The Emergency Court of Appeals was a temporary
federal court established by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, whose purpose was to review wage- and
price-control matters. The Court, established by the
Emergency Price Control Act of 1942
The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 is a United States statute imposing an economic intervention as restrictive measures to control inflationary spiraling and pricing elasticity of goods and services while providing economic efficiency to ...
, had "exclusive jurisdiction to set aside such regulation, order, or price schedule, in whole or in part, to dismiss the
complaint
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...
, or to
remand the proceeding". This exclusive grant of jurisdiction was upheld by the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in ''
Lockerty v. Philips'' (1943). From March 2, 1942 to May 27, 1943, the chief judge of the Emergency Court of Appeals was
Frederick M. Vinson, who was also serving as a judge of the
District of Columbia Circuit, and who would eventually serve as
Chief Justice of the United States.
The Court consisted of three or more judges designated by the
Chief Justice from the judges of the
United States district courts
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
and
Courts of Appeals. The Court was vested with jurisdiction and powers of a district court to hear
appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
s filed within thirty days against denials of protests by the
Price Administrator and with exclusive jurisdiction to set aside
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. For ...
s, orders, or price schedules, in whole or in part, or to remand the proceeding, but the court was tightly constrained in its treatment of regulations. Decisions of the Court could be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Some functions of this court were later revived in the
Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals
The Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals was established by the United States Congress in December 1971 with exclusive jurisdiction to hear appeals from the decisions of the U.S. district courts in cases arising under the wage and price control pro ...
in the 1970s, the jurisdiction of which was ultimately transferred to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals that has special appellate jurisdiction over certain types of specialized cases in the Federal judiciary of ...
.
List of judges
The following judges were members of the Emergency Court of Appeals:
References
{{Authority control
Defunct United States courts
United States courts of appeals
1942 establishments in the United States
1961 disestablishments in the United States
Courts and tribunals established in 1942
Courts and tribunals disestablished in 1961