United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc./Concurrence-dissent Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

334 U.S. 131

United States  v.  Paramount Pictures, Inc.

 Argued: Feb. 9, 10, 11, 1948. --- Decided: May 3, 1948

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting in part.

'The framing of decrees should take place in the District rather than in Appellate Courts. They are invested with large discretion to model their judgments to fit the exigencies of the particular case.' On this guiding consideration, the Court earlier this Term sustained a Sherman Law decree, which was not the outcome of a long trial involving complicated and contested facts and their significance, but the formulation of a summary judgment on the bare bones of pleadings. International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392, 400, 401, 68 S.Ct. 12, 17, 18. The record in this case bespeaks more compelln g respect for the decree fashioned by the District Court of three judges to put an end to violations of the Sherman Law and to prevent the recurrence, than that which led this Court not to find abuse of discretion in the decree by a single district judge in the International Salt case.

This Court has both the authority and duty to consider whether a decree is well calculated to undo, as far as is possible, the result of transactions forbidden by the Sherman Law and to guard against their repetition. But it is not the function of this Court, and it would ill discharge it, to displace the district courts and write decrees de novo. We are, after all, an appellate tribunal even in Sherman Law cases. It could not be fairly claimed that this Court possesses greater experience, understanding and prophetic insight in relation to the movie industry, and is therefore better equipped to formulate a decree for the movie industry than was the District Court in this case, presided over as it was by one of the wisest of judges.

The terms of the decree in this litigation amount, in effect, to the formulation of a regime for the future conduct of the movie industry. The terms of such a regime, within the scope of judicial oversight, are not to be derived from precedents in the law reports, nor, for that matter, from any other available repository of knowledge. Inescapably the terms must be derived from an assessment of conflicting interests, not quantitatively measurable, and a prophecy regarding the workings of untried remedies for dealing with disclosed evils so as to advance most the comprehensive public interest.

The crucial legal question before us is not whether we would have drawn the decree as the District Court drew it, but whether, on the basis of what came before the District Court, we can say that in fashioning remedies it did not fairly respond to disclosed violations and therefore abused a discretion, the fair exercise of which we should respect and not treat as an abuse. Discretion means a choice of available remedies. As bearing upon this question, it is most relevant to consider whether the District Court showed a sympathetic or mere niggling awareness of the proper scope of the Sherman Law and the range of its condemnation. Adequate remedies are not likely to be fashioned by those who are not hostile to evils to be remedied. The District Court's opinion manifests a stout purpose on the part of that court to enforce its thoroughgoing uncerstanding of the requirements of the Sherman Law as elucidated by this Court. And so we have before us the decree of a district court thoroughly aware of the demands of the Sherman Law and manifestly determined to enforce it in all its rigors.

How did the District Court go about working out the terms of the decree some of which this Court now displaces? The case was before the lower court from October 8, 1945, to January 22, 1947. A vast body of the evidence which had to be considered below, and must be considered here in overturning the lower court's decree, consisted of documents. A mere enumeration of these documents, not printed in the record before us, required a pamphlet of 42 pages. It took 460 pages for a selection of exhibits deemed appropriate for printing by the Government. The printed record in this Court consists of 3,841 pages. It is on the basis of this vast mass of evidence that the District Court, on June 11, 1946, filed its careful opinion, approved here, as to the substantive issues. Thereafter, it heard argument for three days as to the terms of the judgment. The parties then submitted their proposals for findings of fact and conclusions of law by the District Court. After a long trial, an elaborate opinion on the merits, full discussion as to the terms of the decree, more than two months for the gestation of the decree, the terms were finally promulgated.

I cannot bring myself to conclude that the product of such a painstaking process of adjudication as to a decree appropriate fors uch a complicated situation as this record discloses was an abuse of discretion, arrived at as it was after due absorption of all the light that could be shed upon remedies appropriate for the future. After all, as to such remedies there is no test, ultimately, except the wisdom of men judged by events.

Accordingly, I would affirm the decree except as to one paticular, that regarding an arbitration system for controversies that may arise under the decree. This raises a pure question of law and not a judgment based upon facts and their significance, as are those features of the decree which the Court sets aside. The District Court indicated that 'in view of its demonstrated usefulness' such an arbitration system was desirable to aid in the enforcement of the decree. The District Court, however, deemed itself powerless to continue an arbitration system without the consent of the parties. I do not find such want of power in the Distirct Court to select this means of enforcing the decree most effectively, with the least friction and by the most fruitful methods. A decree as detailed and as complicated as is necessary to fit a situation like the one before us is bound, even under the best of circumstances, to raise controversies involving conflicting claims as to facts and their meaning. A court could certainly appoint a master to deal with questions arising under the decree. I do not appreciate why a proved system of arbitration, appropriate as experience has found it to be appropriate for adjudicating numberless questions that arise under such a decree, is not to be treated in effect as a standing master for purposes of this decree. See Ex parte Peterson, 253 U.S. 300, 40 S.Ct. 543, 64 L.Ed. 919. I would therefore leave it to the discretion of the District Court to determine whether such a system is not available as an instrument of auxiliary enforcement. With this exception I would affirm the decree of the District Court.

Notes