249 Opinion of the Court. to this Court raises no question as to that Act and acquiesces in dropping it from our consideration. On the question as to who was the employer, on which this case was decided below, the complaint makes a clear, factual and simple allegation. It says that these plaintiffs were employed by the corporate defendant itself. This allegation has been overborne by interpreting the terms of the contracts between that alleged employer and a third party, that is, the Government, which terms may or may not have been known to the employees. There is substantial controversy as to the way those two parties, the Government and defendant in actual practice, construed their contracts, both sides of the controversy being based on events of which we are asked to take judicial notice or to spell out from contracts without the tests which trial affords. The plaintiffs in turn seek to counteract whatever inferences may be drawn from the defendant's version of dealings between defendant and the Government by contrary inferences from dealings between employees and the defendant. But they do not prove plaintiffs' own dealings, which are not in the record, but offer affidavits which relate specifically to "laborers and mechanics" while plaintiffs were inspectors and foremen, a difference that may be material. Insofar as the allegations of the complaint are impeached by the course of dealing between defendant and the Government, they are not supported by any course of dealing to which these plaintiffs were parties. What they were paid and on what basis, whether they have already been paid for overtime on the theory that one of the other Acts applies, we do not know. Defendant's present position, which, for all we know, may or may not be shared by the Department of the Army, is that we do not need to settle the question as to whether defendant or the Government was the actual Opinion of the Court. 334 U. S. employer, that the effect of the war-time legislation was to set up a wholly new system of war production, which was neither private enterprise nor government operation, but an amalgamation of the two, which also prescribed a complete system of labor relation by statute which supersedes and precludes operation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. But this broad contention seems not to have been submitted to either court below, is not consistent with the theoretical basis of their decisions and appears fully presented for the first time in the reply brief in this Court. The short of the matter is that we have an extremely important question, probably affecting all cost-plus-fixedfee war contractors and many of their employees immediately, and ultimately affecting by a vast sum the cost of fighting the war. No conclusion in such a case should prudently be rested on an indefinite factual foundation. The case, which counsel have described as a constantly expanding one, comes to us almost in the status in which it should come to a trial court. In addition to the welter of new contentions and statutory provisions we must pick our way among over a score of technical contracts, each amending some earlier one, without full background knowledge of the dealings of the parties. The hearing of contentions as to disputed facts, the sorting of documents to select relevant provisions, ascertain their ultimate form and meaning in the case, the practical construction put on them by the parties and reduction of the mass of conflicting contentions as to fact and inference from facts, is a task primarily for a court of one judge, not for a court of nine. We do not hold that in the form the controversy took in the District Court that tribunal lacked power or justification for applying the summary judgment procedure. But summary procedures, however salutary where issues 249 Opinion of the Court. are clear-cut and simple,' present a treacherous record for deciding issues of far-flung import, on which this Court should draw inferences with caution from complicated courses of legislation, contracting and practice. We consider it the part of good judicial administration to withhold decision of the ultimate questions involved in this case until this or another record shall present a more solid basis of findings based on litigation or on a comprehensive statement of agreed facts. While we might be able, on the present record, to reach a conclusion that would decide the case, it might well be found later to be lacking in the thoroughness that should precede judgment of this importance and which it is the purpose of the judicial process to provide. Without intimating any conclusion on the merits, we vacate the judgments below and remand the case to the District Court for reconsideration and amplification of the record in the light of this opinion and of present contentions. Judgments vacated. MR. JUSTICE BLACK thinks the judgment should be reversed. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS Concurs in the result. 7 Rule 56 requires that summary judgment shall be rendered if "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact . . . ." See note 4. UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. No. 527. Argued April 19-20, 1948.-Decided May 24, 1948. After a circuit court of appeals has heard and determined an appeal in an antitrust case certified to it by this Court under the Act of June 9, 1944 (because of want at the time of a quorum of Justices of this Court qualified to participate in the consideration of the case), the circuit court of appeals has jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus to compel the district court to comply with its mandate-even though the term during which the circuit court of appeals issued its mandate to the district court has expired and even though it be assumed arguendo that all further appeals in the case would come to this Court. Pp. 259–265. (a) The broad power conferred upon the federal courts by § 262 of the Judicial Code includes the power to issue a writ of mandamus either in exercise of appellate jurisdiction or in aid of appellate jurisdiction. P. 263. (b) The fact that mandamus is closely connected with the appellate power does not necessarily mean that the power to issue it is absent where there is no existing or future, but only a past, appellate jurisdiction to which it can relate. P. 263. (c) A high function of mandamus is to keep a lower tribunal from interposing unauthorized obstructions to enforcement of a judgment of a higher court. P. 264. (d) The Act of June 9, 1944, gave the circuit court of appeals the full amplitude of judicial power to deal with a cause certified to it thereunder-even though it be assumed arguendo that any further appeals in the case would come to this Court. Pp. 264-265. 164 F.2d 159, reversed. The Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a petition for a writ of mandamus to require the District Court to vacate a portion of its judgment in an antitrust case certified by this Court to the Circuit Court of Appeals under the Act of June 9, 1944, 58 Stat. 272, and remanded by 258 Opinion of the Court. the latter to the District Court. 164 F. 2d 159. This Court granted certiorari, 333 U. S. 841. Reversed, p. 265. Leonard J. Emmerglick argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Perlman, Assistant Attorney General Sonnett and Robert L. Stern. William Watson Smith argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Frank B. Ingersoll, Leon E. Hickman, Charles E. Hughes, Jr. and L. Homer Surbeck. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States brought a proceeding against the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and others to prevent and restrain certain violations of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2, 4. After trial the District Court dismissed the complaint. 44 F. Supp. 97. The case came here by appeal, after which we ascertained that due to the disqualification of four Justices to sit in the case, we were without a quorum. Accordingly, we transferred the case to a special docket and postponed further proceedings in it until such time as there was a quorum of Justices qualified to sit in it. 320 U. S. 708. Thereafter Congress amended the statute which provides for a direct appeal to this Court from the District Court in antitrust cases. The Act of June 9, 1944, c. 239, 58 Stat. 272, 15 U. S. C. (Supp. V, 1946) § 29, passed to meet the contingency of the lack of a quorum here, provides: 1 "In every suit in equity brought in any district court of the United States under any of said Acts, 1 See H. R. Rep. No. 1317, 78th Cong., 2d Sess.; Sen. Rep. No. 890, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. |