| Venue: | Dist. Ct. Wash. DC |
| Facts: | Congress passes an act delegating to the president the authority to set controls on prices, rents, etc. |
| Posture: | Not shown. |
| Issue: | Is this an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power? More narrowly: does the legislative description of the task assigned sufficiently mark the field within which the administrator may act, so that it may be know whether he has complied with the legislative will? |
| Holding: | No (to the broad formulation; to the narrow one: yes) |
| Rule: | Congress can't delegate unlimited authority to the Executive. |
| Reasoning: | There are limits here: "broad fairness" and "gross inequity." There
is also a time limit.
Congress is free to delegate, as long as it exercises the essentials of the legislative function: determining the basic policy, and formulating a rule of conduct. The purpose is to have some control over what takes place, and some accountability for the policy making. We have all of that here. |
| Dicta: | |