source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Rehnquist Justice Stevens,

license: Public Domain

text:
    GRIFFIN v. OCEANIC CONTRACTORS, INC.
    No. 81-614.
    Argued April 26, 1982
    Decided June 30, 1982

      Rehnquist, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and Brennan, White, Marshall, Powell, and O’Connor, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun, J., joined, post, p. 577.

      Robert A. Chaffin argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.

      Theodore Goiter argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
   Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the application of 46 U. S. C. §596, which requires certain masters and vessel owners to pay seamen promptly after their discharge and authorizes seamen to recover double wages for each day that payment is delayed without sufficient cause. The question is whether the district courts, in the exercise of discretion, may limit the period during which this wage penalty is assessed, or whether imposition of the penalty is mandatory for each day that payment is withheld in violation of the statute.

I

On February 18, 1976, petitioner signed an employment contract with respondent in New Orleans, agreeing to work as a senior pipeline welder on board vessels operated by respondent in the North Sea. The contract specified that petitioner’s employment would extend “until December 15, 1976 or until Oceanic’s 1976 pipeline committal in the North Sea is fulfilled, whichever shall occur first.” App. 41. The contract also provided that respondent would pay for transportation to and from the worksite, but that if petitioner quit the job prior to its termination date, or if his services were terminated for cause, he would be charged with the cost of transportation back to the United States. Respondent reserved the right to withhold $137.50 from each of petitioner’s first four paychecks “as a cash deposit for the payment of your return transportation in the event you should become obligated for its payment.” Id., at 47. On March 6, 1976, petitioner flew from the United States to Antwerp, Belgium, where he reported to work at respondent’s vessel, the “Lay Barge 27,” berthed in the Antwerp harbor for repairs.

On April 1, 1976, petitioner suffered an injury while working on the deck of the vessel readying it for sea. Two days later he underwent emergency surgery in Antwerp. On April 5, petitioner was discharged from the hospital and went to respondent’s Antwerp office, where he spoke with Jesse Williams, the welding superintendent, and provided a physician’s statement that he was not fit for duty. Williams refused to acknowledge that petitioner’s injury was work-related and denied that respondent was liable for medical and hospital expenses, maintenance, or unearned wages. Williams also refused to furnish transportation back to the United States, and continued to retain $412.50 in earned wages that had been deducted from petitioner’s first three paychecks for that purpose. Petitioner returned to his home in Houston, Tex., the next day at his own expense. He was examined there by a physician who determined that he would be able to resume work on May 3, 1976. On May 5, petitioner began working as a welder for another company operating in the North Sea.

In 1978 he brought suit against respondent under the Jones Act, §20, 38 Stat. 1185, as amended, 46 U. S. C. §688, and under general maritime law, seeking damages for respondent’s failure to pay maintenance, cure, unearned wages, repatriation expenses, and the value of certain personal effects lost on board respondent’s vessel. Petitioner also sought penalty wages under Rev. Stat. § 4529, as amended, 46 U. S. C. §596, for respondent’s failure to pay over the $412.50 in earned wages allegedly due upon discharge. The District Court found for petitioner and awarded damages totalling $23,670.40.

Several findings made by that court are particularly relevant to this appeal. First, the court found that petitioner’s injury was proximately caused by an unseaworthy condition of respondent’s vessel. App. 17, ¶ 10; 23, ¶ 6. Second, the court found that petitioner was discharged from respondent’s employ on the day of the injury, and that the termination of his employment was caused solely by that injury. Id., at 18, ¶ 16; 23, ¶ 7. Third, it found that respondent’s failure to pay petitioner the $412.50 in earned wages was “without sufficient cause.” Id., at 20, ¶20; 25, ¶11. Finally, the court found that petitioner had exercised due diligence in attempting to collect those wages. Id., at 20, ¶21.

In assessing penalty wages under 46 U. S. C. §596, the court held that “[t]he period during which the penalty runs is to be determined by the sound discretion of the district court and depends on the equities of the case.” App. 25, ¶ 11. It determined that the appropriate period for imposition of the penalty was from the date of discharge, April 1, 1976, through the date of petitioner’s reemployment, May 5, 1976, a period of 34 days. Applying the statute, it computed a penalty of $6,881.60. Petitioner appealed the award of damages as inadequate.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 664 F. 2d 36 (1981). That court concluded, inter alia, that the District Court had not erred in limiting assessment of the penalty provided by 46 U. S. C. § 596 to the period beginning April 1 and ending May 5. The court recognized that the statute required payment of a penalty for each day during which wages were withheld until the date they were actually paid, which in this case did not occur until September 17, 1980, when respondent satisfied the judgment of the District Court. Id., at 40; see App. 30. Nevertheless, the court believed itself bound by prior decisions within the Circuit, which left calculation of the penalty period to the sound discretion of the district courts. 664 F. 2d, at 40. It concluded that the District Court in this case had not abused its discretion by assessing a penalty only for the period during which petitioner was unemployed.

We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Circuits regarding the proper application of the wage penalty statute. 454 U. S. 1052 (1981). We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to that issue.

II

A

The language of the statute first obligates the master or owner of any vessel making coasting or foreign voyages to pay every seaman the balance of his unpaid wages within specified periods after his discharge. It then provides:

“Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment in the manner hereinbefore mentioned without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to two days’ pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods . . .

The statute in straightforward terms provides for the payment of double wages, depending upon the satisfaction of two conditions. First, the master or owner must have refused or failed to pay the seaman his wages within the periods specified. Second, this failure or refusal must be “without sufficient cause.” Once these conditions are satisfied, however, the unadorned language of the statute dictates that the master or owner “shall pay to the seaman” the sums specified “for each and every day during which payment is delayed.” The words chosen by Congress, given their plain meaning, leave no room for the exercise of discretion either in deciding whether to exact payment or in choosing the period of days by which the payment is to be calculated. As this Court described the statute many years ago, it “affords a definite and reasonable procedure by which the seaman may establish his right to recover double pay where his wages are unreasonably withheld.” McCrea v. United States, 294 U. S. 23, 32 (1935). Our task is to give effect to the will of Congress, and where its will has been expressed in reasonably plain terms, “that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980).

The District Court found that respondent had refused to pay petitioner the balance of his earned wages promptly after discharge, and that its refusal was “without sufficient cause.” Respondent challenges neither of these findings. Although the two statutory conditions were satisfied, however, the District Court obviously did not assess double wages “for each and every day” during which payment was delayed, but instead limited the assessment to the period of petitioner’s unemployment. Nothing in the language of the statute vests the courts with the discretion to set such a limitation.

B

Nevertheless, respondent urges that the legislative purpose of the statute is best served by construing it to permit some choice in determining the length of the penalty period. In respondent’s view, the purpose of the statute is essentially remedial and compensatory, and thus it should not be interpreted literally to produce a monetary award that is so far in excess of any equitable remedy as to be punitive.

Respondent, however, is unable to support this view of legislative purpose by reference to the terms of the statute. “There is, of course, no more persuasive evidence of the purpose of a statute than the words by which the legislature undertook to give expression to its wishes.” United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 543 (1940). See Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 490 (1917). Nevertheless, in rare cases the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters, and those intentions must be controlling. We have reserved “some ‘scope for adopting a restricted rather than a literal or usual meaning of its words where acceptance of that meaning . . . would thwart the obvious purpose of the statute.’ ” Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U. S. 563, 571 (1965) (quoting Helvering v. Hammel, 311 U. S. 504, 510-511 (1941)). This, however, is not the exceptional case.

As the Court recognized in Collie v. Fergusson, 281 U. S. 52 (1930), the “evident purpose” of the statute is “to secure prompt payment of seamen’s wages . . . and thus to protect them from the harsh consequences of arbitrary and unscrupulous action of their employers, to which, as a class, they are peculiarly exposed.” Id., at 55. This was to be accomplished “by the imposition of a liability which is not exclusively compensatory, but designed to prevent, by its coercive effect, arbitrary refusals to pay wages, and to induce prompt payment when payment is possible.” Id., at 55-56. Thus, although the sure purpose of the statute is remedial, Congress has chosen to secure that purpose through the use of potentially punitive sanctions designed to deter negligent or arbitrary delays in payment.

The legislative history of the statute leaves little if any doubt that this understanding is correct. The law owes its origins to the Act of July 20, 1790, ch. 29, § 6, 1 Stat. 133, passed by the First Congress. Although the statute as originally enacted gave every seaman the right to collect the wages due under his contract “as soon as the voyage is ended,” it did not provide for the recovery of additional sums to encourage compliance. Such a provision was added by the Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872, ch. 322, § 35, 17 Stat. 269, which provided for the payment of “a sum not exceeding the amount of two days’ pay for each of the days, not exceeding ten days, during which payment is delayed.” The Act of 1872 obviously established a ceiling of 10 days on the period during which the penalty could be assessed and, by use of the words “not exceeding,” left the courts with discretion to choose an appropriate penalty within that period.

