue the seizure order.59
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Frankfurter stressed that Congress had repeatedly considered and rejected general seizure power, most recently in the Taft-Hartley Act, and that the President's action disregarded this expressed will.60 He viewed the seizure as lawmaking that the Constitution assigns exclusively to Congress, even in emergency, and rejected any gloss from past practice because no comparable unbroken executive seizure of private property in peacetime had been acquiesced in by Congress.61 He detailed how Congress in 1947 had canvassed and rejected a proposal for presidential seizure power to avert shutdowns endangering national health or safety.62
The legislative history showed a conscious choice to withhold seizure authority and require ad hoc legislation instead.63 Past executive seizures lacked the unbroken acquiescence needed to create a gloss on executive power.64
Justice Douglas explained that the seizure constituted a taking requiring just compensation under the Fifth Amendment, and only Congress possesses the power to authorize such a condemnation and appropriate funds for it.65 He warned that sanctioning the seizure would rewrite Article II to give the President legislative authority, undermining the deliberate choice of separated powers to prevent autocracy. He noted that the method by which industrial peace is achieved is of vital importance, and determining sanctions is an exercise of legislative power placed in Congress by Article I.66
The President has no power to raise revenues, which is essential to paying just compensation, so only Congress can authorize a seizure.67 Sanctioning this action would expand Article II and alter the constitutional pattern of separated powers.68
Justice Jackson placed the seizure in the third category of presidential power, where the President acts incompatibly with the expressed or implied will of Congress, reducing his authority to its lowest ebb.69 He found no remainder of executive power sufficient to sustain the seizure after subtracting congressional powers over property and labor disputes, and he rejected claims of inherent or emergency powers as inconsistent with the constitutional design. He noted that when the President takes measures incompatible with the will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb and can be sustained only by disabling Congress from acting.70
The Solicitor General's reliance on nebulous inherent powers was rejected because necessity knows no law and such claims would submit the President to no legal restraint.71 The Constitution diffuses power to secure liberty, and this seizure threatened that equilibrium.72
Justice Burton agreed that Congress had delegated power to authorize action in national emergency but had provided specific procedures excluding seizure, and the President's failure to follow those procedures while choosing an unauthorized route invaded the jurisdiction of Congress in violation of separation of powers.73 He noted that the validity of the order turned upon its relation to the constitutional division of governmental power between Congress and the President.74 Congress had outlined procedures in the Taft-Hartley Act and the Defense Production Act, neither of which authorized seizure.75
The President chose a different course without statutory authority, invading congressional jurisdiction.76 This violated the essence of the principle of the separation of governmental powers.77
Justice Clark concluded that the Constitution grants the President extensive authority in grave emergencies but that where Congress has prescribed specific procedures the President must follow them.78 Because Congress had provided three statutory routes and the President followed none that authorized this seizure, the action exceeded constitutional bounds.79 He relied on Chief Justice Marshall's language in Little v. Barreme that when Congress prescribes the manner of execution, that manner must be followed.80
The three available statutes were the Defense Production Act, Taft-Hartley Act, and Selective Service Act of 1948.81 The President invoked only the first and followed none that authorized seizure.82 This required adherence to statutory limits even in emergency.83
Joined by Justices Reed And Minton
Chief Justice Vinson dissented, arguing that the President was faithfully executing multiple legislative programs for defense production and price stabilization by acting to prevent their destruction through a steel shutdown.84 He viewed the action as within the aggregate of executive powers as Commander in Chief and under the Take Care Clause, supported by historical precedent of presidential initiative in emergencies, and necessary to preserve the Nation until Congress could act.85 He detailed the extensive legislative programs Congress had enacted for defense and economic stabilization, all dependent on continued steel production.86
The President acted to execute both the military procurement and anti-inflation programs rather than allow either to fail.87 Historical examples from Washington to Roosevelt showed presidential initiative in emergencies to enforce legislative programs.88 Executive inaction would be foreign to the energy and initiative contemplated by the Framers.89