United States v. United States District Court for Southern District of New York/Concurrence Frankfurter

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, concurring.

When this case originally came here by appeal, an extraordinarily rare, if not unique, situation in the history of the Court precluded its consideration for want of a qualified quorum. The impasse was met by the special jurisdictional Act of June 9, 1944, 58 Stat. 272, 15 U.S.C. § 29, 15 U.S.C.A. § 29. For reasons that seem to me too obvious to need spelling out, that Act should be interpreted as transferring to the Circuit Court of Appeals the case and not merely a stage in its disposition if the Congressional language reasonably permits the Act to be so read. Since it can be so read I do so read it and conclude that the whole appellate process in this case was vested in the Circuit Court of Appeals, regardless of the piecemeal exercise of that process. I find such a construction of the Act of June 9, 1944, freer from difficulties than some of the technical questions pertaining to mandamus that arise on the view taken by the Court.