Congress amended the law again in 1898. As amended, it read in relevant part:

“Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment in manner hereinbefore mentioned without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to one day’s pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods.” Act of Dec. 21, 1898, ch. 28, §4, 30 Stat. 756.

The amending legislation thus effected two changes: first, it removed the discretion theretofore existing by which courts might award less than an amount calculated on the basis of each day during which payment was delayed, and, second, it removed the 10-day ceiling which theretofore limited the number of days upon which an award might be calculated. The accompanying Committee Reports identify the purpose of the legislation as “the amelioration of the condition of the American seamen,” and characterize the amended wage penalty in particular as “designed to secure the promptest possible payment of wages.” H. R. Rep. No. 1657, 55th Cong., 2d Sess., 2, 3 (1898). See also S. Rep. No. 832, 54th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1896). Nothing in the legislative history of the 1898 Act suggests that Congress intended to do anything other than what the Act’s enacted language plainly demonstrates: to strengthen the deterrent effect of the statute by removing the courts’ latitude in assessing the wage penalty.

The statute was amended for the last time in 1915 to increase further the severity of the penalty by doubling the wages due for each day during which payment of earned wages was delayed. Seamen’s Act of 1915, ch. 153, § 3, 38 Stat. 1164. There is no suggestion in the Committee Reports or in the floor debates that, in so doing, Congress intended to reinvest the courts with the discretion it had removed in the Act of 1898. Resort to the legislative history, therefore, merely confirms that Congress intended the statute to mean exactly what its plain language says.

Ill

Respondent argues, however, that a literal construction of the statute in this case would produce an absurd and unjust result which Congress could not have intended. The District Court found that the daily wage to be used in computing the penalty was $101.20. If the statute is applied literally, petitioner would receive twice this amount for each day after his discharge until September 17, 1980, when respondent satisfied the District Court’s judgment. Petitioner would receive over $300,000 simply because respondent improperly withheld $412.50 in wages. In respondent’s view, Congress could not have intended seamen to receive windfalls of this nature without regard to the equities of the case.

It is true that interpretations of a statute which would produce absurd results are to be avoided if alternative interpretations consistent with the legislative purpose are available. See United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S., at 542-543; Haggar Co. v. Helvering, 308 U. S. 389, 394 (1940). In refusing to nullify statutes, however hard or unexpected the particular effect, this Court has said:

“Laws enacted with good intention, when put to the test, frequently, and to the surprise of the law maker himself, turn out to be mischievous, absurd or otherwise objectionable. But in such case the remedy lies with the law making authority, and not with the courts.” Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U. S. 55, 60 (1930).

It is highly probable that respondent is correct in its contention that a recovery in excess of $300,000 in this case greatly exceeds any actual injury suffered by petitioner as a result of respondent’s delay in paying his wages. But this Court has previously recognized that awards made under this statute were not intended to be merely compensatory:

“We think the use of this language indicates a purpose to protect seamen from delayed payments of wages by the imposition of a liability which is not exclusively compensatory, but designed to prevent, by its coercive effect, arbitrary refusals to pay wages, and to induce prompt payment when payment is possible.” Collie v. Fergusson, 281 U. S., at 55-56.

It is in the nature of punitive remedies to authorize awards that may be out of proportion to actual injury; such remedies typically are established to deter particular conduct, and the legislature not infrequently finds that harsh consequences must be visited upon those whose conduct it would deter. It is probably true that Congress did not precisely envision the grossness of the difference in this case between the actual wages withheld and the amount of the award required by the statute. But it might equally well be said that Congress did not precisely envision the trebled amount of some damages awards in private antitrust actions, see Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 344-345 (1979), or that, because it enacted the Endangered Species Act, “the survival of a relatively small number of three-inch fish . . . would require the permanent halting of a virtually completed dam for which Congress ha[d] expended more than $1 million,” TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 172 (1978). It is enough that Congress intended that the language it enacted would be applied as we have applied it. The remedy for any dissatisfaction with the results in particular cases lies with Congress and not with this Court. Congress may amend the statute; we may not. See Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S., at 123-124; Reiter v. Sonotone, supra, at 344-345.

Finally, we note that our holding is consistent with Pacific Mail S.S. Co. v. Schmidt, 241 U. S. 245 (1916). The employer in that case challenged a decision by the Court of Appeals to apply the wage penalty to the delay after the District Court’s judgment occasioned by the employer’s appeal. The Court held that on the facts of that case, application of the penalty beyond the date of the District Court’s judgment was error. Contrary to respondent's assertion, however, the holding does not reflect the discretionary tailoring of the penalty to the equities of the case. Instead, the Court held that the delay pending appeal was not “without sufficient cause,” as required by the statute before the penalty can attach. Id., at 250. As we explained earlier, a condition to the imposition of the wage penalty is a finding that the delay in payment is “without sufficient cause.” To the extent that the equities of the situation are to be considered, see Collie v. Fergusson, swpra, they bear on that finding, and not on the calculation of the penalty period once that finding has been made.

IV

The District Court found that respondent’s refusal to pay petitioner earned wages following his discharge was without sufficient cause. It applied the wage penalty only for the period of nonpayment during which petitioner was unable to work. It made no finding, however, that respondent’s com tinuing delay in payment beyond that period was for sufficient cause. Under the plain language of the statute, therefore, its decision to limit the penalty period was error. The judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming that decision accordingly is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Blackmun joins,

dissenting.

In final analysis, any question of statutory construction requires the judge to decide how the legislature intended its enactment to apply to the case at hand. The language of the statute is usually sufficient to answer that question, but “the reports are full of cases” in which the will of the legislature is not reflected in a literal reading of the words it has chosen. In my opinion this is such a case.

Qualifying language in 46 U. S. C. § 596 supports a much narrower construction than the Court adopts. For over 50 years after the statute’s most recent amendment in 1915, federal judges consistently construed it to avoid the absurd result the Court sanctions today. Their reading of the statute was consistent with the specific purposes achieved by the amendments in 1898 and 1915, as well as with the meaning of the statute when an award for unearned wages was first authorized.

I

On April 1, 1976, petitioner, a welder, suffered a temporarily disabling injury aboard respondent’s vessel. On April 5, 1976, petitioner met with respondent’s welding superintendent, who refused to acknowledge that respondent was responsible for the injury and who also refused to pay petitioner $412.50 in earned wages. Petitioner fully recovered from the injury by May 3, 1976, and two days later obtained comparable work with another employer. He filed this action on February 3, 1978. It is now settled that respondent was responsible for petitioner’s injury and that respondent wrongfully refused to pay him $412.50 on April 5, 1976.

The question of statutory construction that is before us is what “sum shall be recoverable as wages” to compensate petitioner for respondent’s refusal to pay him $412.50 on April 5, 1976. 46 U. S. C. §596. The District Court computed that sum by doubling his daily wage of $101.20 and multiplying that amount by 34 — the number of days between the injury on April 1 and petitioner’s reemployment on May 5, 1976. The District Court’s award thus amounted to $6,881.60. This Court holds that the sum recoverable as wages amounts to at least $302,790.40.

II

In pertinent part, § 596 provides as follows:

“Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment [of a seaman’s earned wages within four days after the seaman’s discharge] without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to two days’ pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the [4-day period], which sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court. . . .” (Emphasis added.)

The text of the statute admittedly supports the construction given it by the Court — if there was not sufficient cause for the refusal to make payment within four days of the discharge, then the seaman is entitled to double wages for the entire period between the fourth day and the date the payment is finally made. The statute, however, is susceptible of another interpretation. Indeed, for a half century following its latest amendment the federal courts, including this Court, consistently exercised some discretion in determining the sum recoverable as wages under this section.

A

In fixing the amount of the award of double wages, the District Court in this case may have reasoned that respondent had sufficient cause for its delay in paying the earned wages after petitioner obtained employment with another shipmaster, but that there was not sufficient cause for its failure to make payment before that time. Although this reasoning conflicts with a literal reading of § 596, it is perfectly consistent with this Court’s contemporary construction of the statute in Pacific Mail S.S. Co. v. Schmidt, 241 U. S. 245 (1916). The teaching of Justice Holmes’ opinion for the Court in that case is that the wrongful character of the initial refusal to pay does not mean that all subsequent delay in payment is also “without sufficient cause” within the meaning of the statute.

The controversy in Pacific Mail arose in 1913, when the statute provided that the sum recoverable as wages was measured by one day’s pay, rather than double that amount, for each day that the wages were withheld without sufficient cause; the statute was otherwise exactly as it is today. The seaman was discharged on October 1, 1913, but $30.33 was withheld from his wages because he was believed responsible for the loss of some silverware. He filed an action on October 20, 1913, and on November 5, 1913, obtained a judgment for his wages and an additional sum of $151.59, representing the sum recoverable as wages for the period between October 1 and November 5,1913. The District Court’s decree established the proposition that the vessel owner’s defenses did not constitute sufficient cause for refusing to pay the wages and requiring the seaman to sue to recover them.

