Background
Massachusetts meat dealer Albert Yakus, criminally prosecuted for violating the wholesale beef price ceiling, had failed to launch a procedurally difficult pre-enforcement attack on the OPA regulations constitutionality and was barred from collateral challenges during his trial. The Court affirmed his conviction, holding that “so long as there is an opportunity … for judicial review which satisfies the demands of due process,” the bifurcated enforcement and constitutional proceedings were permissible (p. 444). In dissent, Wiley Rutledge, with Frank Murphy, asserted that once Congress conferred jurisdiction, it could not compel the district judges to ignore Marbury v. Madison or violate the Constitution by enforcing the criminal sanctions, a statute, and regulations devoid of due process.
A Yakus‐like incontestability provision reached the Court in Adamo Wrecking Co. v. United States (1978). Statutory construction facilitated evasion of the constitutional issues, but Lewis Powell, concurring, questioned the validity of Yakus except as an exercise of war powers. Nevertheless, modern environmental legislation contains judicial review schemes similar to that upheld in Yakus.
Justice Roberts, who also dissented, embraced the non-delegation doctrine argument and held that the OPA had exercised unconstitutionally delegated congressional powers. The New Deal Court majority reacted by stipulating that statutory standards need only be sufficiently defined to permit ascertainment of the administrative agency's obedience to the congressional will.
Read more about this topic: Yakus V. United States
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