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Opinion of the Court.

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trine of forum non conveniens. that note was substantially the same as the present reviser's note; it expressly cited the Kepner case, an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, as demonstrating the need for § 1404 (a). And the reviser's notes were before the Congress at every subsequent legislative step.

A preliminary draft of the Code was printed late in 1945 for the use of the House Committee on Revision of the Laws. In this draft, the reviser's notes appear directly below each related section or subsection. Section 1404 (a) and its note were in this draft, which, as noted above, was given very wide circulation.

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July 24, 1946, the House ordered to be printed the Report submitted by Representative Keogh of New York, Chairman of the House Committee on Revision of the Laws, on the codification of Title 28. This Report consisted of a preliminary statement and a full printing of the reviser's notes. Section 1404 (a) appears in that Report, together with its note. There was no further action on the Code in the Seventy-Ninth Congress.

In the Eightieth Congress, under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, the Code revision passed to

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2o There is no doubt as to the meaning of § 1404 (a) in the mind of the author of the memorandum. See 3 Moore's Federal Practice 2141 (2d ed. 1948), stating that the Code "provides for a transfer . . . of any action to a proper and more convenient forum" (italics in original), with a footnote (107) citing § 1404 (a) and declaring that "ANY action in § 1404 (a) includes suits subject to special venue statutes, as suits for patent infringement and suits under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, as well as actions subject to the general venue statute." And see articles by a member of the advisory committee appointed by the Judicial Conference, and by the Chief Reviser: Galston, An Introduction to the New Federal Judicial Code, 8 F. R. D. 201, 206 (1948); Barron, The Judicial Code 1948 Revision, 8 F.-R. D. 439, 442 (1949).

H. R. Rep. No. 2646, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. (1946). 31 60 Stat. 812, 826-27 (1946).

Opinion of the Court.

337 U.S.

the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee and was assigned to a Subcommittee of which Representative Robsion of Kentucky was Chairman. At the hearing before this Subcommittee, Professor James William Moore of Yale University, special consultant to the revisers, in summarizing the Code proposals, testified that there were "changes of importance" in the law of venue and specifically mentioned § 1404.32 In April, 1947, the House Judiciary Committee reported the bill with a unanimous recommendation that it be passed.33 This Report again fully reprinted the reviser's notes. In this Report, the section entitled "Examples of Changes in Law," which had appeared in the Report on the revision in the preceding Session of Congress, expressly referred to the reviser's notes for §§ 1391-1406.4

After this painstaking consideration, with its references to § 1404 (a), the House initially passed the bill on July 7, 1947.35 At that time and in the subsequent consideration in the Senate, the Tax Court provisions occasioned the most discussion; but other specific sections did not pass unnoticed. Attention was directly called to § 1404 (a) by one witness at the hearings before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, although his interest was not in the Federal Employers' Liability Act issue.36 No change in § 1404 (a) was included in the Senate amendments; and the revision of Title 28 was enacted by the Congress in June, 1948.37

32 Hearings before House Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 1600 and H. R. 2055, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 29 (1947).

33 H. R. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947).

34 Ibid., 6.

35 93 Cong. Rec. 8392 (1947).

36 Hearings before Senate Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 3214, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 73-74 (1948).

37 94 Cong. Rec. 7927-30, 8297, 8438, 8498-8501 (1948). While it lacks relevance to our holding as to Congressional intention and expression in June, 1948, the presentation of an up-to-date

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Opinion of the Court.

Thus, at almost every stage of the legislative procedure, attention was directed to the fact of change, and in most instances specific mention was made of § 1404 (a). At no stage subsequent to the first formal printing did § 1404 (a) and its accompanying reviser's note fail to appear. From the start, § 1404 (a) remained the same, and the reference in the note to a Federal Employers' Liability Act case as showing the need for permitting the application of forum non conveniens remained unchanged. Now to hold that Congress did not appreciate what it was enacting in that section would defy the legislative history. We must flatly reject petitioner's thesis that this section was so obscured that its enactment is meaningless. We cannot blind ourselves to the hearings, to the experts, to the Committee reports, to the reviser's notes and their incorporation in the Committee reports-to a history of the most meticulous Congressional consideration.