The vessel owner prosecuted an unsuccessful appeal. The Court of Appeals not only affirmed the decision of the District Court, but also added an additional recovery of daily wages for the period between the entry of the original judgment on November 5 and the actual payment of the disputed wages. The Court of Appeals thus read the statute literally and ordered the result that the District Court’s finding seemed to dictate. This Court, however, set aside the additional recovery, reaching a conclusion that cannot be reconciled with a wooden, literal reading of the statute. Concurrent findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals established that the refusal to make the wage payment when due was without sufficient cause. Justice Holmes and his Brethren accepted that finding for purposes of decision, but reasoned that there was sufficient cause for the owner’s decision to appeal and his refusal to pay while the appeal was pending.

The curious character of this Court’s conclusion that reasons insufficient to justify the refusal to pay before the trial court’s decision somehow became sufficient to justify a subsequent refusal to pay is not the most significant point to Justice Holmes’ opinion. The case is primarily significant because its holding cannot be squared with a literal reading of the statute. Even though the initial refusal is without sufficient cause, statutory wages are not necessarily recoverable for the entire period until payment is made either to the seaman or to a stakeholder. A subsequent event — even though not expressly mentioned in the statute itself — may foreshorten the recovery period.

In Pacific Mail the subsequent event was the vessel owner’s decision to appeal. The finding that that event provided sufficient cause for the delay after November 5, 1913, was made sua sponte by this Court. In this case the subsequent event was the reemployment of petitioner in a comparable job on May 5, 1976. The finding that that event — coupled with the failure to make any additional demand for almost two years thereafter — was sufficient cause for the delay after May 5, 1976, was made by the District Court. It is true that the judge did not expressly frame his decision in these terms, but his actual decision fits precisely the mold established by Pacific Mail. Both cases give a flexible reading to the “sufficient cause” language in the statute. They differ with respect to the nature of the subsequent event but not with respect to their departure from the statutory text.

B

The second case in which this Court construed § 596, Collie v. Fergusson, 281 U. S. 52 (1930), also focused on the meaning of the phrase “without sufficient cause.” In that case the unpaid seamen claimed that the financial necessities of the owner could not constitute sufficient cause for delay in wage payments; that contention was surely consistent with the plain language of the statute. This Court nevertheless denied recovery, construing the statute as implicitly containing a requirement that the refusal be “in some sense arbitrary or wilful, or at least a failure not attributable to impossibility of payment.” Id., at 55. The Court adopted this nonliteral construction of the statute because it recognized the significance of the provision that a seaman’s double-wage claim “shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the Court.” See id., at 54. In any proceeding arising out of the insolvency of the vessel owner, this provision accords this type of claim priority over general creditors and various lienors who have stronger equitable claims on limited assets. The construction of the words “without sufficient cause” to narrow the protection of the statute was consistent with the intent of Congress even though it involved a rather flexible reading of the text of the statute itself.

This Court’s third occasion to interpret § 596 was McCrea v. United States, 294 U. S. 23 (1935), and, once again, the Court construed the statute narrowly, this time by taking a literal approach. In that case the seaman, citing specific sections of federal legislation, demanded from the shipmaster his discharge, his earned wages, and other benefits. The master was unfamiliar with the cited sections and asked the seaman to meet with him at noon the next day for an informed discussion of the demands. The seaman missed the appointment and left the country without contacting the master. After his return to the United States, the seaman filed an action in which he claimed entitlement to, inter alia, his earned wages and double wages for the delay in payment. The District Court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, held that the owner of the ship, the United States, was immune from the double-wage provision of § 596 because the double wages constituted a penalty. This Court granted the seaman’s petition for certiorari, but avoided decision of the sovereign immunity question by holding that there was sufficient cause for the failure of the shipmaster to make the wage payment within four days of the seaman’s discharge. The Court then rejected the seaman’s rather reasonable argument that even if the shipmaster had cause to withhold payment during those four days, there was not sufficient cause for the continued refusal once the seaman filed his action and formally made his claim to earned wages. The Court, without citing Pacific Mail, held that if the master’s failure to pay earned wages at the time specified in the statute was justified by sufficient cause, the fact that he later refused to pay pursuant to a proper demand could not give rise to statutory liability even though there was no sufficient cause for the subsequent refusal.

These early interpretations of § 596 dispel any notion that the statute means exactly what it says. The Court has construed the statute “to effect its purpose,” Isbrandtsen Co. v. Johnson, 343 U. S. 779, 783 (1952), and, as the early cases demonstrate, the purpose of the statute does not always require the award of double wages in the amount that the statute literally specifies.

C

Flexibility also has characterized the applications of the statute rendered by the lower federal courts. For decades those courts consistently concluded that Congress intended to allow judicial discretion to play a part in determining the amount of the double-wage recovery. Whether those decisions were entirely consistent with the meaning a grammarian might have placed on the statute is less significant than the fact that they were entirely consistent with this Court’s decisions and with one another, and the fact that their holdings must have come to the attention of Congress.

It was not until 1966 that a contrary reading of the statute was adopted by the Third Circuit in Swain v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 360 F. 2d 81, and another eight years before that case was followed in another Circuit. I cannot deny that there is wisdom in the rule of construction that mandates close adherence to literal statutory text, but it is also true that a consistent course of judicial construction can become as much a part of a statute as words inserted by the legislature itself. The construction consistently followed by the federal judiciary between 1898 and 1966 was presumably acceptable to Congress, and I find this more persuasive than the literal reading on which the Court places its entire reliance. Moreover, since the result that construction produces in this case is both absurd and palpably unjust, this is one of the cases in which the exercise of judgment dictates a departure from the literal text in order to be faithful to the legislative will.

III

The construction permitting the district court to exercise some discretion in tailoring the double-wage award to the particular equities of the case is just as consistent with the legislative history of § 596 as the Court’s new literal approach to this statute. In 1872, when Congress authorized the recovery of additional wages by seamen who were not paid within five days of their discharge, it used the word “shall” to make it clear that such a recovery must be awarded, but it allowed the district courts a limited discretion in setting the amount of such recovery. The judge’s discretion as to amount was limited in two ways: (1) the statutory wage rate could not be more than double the amount of the seaman’s daily wage; and (2) the period for which the statutory wage could be awarded could not exceed 10 days.

Subsequent amendments to the statute did not remove the requirement that some recovery “shall” be awarded, but did modify both of the limits on the judge’s discretion. With respect to the wage rate, Congress first specified that it should equal the daily rate — rather than double the daily rate — and later specified that the rate should be the double rate. With respect to the period for which the statutory wage was payable, the 1898 amendment simply removed the 10-day limit. This amendment is subject to two different interpretations, one that would represent a rather unremarkable change and the other that would be both drastic and dramatic.

The unremarkable change would amount to nothing more than a removal of the narrow 10-day limit on the scope of the judge’s discretion. The word “shall” would continue to do nothing more than require some recovery in an amount to be fixed by the judge, but in recognition of the reality that seamen might be stranded for more than 10 days, the recovery period could extend beyond 10 days. This sort of unremarkable change is consistent with the purpose of the statute, as well as with a legislative history that fails to make any comment on its significance. As Justice Rehnquist has perceptively observed in another context, the fact that the dog did not bark can itself be significant.

The Court’s construction of the amendment is, however, both drastic and dramatic. Instead of effecting a modest enlargement of the judge’s discretion to do justice in these cases, the Court’s construction effects a complete prohibition of judicial discretion. Instead of permitting recoveries for a period somewhat longer than 10 days, the amendment is construed as a command that even when the unresolved dispute persists for two or three years without any special hardship to the seaman, an automatic recovery must be ordered for the entire period regardless of the equitable considerations that may arise after the shipmaster’s initial mistake has been made. Such a major change in both the potential amount of the statutory recovery and the character of the judge’s authority would normally be explained in the committee reports or the debates if it had been intended.

IV

It is ironic that the same seven Justices — who today are transfixed by a literal reading of § 596 — only a few days ago blithely ignored the text of the Tax Injunction Act in order to reach the conclusion that a federal court has no jurisdiction to entertain a suit for a declaratory judgment against the United States Secretary of Labor to determine whether a federal statute violates the Federal Constitution. California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U. S. 393 (1982). The inconsistency in the Court’s approach to the task of statutory construction in these two cases is less troublesome, however, than its failure in each case to consider whether its conclusion could reasonably be thought to represent the will of Congress. I am not persuaded that the 1898 amendment, removing the 10-day limit on the scope of the trial judge’s discretion, was intended to be read as a command to award $302,790.40 to a seaman who was not paid $412.50 in wages when due.

I respectfully dissent.

       According to respondent, petitioner was not formally discharged until June 1, 1976, but his termination was made retroactive to April 1. Brief for Respondent 5.

       The court also found:
      “Defendant did not begin a thorough investigation of plaintiff’s claim until September 30,1976. The investigation was not made with reasonable diligence. Defendant’s failure to pay maintenance and cure, repatriation expenses, the cost of his personal effects, and earned and unearned wages to plaintiff constituted arbitrary, unreasonable, callous, and willful disregard of plaintiff’s rights.” App. 20, ¶21.

