Although the speculations of some publicists and some judicial dicta[61] support the idea of an inherent power of the federal courts sitting in equity to issue injunctions independently of statutory limitations, neither the course taken by Congress nor the specific rulings of the Supreme Court support any such principle. Congress has repeatedly exercised its power to limit the use of the injunction in the federal courts. The first limitation on the equity jurisdiction of the federal courts is to be found in section 16 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which provided that no equity suit should be maintained where there was a full and adequate remedy at law. Although this provision did no more than declare a pre-existing rule long applied in chancery courts,[62] it did assert the power of Congress to regulate the equity powers of the federal courts. The act of March 2, 1793,[63] prohibited the issuance of any injunction by any court of the United States to stay proceedings in State courts except where such injunctions may be authorized by any law relating to bankruptcy proceedings. In subsequent statutes Congress has prohibited the issuance of injunctions in the federal courts to restrain the collection of taxes;[64] provided for a three-judge court, as a prerequisite to the issuance of injunctions to restrain the enforcement of State statutes for unconstitutionality,[65] for enjoining federal statutes for unconstitutionality,[66] and for enjoining orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission;[67] limited the power to issue injunctions restraining rate orders of State public utility commissions,[68] and the use of injunctions in labor disputes;[69] and placed a very rigid restriction of the power to enjoin orders of the administrator under the Emergency Price Control Act.[70]
All of these restrictions have been sustained by the Supreme Court as constitutional and applied with varying degrees of thoroughness. The Court has made exceptions to the application of the prohibition against the stay of proceedings in State courts,[71] but has on the whole adhered to the statute. The exceptions raise no constitutional issues, and the later tendency is to contract the scope of the exceptions.[72]
In Duplex Printing Company v. Deering,[73] the Supreme Court placed a narrow construction upon the labor provisions of the Clayton Act and thereby contributed in part to the more extensive restriction by Congress of the use of injunctions in labor disputes in the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 which has not only been declared constitutional,[74] but has been applied liberally,[75] and in such a manner as to repudiate the notion of an inherent power to issue injunctions contrary to statutory provisions.
Injunctions Under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942
Lockerty v. Phillips[76] justifies the same conclusion. Here the validity of the special appeals procedure of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 was sustained. This act provided for a special Emergency Court of Appeals which, subject to review by the Supreme Court, was given exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of regulations, orders, and price schedules issued by the Office of Price Administration. The Emergency Court and the Emergency Court alone was permitted to enjoin regulations or orders of OPA, and even it could enjoin such orders only after finding that the order was not in accordance with law, or was arbitrary or capricious. The Emergency Court was expressly denied power to issue temporary restraining orders or interlocutory decrees; and in addition the effectiveness of any permanent injunction it might issue was to be postponed for thirty days. If review was sought in the Supreme Court by certiorari, effectiveness was to be postponed until final disposition. A unanimous court speaking through Chief Justice Stone declared that there "is nothing in the Constitution which requires Congress to confer equity jurisdiction on any particular inferior federal court." All federal courts, other than the Supreme Court, it was asserted, derive their jurisdiction solely from the exercise of the authority to ordain and establish inferior courts conferred on Congress by article III, § 1, of the Constitution. This power, which Congress is left free to exercise or not, was held to include the power "'of investing them with jurisdiction either limited, concurrent, or exclusive, and of withholding jurisdiction from them in the exact degrees and character which to Congress may seem proper for the public good.'"[77] Although the Court avoided passing upon the constitutionality of the prohibition against interlocutory decrees, the language of the Court was otherwise broad enough to support it, as was the language of Yakus v. United States[78] which sustained a different phase of the special procedure for appeals under the Emergency Price Control Act.
THE RULE-MAKING POWER AND POWERS OVER PROCESS
Among the incidental powers of courts is that of making all necessary rules governing their process and practice and for the orderly conduct of their business.[79] However, this power too is derived from the statutes and cannot go beyond them. The landmark case is Wayman v. Southard[80] which sustained the validity of the process acts of 1789 and 1792 as a valid exercise of authority under the necessary and proper clause. Although Chief Justice Marshall regarded the rule-making power as essentially legislative in nature, he ruled that Congress could delegate to the courts the power to vary minor regulations in the outlines marked out by the statute. Fifty-seven years later in Fink v. O'Neil,[81] in which the United States sought to enforce by summary process the payment of a debt, the Supreme Court ruled that under the process acts the law of Wisconsin was the law of the United States and hence the Government was required to bring a suit, obtain a judgment, and cause execution to issue. Justice Matthews for a unanimous Court declared that the courts have "no inherent authority to take any one of these steps, except as it may have been conferred by the legislative department; for they can exercise no jurisdiction, except as the law confers and limits it."
Limits to the Power
The principal function of court rules is that of regulating the practice of courts as regards forms, the operation and effect of process, and the mode and time of proceedings. However, rules are sometimes employed to state in convenient form principles of substantive law previously established by statutes or decisions. But no such rule "can enlarge or restrict jurisdiction. Nor can a rule abrogate or modify the substantive law." This rule is applicable equally to courts of law, equity, and admiralty, to rules prescribed by the Supreme Court for the guidance of lower courts, and to rules "which lower courts make for their own guidance under authority conferred."[82] As incident to the judicial power, courts of the United States possess inherent authority to supervise the conduct of their officers, parties, witnesses, counsel, and jurors by self-preserving rules for the protection of the rights of litigants and the orderly administration of justice.[83]