Felix Frankfurter

“ From such light as Congress gave us beyond its words, it would appear that in giving exemption to an 'area of production', without differentiating as between establishments within such area, Congress might well have considered that a large plant within an area should not be given an advantage over small plants in competing for labor within the same locality, while at the same time it gave the Administrator ample power, in defining the area, to take due account of the appropriate economic factors in drawing the geographic lines. ”

“ The idea which is now sought to be read into the grant by Congress to the Administrator to define 'the area of production' beyond the plain geographic implications of that phrase is not so complicated nor is English speech so poor that words were not easily available to express the idea or at least to suggest it. After all, legislation when not expressed in technical terms is addressed to the common run of men and is therefore to be understood according to the sense of the thing, as the ordinary man has a right to rely on ordinary words addressed to him. ”

“ The two opposing alternatives do violence to the law as Congress wrote it. To hold that all individuals 'engaged in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in making cheese or butter or other dairy products' are exempt from the operation of the Act is obviously to fly in the face of Congressional purpose. The Act exempts some but not all of the employees engaged in these industries, and it is not for us now to say that all are exempt. ”

“ The interplay between law and equity in the evolution of more just results than the hardened common law afforded, has properly been drawn upon in working out accommodating relationships between the judiciary and administrative agencies. ”

“ While the judicial function in construing legislation is not a mechanical process from which judgment is excluded, it is nevertheless very different from the legislative function. Construction is not legislation and must avoid 'that retrospective expansion of meaning which properly deserves the stigma of judicial legislation.' Kirschbaum Co. ”

“ Court and agency are the means adopted to attain the prescribed end, and so far as their duties are defined by the words of the statute, those words should be construed so as to attain the end through co-ordinated action. Neither body should repeat in this day the mistake made by the courts of law when equity was struggling for recognition as an ameliorating system of justice; neither can rightly be regarded by the other as an alien intruder, to be tolerated if must be, but never to be encouraged or aided by the other in the attainment of the common aim.' 307 U.S. at page 191, 59 S.Ct. ”

“ The district court would not be telling the Administrator how to exercise his discretion but would merely require him to exercise it. It is a remedy against inaction.
Holly Hill also contended that if it is not entirely exempt from paying the overtime rates here awarded, it is entitled to the advantage of the partial seasonal exemptions afforded by §§ 7 (b) (3) and 7 (c) . The district court ruled adversely to Holly Hill on these claims, but the Circuit Court of Appeals did not reach them. It will be time enough to reach them if they survive the disposition now made of this case. ”

“ Legislation introducing a new system is at best empirical, and not infrequently administration reveals gaps or inadequacies of one sort or another that may call for amendatory legislation. But it is no warrant for extending a statute that experience may disclose that it should have been made more comprehensive. ”

“ To blur the distinctive functions of the legislative and judicial processes is not conducive to responsible legislation.
We agree therefore with the Circuit Court of Appeals in holding invalid the limitations as to the number of employees within a defined area. But we cannot follow that Court in deleting this part of the administrative regulation and, by applying what remains of the definition, exempting Holly Hill's employees from the requirements of the Act. ”

“ The creative analogies of the law were drawn upon by which great equity judges, exercising imaginative resourcefulness, have always escaped the imprisonment of reason and fairness within mechanical concepts of the common law. ”

“ Neither law nor logic dictates an 'either-or' conclusion-that is, a conclusion that the employment in these industries is entirely exempt because the Administrator misconceived the bounds of his regulatory powers although plainly enough he meant to exercise them so as not to withdraw all these employments from the requirements of the Act, or that employment in these industries is subject to the Act because no exception excludes it. ”