       The court found that the daily wage rate to be used in calculating the penalty was $101.20. In accordance with the statute, the court assessed a penalty of twice this rate ($202.40) for each of the 34 days of the penalty period.

       The Courts of Appeals for the Third and Ninth Circuits have interpreted the statute to mandate imposition of the penalty for each day until the wages are paid and to leave no room for the district court’s exercise of discretion. Swain v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 360 F. 2d 81 (CA3 1966); Larkins v. Hudson Waterways Corp., 640 F. 2d 997 (CA9 1981); Thomas v. SS Santa Mercedes, 572 F. 2d 1331 (CA9 1978). The Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, and Fourth Circuits have adopted the interpretation followed by the Fifth Circuit. Mavromatis v. United Greek Shipowners Corp., 179 F. 2d 310 (CA1 1950); Forster v. Oro Navigation Co., 228 F. 2d 319 (CA2 1955), aff’g 128 F. Supp. 113 (SDNY 1954); Southern Cross S.S. Co. v. Firipis, 285 F. 2d 651 (CA4 1960), cert. denied, 365 U. S. 869 (1961). We noted this conflict in American Foreign S.S. Co. v. Matise, 423 U. S. 150, 152, n. 1 (1975).

       Petitioner has not questioned the other holdings of the Court of Appeals in his case. Respondent did not appeal from the judgment of the District Court and has not cross-petitioned for certiorari here.

       The statute reads in full:
      “The master or owner of any vessel making coasting voyages shall pay to every seaman his wages within two days after the termination of the agreement under which he was shipped, or at the time such seaman is discharged, whichever first happens; and in case of vessels making foreign voyages, or from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, within twenty-four hours after the cargo has been discharged, or within four days after the seaman has been discharged, whichever first happens; and in all cases the seaman shall be entitled to be paid at the time of his discharge on account of wages a sum equal to one-third part of the balance due him. Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment in the manner hereinbefore mentioned without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to two days’ pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods, which sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court; but this section shall not apply to masters or owners of any vessel the seamen of which are entitled to share in the profits of the cruise or voyage. This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts.”

       The Act of 1790 and the Act of 1872 provided the basis for § 4529 of the Revised Statutes, codified in 1878. Section 4529 read as follows:
      “The master or owner of every vessel making voyages from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall pay to every seaman his wages, within two days after the termination of the agreement, or at the time such seaman is discharged, whichever first happens; and, in the case of vessels making foreign voyages, within three days after the cargo has been delivered, or within five days after the seaman’s discharge, whichever first happens; and in all cases the seaman shall, at the time of his discharge, be entitled to be paid, on account, a sum equal to one-fourth part of the balance due him. Every master or owner who neglects or refuses to make payment in manner hereinbefore mentioned, without sufficient cause, shall pay to the seaman a sum not exceeding the amount of two days’ pay for each of the days, not exceeding ten days, during which payment is delayed beyond the respective periods; which sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court. But this section shall not apply to the masters or owners of any vessel the seamen on which are entitled to share in the profits of the cruise or voyage.”

       The 1898 Act was substantially identical to legislation that had passed the House in the previous Congress, and had been favorably reported in the Senate, but had failed to come to a vote before the end of the session. Thus, the House Report of the legislation enacted in 1898 contained little more than a reproduction of the House Report of the previous Congress, and the relevant Senate Report also dates from that Congress.

       Respondent assumes that the penalty would run until September 17, 1980, since that was the date on which it finally paid petitioner the $412.50. Brief for Respondent 17. Petitioner, on the other hand, apparently assumes that the penalty period expired on May 6, 1980, the date of the District Court’s judgment. Brief for Petitioner 19. Under our construction of the statute, the District Court’s entry of judgment will not toll the running of the penalty period unless delays beyond that date are explained by sufficient cause. See Pacific Mail S.S. Co. v. Schmidt, 241 U. S. 245, 250-251 (1916) (holding that when an appeal is taken on reasonable grounds, the penalty should not apply to delays in payment beyond the date on which the district court’s decree is entered, since those delays are supported by sufficient cause). The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Southern Cross S.S. Co. v. Firipis, 285 F. 2d, at 660, and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Swain v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 360 F. 2d, at 88, n. 26, have interpreted this Court’s decision in Pacific Mail to permit the employer to toll the running of the penalty period by placing in the hands of the court the allegedly unlawfully withheld wages.

       The Court found that the employer “had strong and reasonable ground for believing that the statute ought not to be held to apply,” 241 U. S., at 250, because the work for which the seaman claimed unpaid wages did not occur during a voyage and was the result of an oral contract.

       “It is a familiar rule, that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit, nor within the intention of its makers. This has been often asserted, and the reports are full of cases illustrating its application. This is not the substitution of the will of the judge for that of the legislator, for frequently words of general meaning are used in a statute, words broad enough to include an act in question, and yet a consideration of the whole legislation, or of the circumstances surrounding its enactment, or of the absurd results which follow from giving such broad meaning to the words, makes it unreasonable to believe that the legislator intended to include the particular act.” Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 459 (1892).

       The statute is quoted in full, ante, at 569-570, n. 6.

       The Court of Appeals held that the award did not constitute an abuse of discretion. 664 F. 2d 36, 40 (CA5 1981).

       This figure is computed by reference to the period between April 1, 1976 (date of discharge), and May 6, 1980 (date of judgment). But see ante, at 574-575, n. 9.

       The Court omits the italicized clause of the statute when it quotes the statute in the text of its opinion. Ante, at 570 and 573. Because wage claims, unlike penalties, have consistently been accorded a high priority in insolvency proceedings against employers, it seems to me the clause is pertinent to our task of discerning the intent of Congress in authorizing an award of double wages. See also infra, at 582-583.

       In a petition for rehearing, after pointing out that the Court had adopted an interpretation of the statute that had not been urged in any of the briefs or in any of the opinions of the lower courts, the seaman argued:
      “According to the grammatical, natural and unambiguous meaning conveyed by the words of section 4529, R. S., Congress has limited the running of penalties only by a ‘sufficient cause’ for original non-payment of earned wages — a sufficient cause operating to prevent penalties from ever beginning to accrue; once these penalties begin to run, nothing short of actual payment or tender can suffice to prevent the continuous accrual of the per diem penalties.” Pet. for Rehearing, O. T. 1915, No. 323, p. 5.

       Petitioner argues that literal application of § 596 will not yield harsh results because the shipmaster may toll the period of delay by tendering the disputed wage claim into the registry of the court. Brief for Petitioner 27. In petitioner’s words, the master may make a “constructive payment of wages.” Id., at 28. The Court seems to accept this argument. • See ante, at 574-575, n. 9. Neither petitioner nor the Court seems to recognize that acceptance of this minimal tolling rule conflicts with a literal reading of the statute. A tender of wages to the court is a “constructive payment of wages” only because a court has added that reasonable gloss to the statute.

       If the Court today were to read Pacific Mail as requiring that the subsequent-event finding be made expressly, I would either follow Justice Holmes’ lead by making a comparable finding in this Court or I would remand to the District Court for additional findings on this issue.

       The District Court’s finding of arbitrariness in this case — which, in view of the holding in Collie, was necessary if any penalty wage were to be recovered — must be read in the context of its actual award. It was not clearly erroneous to find that the refusal to pay petitioner $412.50 was arbitrary while he was unemployed; it surely was not equally arbitrary during the ensuing 2-year period when he was employed by a competitor and did not renew his demand.

