Bowles

This case was tried in January, 1944. At that time the Office of Price Administration was contending for a construction of the Emergency Price Control Act that Federal courts on the equity side must issue injunctions when violations of the Act were shown, regardless of fault. This construction of the Act was rejected in Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U.S. 321 , 64 S.Ct. 587 , 88 L.Ed. 754 (decided February 28, 1944). The Price Administrator was also pressing for literal application of Sec. 204(d) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 924(d) providing that the validity of an order or regulation by the Administrator in the pricing field might not be considered in any court other than the Emergency Court of Appeals and on appeal to the Supreme Court. This construction of the Act has been upheld. Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414 , 64 S.Ct. 660 , 88 L.Ed. 834 ; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 , 64 S.Ct. 641 , 88 L.Ed. 892 .

In this early setting Judge Baldwin, since deceased, declined to either suspend appellee’s license or to put appellee under an injunction for compliance, despite the fact *321 that appellee, a department store having twenty employees, did not (1) prepare a base period…