Fourth. Petitioner suggests that his action may not be transferred because it was instituted prior to the effective date of the Code. Clearly, § 1404 (a) is a remedial provision applicable to pending actions. And "No one has a vested right in any given mode of procedure . . Crane v. Hahlo, 258 U. S. 142, 147 (1922).3

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report of Congressional consideration of the Code revision requiresnoting that over 60 additional amendments to Title 28 have already become law. Act of May 24, 1949, 63 Stat. 89, 99-107, §§-64a-127. See 95 Cong. Rec. 3814-20, 5826-27, 6283-84; H. R. Rep. No. 352, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 11-20, 38-51 (1949); S. Rep. No. 303, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. (1949). While § 1406 is amended by adding "shall dismiss, or if i be in the interest of justice" before "shall transfer" (63 Stat. 101, § 81), no change whatever was suggested or made in § 1404 (a).

38 Guin v. United States, 184 U. S. 669 (1902); National Exchange Bank of Baltimore v. Peters, 144 U. S. 570 (1892); Sherman v. Grinnell, 123 U. S. 679 (1887); McBurney v. Carson, 99 U. S. 567, 569 (1878).

Opinion of RUTLEDGE, J.

337 U.S.

Fifth. Since the petition for mandamus and prohibition must be denied because of the view we must take as to the meaning of § 1404 (a) and its applicability to this case, we need not decide whether denial might be placed on other grounds also. "Mandamus, prohibition and injunction against judges are drastic and extraordinary remedies. . . . As extraordinary remedies, they are reserved for really extraordinary causes." Ex parte Fahey, 332 U. S. 258, 259, 260 (1947).39

What we hold is that the plain meaning of the statutory words and the consistent course of the legislative history are opposed to petitioner's contention that we must disregard § 1404 (a) because Congress knew not what it did. If petitioner's showing could sustain a decision that this section was not really enacted. after all, little law would remain.

The motion is.

Denied.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS dissent for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS in United States v. National City Lines, post, p. 84.

MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE.*

I concur in the result. But in doing so I feel impelled to say two things.

One is that in my view § 1404 (a), taken broadly to include "any civil action," does effect a partial repeal of

Ex parte Mars, Inc., 320 U. S. 710 (1943); Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U. S. 21 (1943), and cases there cited. Cf. United States Alkali Export Assn. v. United States, 325 U. S. 196 (1945), and cases there cited.

*[This is also a concurrence in the result in No. 233, Misc., Kilpatrick v. Texas & P. R. Co., post, p. 75, and No. 269, Misc., United States v. National City Lines, post, p. 78.]

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Opinion of RUTLEDGE, J.

§ 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act and of the other statutes mentioned by MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, including the venue provisions (§ 12) of the Clayton Act involved in our decision in United States v. National City Lines, 334 U. S. 573.

The legislative history, for example, of the Clayton Act venue provisions demonstrates that the change § 1404 (a) is said to have made was more than the mere removal of a judicial gloss. I think we should not now impugn the validity of our decisions in National City Lines, supra, and in Kepner and Miles1 by characterizing each as a mere "judicial gloss" upon the pertinent statute. Those decisions in my opinion were true reflections of congressional intent as stated in the respective statutes and, accordingly, the changes made in them by § 1404 (a) were in the nature of repeals, to the extent that the plaintiffs were deprived of their rights under the pre-existing statutes to have their causes of action tried in the forums where they were properly brought.

In the second place, those changes, although entirely within Congress' power to make, were neither insubstantial nor noncontroversial, in view of the legislative history of the original provisions, for example, the venue provisions of the Clayton Act. Nor do I think the legislative history of § 1404 (a) demonstrates either the insubstantial or the noncontroversial nature of the changes in § 1404 (a), although they seem to have been so treated by those in charge of the bill. It is to be noted, moreover, that

1 Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44; Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 315 U. S. 698.

2 "At the same time great care has been exercised to make no changes in the existing law which would not meet with substantially unanimous approval." S. Rep. No. 1559, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 2. "... I may say that the purpose of this bill is primarily to revise and codify and to enact into positive law, with such corrections as

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