       See Mystic S.S. Co. v. Stromland, 20 F. 2d 342, 344 (CA4) (“The District Court, by limiting the right of recovery to 10 days after the libel was filed, in effect placed a limitation on the amount of the recovery under the statute. Was there objection to this? We think not”), rehearing denied, 21 F. 2d 607 (1927), cert. denied, 276 U. S. 618 (1928); Mavromatis v. United Greek Shipowners Corp., 179 F. 2d 310, 316 (CA1 1950) (“The language of § 596 has been given a somewhat free reading so as to accord to the courts a considerable margin of discretion in adjusting the duration of the penalty to the equities of the particular case”); Prindes v. S.S. African Pilgrim, 266 F. 2d 125, 128 (CA4 1959) (“The period during which the penalty accumulates is to be determined by the equities of the particular case”); Southern Cross S.S. Co. v. Firipis, 285 F. 2d 651, 658 (CA4 1960) (“With regard to liability for double pay, a doctrine had developed before the McCrea case, and has continued to the present time, that the District Court has a measure of discretion through the application of equitable principles in determining the number of days for which double wages should be assessed”), cert. denied, 365 U. S. 869 (1961); Caribbean Federation Lines v. Dahl, 315 F. 2d 370, 374 (CA5) (“The time for which the penalty provision runs rests within the sound discretion of the court and depends upon the equities of the case”), cert. denied, 375 U. S. 831 (1963); McConville v. Florida Towing Corp., 321 F. 2d 162, 168, n. 11 (CA5 1963) (“The Court has wide equitable discretion in fixing the time for which the penalty provision runs”); The Chester, 25 F. 2d 908, 911 (Md. 1928) (“[I]n spite of the seeming rigidity of the statute, there is still left to the courts certain discretionary power to limit the penalties”); The Victoria, 76 F. Supp. 54, 56 (SDNY 1947) (“In spite of the seeming rigidity of the statute, the court still has discretionary power to limit the penalties”), rev’d on other grounds, 172 F. 2d 434 (CA2 1949); Forster v. Oro Navigation Co., 128 F. Supp. 113, 116 (SDNY 1954) (“The number of days for which the defendant must pay double wages rests in the discretion of the court and depends on the equities of the particular case”), aff’d, 228 F. 2d 319 (CA2 1955); Samad v. The Etivebank, 134 F. Supp. 530, 542 (ED Va. 1955) (“The number of days for which respondents must pay double wages rests in the discretion of the Court and depends upon the equities of the particular ease”); Spero v. Steamship The Argodon, 150 F. Supp. 1, 6 (ED Va. 1957) (“It is well settled that the number of days for which respondents must pay double wages rests in the discretion of the Court and depends upon the equities of the particular case”); Kontos v. SS Sophie C., 236 F. Supp. 664, 674 (ED Pa. 1964) (“Although the penalty is applicable, its duration seems to be committed to the discretion of the trial judge to tailor to the equities of the particular case”); Ventiadis v. C. J. Thibodeaux & Co., 295 F. Supp. 135, 138 (SD Tex. 1968) (“ ‘The time for which the penalty provision runs rests within the sound discretion of the court and depends upon the equities of the ease’ ”); see also Swanson v. Torry, 25 F. 2d 835 (CA4 1928); The Lake Galewood, 21 F. 2d 987 (Md. 1927), aff’d, 25 F. 2d 1020 (CA4), cert. denied, 278 U. S. 637 (1928).

       See Southern Cross S.S. Co. v. Firipis, supra, at 655-658.

       See 360 F. 2d, at 85 (“Despite this rather precise statutory directive, of those eases which we have uncovered, where the question — whether Section 596 of the statute may still be read with a measure of judicial discretion when supposed equitable considerations present themselves — was considered, all have found proper the balancing of the statutory language with a judicial sense of the equities of each case”).

       See Escobar v. SS Washington Trader, 503 F. 2d 271, 274 (CA9 1974), vacated and remanded on other grounds sub nom. American Trading Transportation Co. v. Escobar, 423 U. S. 1070 (1976).

       See, most recently, Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, 456 U. S. 305, 322-335 (1982) (Stevens, J., dissenting).

       This Court based its interpretation of “sufficient cause” in Collie v. Fergusson, 281 U. S. 52 (1930), in part upon “the conclusion reached with practical unanimity by the lower federal courts.” Id., at 56.

       “The Court has had several occasions within the last few years to construe statutes in which conflicts between reasonable intention and literal meaning occurred. We have refused to nullify statutes, however hard or unexpected the particular effect, where unambiguous language called for a logical and sensible result. Any other course would be properly condemned as judicial legislation. However, to construe statutes so as to avoid results glaringly absurd, has long been a judicial function. Where, as here, the language is susceptible of a construction which preserves the usefulness of the section, the judicial duty rests upon this Court to give expression to the intendment of the law.” Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 305 U. S. 315, 332-333 (1938) (footnotes omitted).

       The 1872 version of § 596 provided in pertinent part:
      “[EJvery master or owner who neglects or refuses to make payment [of a seaman’s earned wages within five days after the seaman’s discharge] without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum not exceeding the amount of two days’ pay for each of the days, not exceeding ten days, during which payment is delayed beyond the [five-day period]; and such sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court. . . .” Act of June 7, 1872, ch. 322, §35, 17 Stat. 269.

       The 1898 version of § 596 provided in pertinent part:
      “Every master or owner who refuses or neglects to make payment [of a seaman’s earned wages within four days of the seaman’s discharge] without sufficient cause shall pay to the seaman a sum equal to one day’s pay for each and every day during which payment is delayed beyond the [four-day period], which sum shall be recoverable as wages in any claim made before the court. . . Act of Dec. 21, 1898, § 4, 30 Stat. 756.
      The 1915 amendment substituted “two days’ pay” for “one day’s pay.” See Act of Mar. 4, 1915, § 3, 38 Stat. 1164-1165.

       Justice Cardozo, while a member of the New York Court of Appeals, explained the purpose of the statute:
      “The purpose, or at least the predominant one, was, not punishment of the master or owner, but compensation to the seaman. Delay means loss of opportunity to ship upon another vessel. It means hardship during the term of waiting, the sufferer often improvident, and stranded far from home. 'In all fairness he should recover more than the amount due him for wages earned’ (Calvin v. Huntley, 178 Mass. 29, 32).” Cox v. Lykes Brothers, 237 N. Y. 376, 379, 143 N. E. 226, 227 (1924).
      The District Court’s award in this case, tolling the period for computing the double wages on the date petitioner obtained employment with another seagoing vessel, was also perfectly consistent with the statutory purpose.

         Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 602 (1980) (dissenting opinion); cf. A. Conan Doyle, Silver Blaze, in The Complete Sherlock Holmes 383 (1938).

       The House Report’s description of the 1898 amendment was that it “increases from one-fourth to one-third the amount of balance of wages due the seaman, to which he is entitled immediately upon discharge, and, in general, provides for prompter payment of wages of seamen.” H. R. Rep. No. 1657, 55th Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (1898). It is noteworthy that the first change described, respecting the part of the seaman’s wages to which he is entitled at the time of his discharge in every ease, is rather trivial. See the full text of the statute, ante, at 569-570, n. 6. And the description of the provision for prompter payment of wages most likely refers to the amendment of the time period during which the shipmaster had to pay the seaman his full wages in order to avoid the double-wage provision of § 596. In the cases of seamen of vessels making foreign voyages, the time period was changed from five days in 1872, see n. 17, swpra, to four days in 1898, see n. 18, supra.


author: Per Curiam.

text:
    VELDE, ADMINISTRATOR, LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE ADMINISTRATION, et al. v. NATIONAL BLACK POLICE ASSN., INC., et al.
    No. 80-1074.
    Argued December 9, 1981
    Decided June 30, 1982

      Deputy Solicitor General Getter argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Lee, Acting Solicitor General Wallace, Acting Assistant Attorney General Schiffer, Peter Buscemi, Robert E. Kopp, and Barbara L. Herwig.

      E. Richard Larson argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Isabelle Katz Pinzler, Bruce J. Ennis, William L. Robinson, and Norman J. Chachkin.

   Per Curiam.

The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for further consideration in light of Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 (1982).

Justice Powell and Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.


author: Justice White Justice Brennan,

text:
    ALFRED L. SNAPP & SON, INC., et al. v. PUERTO RICO ex rel. BAREZ, SECRETARY OF LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES
    No. 80-1305.
    Argued April 20, 1982
    Decided July 1, 1982

      White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Members joined, except Powell, J., who took no part in the decision of the case. Brennan, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 610.

      Thomas J. Bacas argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was S. Steven Karatekas.

      Paul A. Lenzini argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Francis X. Bellotti, Attorney General, and Anthony P. Sager, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; by
        Robert Abrams, Attorney General of New York, Shirley Adelson Siegel, Solicitor General, and Peter Bienstock, Deborah Bachrach, and Daniel Berger, Assistant Attorneys General, Leroy Zimmerman, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Frank P. Tuplin, Deputy Attorney General, and Paul E. Waters, Executive Deputy Attorney General, for the State of New York et al; and by A. Douglas Melamed for the Migrant Legal Action Program, Inc., et al.

   Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico seeks to bring suit in its capacity as parens patriae against petitioners for their alleged violations of federal law. Puerto Rico contends that those violations discriminated against Puerto Ricans and injured the Puerto Rican economy. The question presented here is whether Puerto Rico has standing to maintain this suit.

I

A

The factual background of this case involves the interaction of two federal statutes, the Wagner-Peyser Act, 48 Stat. 113, 29 U. S. C. §49 et seq., and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. IV). The Wagner-Peyser Act was passed in 1933 in order to deal with the massive problem of unemployment resulting from the Depression. The Act establishes the United States Employment Service within the Department of Labor “[i]n order to promote the establishment and maintenance of a national system of public employment offices.” 29 U. S. C. §49. State agencies, which have been approved by the Secretary of Labor, are authorized to participate in the nationwide employment service. §49g. The Secretary is authorized to make “such rules and regulations as may be necessary” to accomplish the ends of the Act. § 49k. Federal regulations issued pursuant to that authority have established an interstate clearance system to provide employers a means of recruiting nonlocal workers, when the supply of local workers is inadequate. 20 CFR § 602.2(c) (1981). If local workers are not available, a “clearance order” is sent through the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor to other state agencies in order to give them an opportunity to meet the request.

