United States v. Storer Broadcasting Company/Dissent Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

351 U.S. 192

United States  v.  Storer Broadcasting Company

 Argued: Feb. 28, 29, 1956. --- Decided: May 21, 1956

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

While I agree that the amendatory Rules promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission relating to Multiple Ownership of standard, FM and television stations constitute a reviewable 'order' within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 1034, 5 U.S.C.A. § 1034, my Brother HARLAN'S reasoning convinces me that the respondent was not on the record before us a 'party aggrieved' under that section. Therefore the court below should not have entertained the petition to review the Commission's order.

Procedural and jurisdictional limitations on judicial action by the federal courts are not playthings of lawyers nor obstructions on the road of justice. Whether formulated by the Constitution, congressional enactments or settled judicial precedents, they are means designed to keep the courts within appropriate limits and to enforce rights according to general standards and not have them depend on the impact of the individual case. To be sure, dealing as we are with general standards, differences of views regarding their scope and applicability are bound to arise from time to time. Who is a 'party aggrieved' or a 'party in interest' turns on the context, often confused and dubious, of a particular set of circumstances and therefore raises issues on which judges not unnaturally divide, as they do on other unmathematical problems of the law. See Singer & Sons v. Union Pacific R. Co., 311 U.S. 295, 61 S.Ct. 254, 85 L.Ed. 198.

To the laity such matters may seem technicalities in a derogatory sense of the term. But this is only one phase of an attitude of mind that thinks ill of law which does not accord with private wishes. When informed by a legal adviser that to carry out his desires would encounter 'technical legal difficulties,' a strenuous President of the United States impatiently observed that 'all law is technicality.' But even professionally competent officials are at times impatient with decisions that fail to adjudicate substantive issues on which light is sought. It seems to me important, therefore, not to minimize the function of jurisdictional limitations upon adjudication by expressing views on the merits. There are, of course, exceptional situations where it is proper for a dissenter to go to the merits when a majority of theCourt removes from the case threshold objections of procedure and jurisdiction. See e.g., Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 341, 56 S.Ct. 466, 480, 80 L.Ed. 688. This is not such a case.

Notes