In approving the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, the Supreme Court upheld congressional power to limit judicial review in lower federal courts and to authorize an administrative agency to use wide latitude in fixing maximum prices and rents.
Soon after the United States entered World War II in 1941, Congress established the Office of Price Administration to set “fair and equitable” price controls for limiting inflation. Although violators of the regulations were tried in federal district courts, the statute specified that these courts could not rule on the constitutionality of the controls. Decisions of the courts were then reviewed by a special tribunal before going to the Supreme Court. Essentially the statute was designed to defer judicial review until late in the war effort. When Albert Yakus, a wholesaler of meats, was criminally punished under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942
Speaking for a 6-3 majority, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone
Democracy
Judicial review
McCardle, Ex parte
Mistretta v. United States
Separation of powers