Some of petitioners’ obligations under the employment system established by the Wagner-Peyser Act stem from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, insofar as it regulates the admission of nonimmigrant aliens into the United States. The latter Act authorizes the admission of temporary foreign workers into the United States only “if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country.” 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(15) (H)(ii). The Attorney General is charged with determining whether entry of foreign workers would meet this standard, “upon petition of the importing employer.” 8 U. S. C. § 1184(c). He is to make this determination “after consultation with appropriate agencies of the Government.” Ibid. The Attorney General has delegated this responsibility to the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, 8 CFR §2.1 (1982), who, in turn, relies on the Secretary of Labor for the initial determinations. 8 CFR § 214.2(h)(3) (1982). To meet this responsibility, the Secretary of Labor relies upon the employment referral system established under the Wagner-Peyser Act.

Any employer who wants to employ temporary foreign agricultural laborers must first seek domestic laborers for the openings through use of the interstate clearance system. The employer who anticipates a need for foreign laborers must file an application with the local public employment office, including a copy of the job offer. 20 CFR §§655.201 (a)(1), (b)(1) (1981). The application must be filed in sufficient time to allow the agency to recruit through the interstate clearance system for 60 days prior to the estimated date of the start of employment. § 655.201(c). The regulations further provide that the employer must include assurances that the job opportunity is “open to all qualified U. S. workers without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, or religion, and is open to U. S. workers with handicaps who are qualified to perform the work,” and that the employer will continue to seek United States workers until the foreign workers have departed for the employer’s place of employment. §§ 655.203(c), (d). Finally, the regulations require that “each employer’s job offer to U. S. workers must offer U. S. workers at least the same benefits which the employer is offering, intends to offer, or will afford, to temporary foreign workers.” § 655.202(a). Similarly, the employer may not impose obligations or restrictions on domestic workers that are not, or will not be, imposed on foreign workers. Ibid.

The obvious point of this somewhat complicated statutory and regulatory framework is to provide two assurances to United States workers, including the citizens of Puerto Rico. First, these workers are given a preference over foreign workers for jobs that become available within this country. Second, to the extent that foreign workers are brought in, the working conditions of domestic employees are not to be adversely affected, nor are United States workers to be discriminated against in favor of foreign workers.

B

The particular facts of this case involve the 1978 apple harvest on the east coast. That was apparently a good year for apples, resulting in a substantial need for temporary farm laborers to pick the crop. To meet this need the apple growers filed clearance orders with their state employment agencies. Through the system described above, a total of 2,318 job openings were transmitted to Puerto Rico on August 2, 1978. As of August 14, which marked the end of the 60-day “availability” period, supra, at 596, the Commonwealth Department of Labor had recruited 1,094 Puerto Rican workers. Puerto Rican workers for the remaining openings were subsequently recruited. As stated in Puerto Rico’s complaint:

“Of this total number of 2,318 Puerto Rican workers, only 992 actually arrived on the mainland. The remainder never left Puerto Rico because of oral advice from the United States Department of Labor requesting cancellation of remaining flights because many of the defendant growers had refused to employ Puerto Rican workers who had already arrived. Of the 992 workers who arrived at the orchards, 420 came to Virginia orchards. Of these 420 workers, fewer than 30 had employment three weeks later, the growers having refused to employ most of these workers and having dismissed most of the rest within a brief time for alleged unproductivity.” App. 17-18.

Puerto Rico filed this suit on January 11, 1979, naming as defendants numerous individuals and companies engaged in the apple industry in Virginia. Of the 2,318 job requests forwarded to Puerto Rico, respondent alleged that 787 of these had come from the named Virginia growers. In three counts, the complaint alleged that the defendants had violated the Wagner-Peyser Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and various federal regulations implementing those statutes, by failing to provide employment for qualified Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers, by subjecting those Puerto Rican workers that were employed to working conditions more burdensome than those established for temporary foreign workers, and by improperly terminating employment of Puerto Rican workers. Alleging that this discrimination against Puerto Rican farmworkers deprived “the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico of its right to effectively participate in the benefits of the Federal Employment Service System of which it is a part” and thereby caused irreparable injury to the Commonwealth’s efforts “to promote opportunities for profitable employment for Puerto Rican laborers and to reduce unemployment in the Commonwealth,” respondent sought declaratory relief with respect to the past practices of petitioners and injunctive relief requiring petitioners to conform to the relevant federal statutes and regulations in the future.

Petitioners responded with a motion to dismiss, asserting that respondent lacked standing to bring this action. Although the District Court held that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is capable of asserting parens patriae interests in general, it agreed with petitioners’ contention that no such action could be maintained under the circumstances of this case. In particular, the District Court relied upon the relatively small number of individuals directly involved — some 787 out of a total population of close to 3 million — and the slight impact upon the general economy of Puerto Rico that the loss of this number of temporary jobs could have.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. 632 F. 2d 365 (1980). The majority held that the District Court had focused too narrowly on those directly involved, ignoring those that were indirectly affected by petitioners’ alleged actions. Noting the serious dimensions of the unemployment problem in Puerto Rico and the general condition of its economy, the court stated that “[d]e-liberate efforts to stigmatize the labor force as inferior carry a universal sting” and the “inability of the United States government ... to grant Puerto Ricans equal treatment with other citizens or even with foreign temporary workers must certainly have an effect which permeates the entire island of Puerto Rico.” Id., at 370. These indirect effects on the interests of “a substantial portion of its citizenry” were sufficient, in its view, to support a parens patriae action. Ibid.

We granted certiorari to determine whether Puerto Rico could maintain a parens patriae action here, despite the small number of individuals directly involved. 454 U. S. 1079 (1981).

II

Parens patriae means literally “parent of the country.” The parens patriae action has its roots in the common-law concept of the “royal prerogative.” The royal prerogative included the right or responsibility to take care of persons who “are legally unable, on account of mental incapacity, whether it proceed from 1st. nonage: 2. idiocy: or 3. lunacy: to take proper care of themselves and their property.” At a fairly early date, American courts recognized this common-law concept, but now in the form of a legislative prerogative: “This prerogative of parens patriae is inherent in the supreme power of every State, whether that power is lodged in a royal person or in the legislature [and] is a most beneficent function . . . often necessary to be exercised in the interests of humanity, and for the prevention of injury to those who cannot protect themselves.” Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1, 57 (1890).

This common-law approach, however, has relatively little to do with the concept of parens patriae standing that has developed in American law. That concept does not involve the State’s stepping in to represent the interests of particular citizens who, for whatever reason, cannot represent themselves. In fact, if nothing more than this is involved — i. e., if the State is only a nominal party without a real interest of its own — then it will not have standing under the parens patriae doctrine. See Pennsylvania v. New Jersey, 426 U. S. 660 (1976); Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 U. S. 387 (1938); Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 220 U. S. 277 (1911). Rather, to have such standing the State must assert an injury to what has been characterized as a “quasi-sovereign” interest, which is a judicial construct that does not lend itself to a simple or exact definition. Its nature is perhaps best understood by comparing it to other kinds of interests that a State may pursue and then by examining those interests that have historically been found to fall within this category.

Two sovereign interests are easily identified: First, the exercise of sovereign power over individuals and entities within the relevant jurisdiction — this involves the power to create and enforce a legal code, both civil and criminal; second, the demand for recognition from other sovereigns — most frequently this involves the maintenance and recognition of borders. The former is regularly at issue in constitutional litigation. The latter is also, a frequent subject of litigation, particularly in this Court:

“The original jurisdiction of this Court is one of the mighty instruments which the framers of the Constitution provided so that adequate machinery might be available for the peaceful settlement of disputes between States and between a State and citizens of another State. . . . The traditional methods available to a sovereign for the settlement of such disputes were diplomacy and war. Suit in this Court was provided as an alternative.” Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439, 450 (1945).

Not all that a State does, however, is based on its sovereign character. Two kinds of nonsovereign interests are to be distinguished. First, like other associations and private parties, a State is bound to have a variety of proprietary interests. A State may, for example, own land or participate in a business venture. As a proprietor, it is likely to have the same interests as other similarly situated proprietors. And like other such proprietors it may at times need to pursue those interests in court. Second, a State may, for a variety of reasons, attempt to pursue the interests of a private party, and pursue those interests only for the sake of the real party in interest. Interests of private parties are obviously not in themselves sovereign interests, and they do not become such simply by virtue of the State’s aiding in their achievement. In such situations, the State is no more than a nominal party.

Quasi-sovereign interests stand apart from all three of the above: They are not sovereign interests, proprietary interests, or private interests pursued by the State as a nominal party. They consist of a set of interests that the State has in the well-being of its populace. Formulated so broadly, the concept risks being too vague to survive the standing requirements of Art. Ill: A quasi-sovereign interest must be sufficiently concrete to create an actual controversy between the State and the defendant. The vagueness of this concept can only be filled in by turning to individual cases.

That a parens patriae action could rest upon the articulation of a “quasi-sovereign” interest was first recognized by this Court in Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1 (1900). In that case, Louisiana unsuccessfully sought to enjoin a quarantine maintained by Texas officials, which had the effect of limiting trade between Texas and the port of New Orleans. The Court labeled Louisiana’s interest in the litigation as that of parens patriae, and went on to describe that interest by distinguishing it from the sovereign and proprietary interests of the State:

“Inasmuch as the vindication of the freedom of interstate commerce is not committed to the State of Louisiana, and that State is not engaged in such commerce, the cause of action must be regarded not as involving any infringement of the powers of the State of Louisiana, or any special injury to her property, but as asserting that the State is entitled to seek relief in this way because the matters complained of affect her citizens at large.” Id., at 19.

Although Louisiana was unsuccessful in that case in pursuing the commercial interests of its residents, a line of cases followed in which States successfully sought to represent the interests of their citizens in enjoining public nuisances. North Dakota v. Minnesota, 263 U. S. 365 (1923); Wyoming v. Colorado, 259 U. S. 419 (1922); New York v. New Jersey, 256 U. S. 296 (1921); Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46 (1907); Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230 (1907); Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125 (1902); Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S. 208 (1901).

In the earliest of these, Missouri v. Illinois, Missouri sought to enjoin the defendants from discharging sewage in such a way as to pollute the Mississippi River in Missouri. The Court relied upon an analogy to independent countries in order to delineate those interests that a State could pursue in federal court as parens patriae, apart from its sovereign and proprietary interests:

“It is true that no question of boundary is involved, nor of direct property rights belonging to the complainant State. But it must surely be conceded that, if the health and comfort of the inhabitants of a State are threatened, the State is the proper party to represent and defend them. If Missouri were an independent and sovereign State all must admit that she could seek a remedy by negotiation, and, that failing, by force. Diplomatic powers and the right to make war having been surrendered to the general government, it was to be expected that upon the latter would be devolved the duty of providing-a remedy and that remedy, we think, is found in the constitutional provisions we are considering.” Id., at 241.

This analogy to an independent country was also articulated in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., supra, at 237, a case involving air pollution in Georgia caused by the discharge of noxious gasses from the defendant’s plant in Tennessee. Justice Holmes, writing for the Court, described the State’s interest under these circumstances as follows:

“[T]he State has an interest independent of and behind the titles of its citizens, in all the earth and air within its domain. It has the last word as to whether its mountains shall be stripped of their forests and its inhabitants shall breathe pure air. It might have to pay individuals before it could utter that word, but with it remains the final power. . . .
“. . . When the States by their union made the forcible abatement of outside nuisances impossible to each, they did not thereby agree to submit to whatever might be done. They did not renounce the possibility of making reasonable demands on the ground of their still remaining quasi-sovereign interests.”

Both the Missouri case and the Georgia case involved the State’s interest in the abatement of public nuisances, instances in which the injury to the public health and comfort was graphic and direct. Although there are numerous examples of such parens patriae suits, e. g., North Dakota v. Minnesota, supra (flooding); New York v. New Jersey, supra (water pollution); Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125 (1902) (diversion of water), parens patriae interests extend well beyond the prevention of such traditional public nuisances.

In Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553 (1923), for example, Pennsylvania was recognized as a proper party to represent the interests of its residents in maintaining access to natural gas produced in West Virginia:

“The private consumers in each State . . . constitute a substantial portion of the State’s population. Their health, comfort and welfare are seriously jeopardized by the threatened withdrawal of the gas from the interstate stream. This is a matter of grave public concern in which the State, as representative of the public, has an interest apart from that of the individuals affected. It is not merely a remote or ethical interest but one which is immediate and recognized by law.” Id., at 592.

The public nuisance and economic well-being lines of cases were specifically brought together in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439 (1945), in which Georgia alleged that some 20 railroads had conspired to fix freight rates in a manner that discriminated against Georgia shippers in violation of the federal antitrust laws:

“If the allegations of the bill are taken as true, the economy of Georgia and the welfare of her citizens have seriously suffered as the result of this alleged conspiracy. . . . [Trade barriers] may cause a blight no less serious than the spread of noxious gas over the land or the deposit of sewage in the streams. They may affect the prosperity and welfare of a State as profoundly as any diversion of waters from the rivers. . . . Georgia as a representative of the public is complaining of a wrong which, if proven, limits the opportunities of her people, shackles her industries, retards her development, and relegates her to an inferior economic position among her sister States. These are matters of grave public concern in which Georgia has an interest apart from that of particular individuals who may be affected.” Id., at 450-451.

This summary of the case law involving parens patriae actions leads to the following conclusions. In order to maintain such an action, the State must articulate an interest apart from the interests of particular private parties, i. e., the State must be more than a nominal party. The State must express a quasi-sovereign interest. Although the articulation of such interests is a matter for case-by-case development — neither an exhaustive formal definition nor a definitive list of qualifying interests can be presented in the abstract — certain characteristics of such interests are so far evident. These characteristics fall into two general categories. First, a State has a quasi-sovereign interest in the health and well-being — both physical and economic — of its residents in general. Second, a State has a quasi-sovereign interest in not being discriminatorily denied its rightful status within the federal system.

The Court has not attempted to draw any definitive limits on the proportion of the population of the State that must be adversely affected by the challenged behavior. Although more must be alleged than injury to an identifiable group of individual residents, the indirect effects of the injury must be considered as well in determining whether the State has alleged injury to a sufficiently substantial segment of its population. One helpful indication in determining whether an alleged injury to the health and welfare of its citizens suffices to give the State standing to sue as parens patriae is whether the injury is one that the State, if it could, would likely attempt to address through its sovereign lawmaking powers.

Distinct from but related to the general well-being of its residents, the State has an interest in securing observance of the terms under which it participates in the federal system. In the context of parens patriae actions, this means ensuring that the State and its residents are not excluded from the benefits that are to flow from participation in the federal system. Thus, the State need not wait for the Federal Government to vindicate the State’s interest in the removal of barriers to the participation by its residents in the free flow of interstate commerce. See Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553 (1923). Similarly, federal statutes creating benefits or alleviating hardships create interests that a State will obviously wish to have accrue to its residents. See Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U. S. 439 (1945) (federal antitrust laws); Maryland, v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725 (1981) (Natural Gas Act). Once again, we caution that the State must be more than a nominal party. But a State does have an interest, independent of the benefits that might accrue to any particular individual, in assuring that the benefits of the federal system are not denied to its general population.

We turn now to the allegations of the complaint to determine whether they satisfy either or both of these criteria.

Ill

The complaint presents two fundamental contentions. First, it alleges that the petitioners discriminated against Puerto Ricans in favor of foreign laborers. Second, it alleges that Puerto Ricans were denied the benefits of access to domestic work opportunities that the Wagner-Peyser Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 were designed to secure for United States workers. We find each of these allegations to fall within the Commonwealth’s quasi-sovereign interests and, therefore, each will support a parens patriae action.

Petitioners contend that at most there were only 787 job opportunities at stake in Virginia and that this number of temporary jobs could not have a substantial direct or indirect effect on the Puerto Rican economy. We believe that this is too narrow a view of the interests at stake here. Just as we have long recognized that a State’s interests in the health and well-being of its residents extend beyond mere physical interests to economic and commercial interests, we recognize a similar state interest in securing residents from the harmful effects of discrimination. This Court has had too much experience with the political, social, and moral damage of discrimination not to recognize that a State has a substantial interest in assuring its residents that it will act to protect them from these evils. This interest is peculiarly strong in the case of Puerto Rico simply because of the unfortunate fact that invidious discrimination frequently occurs along ethnic lines. Puerto Rico’s situation differs somewhat from the States in this regard — not in theory but in fact — simply because this country has for the most part been spared the evil of invidious discrimination based on state lines. Were this to come to pass, however, we have no doubt that a State could seek, in the federal courts, to protect its residents from such discrimination to the extent that it violates federal law. Puerto Rico claims that it faces this problem now. Regardless of the possibly limited effect of the alleged financial loss at issue here, we agree with the Court of Appeals that “[d]e-liberate efforts to stigmatize the labor force as inferior carry a universal sting.” 632 F. 2d, at 370.

Alternatively, we find that Puerto Rico does have parens patriae standing to pursue the interests of its residents in the Commonwealth’s full and equal participation in the federal employment service scheme established pursuant to the Wagner-Peyser Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. Unemployment among Puerto Rican residents is surely a legitimate object of the Commonwealth’s concern. Just as it may address that problem through its own legislation, it may also seek to assure its residents that they will have the full benefit of federal laws designed to address this problem. The Commonwealth’s position in this respect is not distinguishable from that of Georgia when it sought the protection of the federal antitrust laws in order to eliminate freight rates that discriminated against Georgia shippers, Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, or from that of Maryland when it sought to secure the benefits of the Natural Gas Act for its residents, Maryland v. Louisiana, supra. Indeed, the fact that the Commonwealth participates directly in the operation of the federal employment scheme makes even more compelling its parens patriae interest in assuring that the scheme operates to the fall benefit of its residents.

For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Powell took no part in the decision of this case.

Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join,

concurring.

As the Court notes, ante, at 603, n. 12, the question whether a State can bring a parens patriae action within the original jurisdiction of this Court may well turn on considerations quite different from those implicated where the State seeks to press a parens patriae claim in the district courts. The Framers, in establishing original jurisdiction in this Court for suits “in which a State shall be a Party,” Art. Ill, § 2, cl. 2, and Congress, in implementing the grant of original jurisdiction with respect to suits between States, 28 U. S. C. § 1251(a) (1976 ed., Supp. IV), may well have conceived of a somewhat narrower category of cases as presenting issues appropriate for initial determination in this Court than the full range of cases to which a State may have an interest cognizable by a federal court. The institutional limits on the Court’s ability to accommodate such suits accentuates the need for more restrictive access to the original docket. In addition, because the judicial power of the United States does not extend to suits “commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State,” U. S. Const., Arndt. 11, where one State brings a suit parens patriae against another State, a more circumspect inquiry may be required in order to ensure that the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment are not being too easily circumvented by the device of the State’s bringing suit on behalf of some private party. Of course, none of the concerns that might counsel for a restrictive approach to the question of parens patriae standing is present in this case.

In cases such as the present one, I can discern no basis either in the Constitution or in policy for denying a State the opportunity to vindicate the federal rights of its citizens. At the very least, the prerogative of a State to bring suits in federal court should be commensurate with the ability of private organizations. A private organization may bring suit to vindicate its own concrete interest in performing those activities for which it was formed. E. g., Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U. S. 363, 378-379 (1982); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 263 (1977); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428 (1963). See also Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 109-111 (1979) (standing of municipality premised on diminished tax base and other “harms flowing from the realities of a racially segregated community”). Cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 739 (1972). There is no doubt that Puerto Rico’s interest in this litigation compares favorably to interests of the private organizations, and municipality, in the cases cited above.

More significantly, a State is no ordinary litigant. As a sovereign entity, a State is entitled to assess its needs, and decide which concerns of its citizens warrant its protection and intervention. I know of nothing — except the Constitution or overriding federal law — that might lead a federal court to superimpose its judgment for that of a State with respect to the substantiality or legitimacy of a State’s assertion of sovereign interest.

With these considerations in mind, I join the opinion of the Court.

       As used in the Act, the word “State” includes Puerto Rico. 29 U. S. C. § 49b(b). Puerto Rico’s Department of Labor and Human Resources has been approved by the Secretary of Labor and participates in the federal-state system established by the Act.

       “Either a certification from the Secretary of Labor or his designated representative stating that qualified persons in the United States are not available and that the employment of the beneficiary will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed, or a notice that such a certification cannot be made, shall be attached to every nonimmigrant visa petition to accord an alien a classification under section 101(a)(15)(H)(ii).” 8 CFR § 214.2(h)(3)(i) (1982).

       There is a further requirement that the employer continue to provide an opportunity for employment to any qualified United States worker who applies for a position from the time the foreign workers depart for the employer’s place of employment until the time that 50 percent of the period of the work contract has elapsed. 20 CFR § 655.203(e) (1981).

       The complaint named 51 defendants: 32 apple growers and 19 officers, partners or employees of the apple growers.

       The theory of the complaint was that the apple growers were discriminating against the Puerto Ricans in favor of Jamaican workers. In August 1978, apple growers in several States, including Virginia, filed suit in Federal District Court seeking an injunction against the United States Secretary of Labor, the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and their subordinates, to permit the recruitment and employment of foreign workers. Puerto Rico was allowed to intervene in this suit to represent the interests of its residents in these work opportunities. The growers complained that the federal employment service had not produced sufficient laborers to assure that the harvest, which was about to begin, could be successfully accomplished with sufficient speed. The District Court issued a preliminary injunction ordering that a certain number of foreign workers be allowed to enter this country to pick apples. Frederick County Fruit Growers Assn., Inc. v. Marshall, No. 78-0086(H) (WD Va., Aug. 31,1978). The Jamaicans secured entry under this order. Prior to issuing this injunction, however, the court was assured by the apple growers that they recognized their obligation to give priority to Puerto Rican workers, notwithstanding the court order. Puerto Rico’s complaint was founded on the charge that the apple growers failed to meet this commitment and, thus, failed to meet their obligations under federal law.

       The dissenting judge agreed with the analysis of the District Court.

       In September 1978, 18.5% of the adults in the Puerto Rican labor force were unemployed. Rural unemployment stood at 23%.

       “ ‘Parens patriae,’ literally ‘parent of the country,’ refers traditionally to role of state as sovereign and guardian of persons under legal disability.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1003 (5th ed. 1979).

       See Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U. S. 251, 257 (1972); G. Curtis, The Checkered Career of Parens Patriae, 25 DePaul L. Rev. 895, 896 (1976); Black’s, supra.

       J. Chitty, Prerogatives of the Crown 155 (1820), quoted in Curtis, supra, at 896.

       Justice Harlan, in a concurring opinion, specifically rejected the idea that Louisiana had standing to pursue more than its sovereign and proprietary interests: “I am of opinion that the State of Louisiana, in its sovereign or corporate capacity, cannot bring any action in this court on account of the matters set forth in its bill. The case involves no property interest of that State. Nor is Louisiana charged with any duty, nor has it any power, to regulate interstate commerce.” 176 U. S., at 24.

       Admittedly, the discussion here and in the other cases discussed below focused on the parens patriae question in the context of a suit brought in the original jurisdiction of this Court. There may indeed be special considerations that call for a limited exercise of our jurisdiction in such instances; these considerations may not apply to a similar suit brought in federal district court.

       The Court also said, 324 U. S., at 450, 451-452:
      “It seems to us clear that under the authority of these cases Georgia may maintain this suit as parens patriae acting on behalf of her citizens though here, as in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., [206 U. S., at] 237, we treat the injury to the State as proprietor merely as a ‘makeweight.’ The original jurisdiction of this Court is one of the mighty instruments which the framers of the Constitution provided so that adequate machinery might be available for the peaceful settlement of disputes between States and between a State and citizens of another State. See Missouri v. Illinois, [180 U. S., at] 219-224; Virginia v. West Virginia, 246 U. S. 565, 599. Trade barriers, recriminations, intense commercial rivalries had plagued the colonies. The traditional methods available to a sovereign for the settlement of such disputes were diplomacy and war. Suit in this Court was provided as an alternative. Missouri v. Illinois, supra, p. 241; Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., supra, p. 237.

        “Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., [220 U. S. 277 (1911)], is not opposed to this view. In that case, the defendant railroad company had obtained a grant from Congress to locate and maintain a railway line through the Indian Territory out of which the State of Oklahoma was later formed. The federal act provided certain maximum transportation rates which the company might charge. Oklahoma sued to cancel the grant, to have the property granted decreed to be in the State of Oklahoma as cestui que trust, to enjoin the defendant from operating a railroad in the State, and to enjoin pendente lite the exaction of greater rates than the maximum rates specified. The Court construed the Act of Congress as subjecting the rates to federal control until the territory became a part of a State, at which time the rates became subject to state control. The Court held that our original jurisdiction could not be invoked by a State merely because its citizens were injured. We adhere to that decision. It does not control the present one. This is no attempt to utilize our original jurisdiction in substitution for the established methods of enforcing local law. This is not a suit in which a State is a mere nominal plaintiff, individual shippers being the real complainants. This is a suit in which Georgia asserts claims arising out of federal laws and the gravamen of which runs far beyond the claim of damage to individual shippers.”

       Obviously, a State might make use of “private bills” in order to use its legislative power to aid particular individuals. If the analogy spoken of above is to this form of legislative action, then the State remains merely a nominal party from the perspective of a federal court; it has failed to articulate any general interest, apart from that of the individual involved.

       Although we have spoken throughout of a “State’s” standing as parens patriae, we agree with the lower courts and the parties that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is similarly situated to a State in this respect: It has a claim to represent its quasi-sovereign interests in federal court at least as strong as that of any State.

       A State does not have standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the Federal Government. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 485-486 (1923) (“While the State, under some circumstances, may sue in that capacity for the protection of its citizens (Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S. 208, 241), it is no part of its duty or power to enforce their rights in respect of their relations with the Federal Government. In that field it is the United States, and not the State, which represents them as parens patriae”). Here, however, the Commonwealth is seeking to secure the federally created interests of its residents against private defendants. Indeed, the Secretary of Labor has represented that he has no objection to Puerto Rico’s standing as parens patriae under these circumstances. See Brief for the Secretary of Labor as Amicus Curiae in Puerto Rico v. Bramkamp, No. 724, Docket 79-7777 (CA2).

       Indeed, in Havens we held that interference with HOME’S “ability to provide counseling and referral services,” 455 U. S., at 379, provided it with standing to vindicate claims under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. In this case, the alleged violations of the Wagner-Peyser Act, 29 U. S. C. § 49
        et seq., directly interfere with Puerto Rico’s ability to perform the job referral service that it has undertaken as part of its sovereign responsibility to its citizens.

       A private organization may also maintain a federal-court action on behalf of its members. E. g., NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428 (1963); National Motor Freight Assn. v. United States, 372 U. S. 246 (1963) (per curium). See Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U. S. 333, 341-345 (1977).