73 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. lants' claims below and that we therefore have jurisdiction to decide this appeal on its merits. The statute governing our direct appellate jurisdiction from decisions of three-judge District Courts is 28 U. S. C. § 1253: "Except as otherwise provided by law, any party may appeal to the Supreme Court from an order granting or denying, after notice and hearing, an interlocutory or permanent injunction in any civil action, suit or proceeding required by any Act of Congress to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges." Whether the present case was a "proceeding required to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges," and therefore within our direct appellate jurisdiction, depends upon the meaning to be given to 28 U. S. C. § 2281: "An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title." I start with the proposition, as I understand the Court to do, that whether a case is one directly appealable here under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 depends upon the complaint, and not upon the result in the District Court. If three judges are required to hear the claims which are made, then we have direct appellate jurisdiction to review their decision, even though it be on non-constitutional grounds. If three FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. 362 U.S. judges are not required in view of the complaint, and the case is determinable by a single judge, we have no jurisdiction by way of direct appeal under § 1253, even though the decision be a constitutional one. In this case the complaint did not attack the California statute solely on the ground of its conflict with the Commerce and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. It also attacked it because of its asserted conflict with the Federal Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, a claim which in the first instance requires construction of both the Federal Act and the California statute, and which for purposes relevant to our issue is not a constitutional claim. Ex parte Buder, 271 U. S. 461. The question thus presented is whether three judges are to be required, with a consequent direct appeal to this Court, merely because a constitutional claim is made, although it is joined with claims that may dispose of the case on essentially statutory and perchance local statutory grounds. The Court decides that three judges are required in such a case. I would hold that there are required to be three judges and a direct appeal to this Court only when the exclusive ground of attack upon a state statute is direct and immediate collision with the Constitution, thus seeking a constitutional decision in order that relief be granted. Neither my position nor the Court's is entirely satisfactory. My view would leave it open for a single district judge to enjoin a state statute on the ground of its unconstitutionality if the complaint also contains non-constitutional grounds for relief. As the Court points out, such a result would conflict with the superficial literal sense of 28 U. S. C. § 2281 that an "injunction restraining the enforcement . of any State statute . . . shall not be granted by any district court. . . upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of 73 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. three judges. . . .” The effect of the Court's decision, on the other hand, is to require the convening of a threejudge court, with the corollary right of direct appeal of its decision to this Court, in cases where, as a consequence of the presence of a substantial non-constitutional ground for relief, the constitutionality of a state statute will play no part in the decision, either in the District Court or in this Court. There can be expected to be many such cases. For an example of one of them see Herkness v. Irion, 278 U. S. 92. It can fairly be stated, and with this I understand the Court fully to agree, that in devising the three-judge District Court scheme relating to state legislation Congress was concerned with providing appropriate safeguards against the invalidation of state legislation on constitutional grounds. I am therefore put to a choice between holding this three-judge procedure applicable to a large class of non-constitutional cases, where the unusual demands which that procedure makes upon the federal judicial system were never thought justifiable by Congress, and departing from the strictly literal sense of § 2281 in order to restrict the scope of this three-judge procedure with a view to preventing its operation outside of its proper constitutional sphere. I am led to choose. the latter by considerations which are to me controlling, namely, considerations bearing on the efficient operation of the federal judicial system. For I do not find myself compelled to disregard these considerations either by ironclad statutory language or by any unambiguous evidence of congressional purpose to the contrary. What jurisdictional result in a case like this is most likely to comport best with the operation of the federal judicial system is to be determined with regard to two general and conflicting considerations, both of which are directly relevant to a construction of the provisions respecting three-judge District Courts in the context of the present situation. On the one hand is the policy FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. 362 U.S. which gave rise to the creation of the three-judge requirement in these cases: protection against the improvident invalidation of state regulatory legislation was sought to be achieved by resting the fate of such legislation in the first instance in the hands of three judges, one of whom must be a circuit judge (or, originally, a Justice of this Court), rather than in a single district judge. See Pogue, State Determination of State Law, 41 Harv. L. Rev. 623; Hutcheson, A Case for Three Judges, 47 Harv. L. Rev. 795. And direct appeal to this Court was provided, instead of the usual route from District Court to Court of Appeals, not only to avoid the incongruity of three judges reviewing three judges, but also to hasten ultimate determination of the validity of the legislation and to avoid the delay and waste of time during which the operation of legislation eventually held to be valid might be restrained on constitutional grounds by injunction. Were only these considerations claiming judgment in construing inert language it would plainly follow, as the Court has concluded, that three judges are required to hear the complaint in this case, for constitutional claims are made and it is not precluded that injunctive relief may be granted on an obvious conflict with specific constitutional provisions. But so to rule here is in my view to fail to give due regard to countervailing considerations of far-reaching consequences to the federal judicial system, affecting the functioning of district and circuit courts, as well as of this Court. Specifically, the convening of a three-judge trial court makes for dislocation of the normal structure and functioning of the lower federal courts, particularly in the vast non-metropolitan regions; and direct review of District Court judgments by this Court not only expands this Court's obligatory jurisdiction but contradicts the dominant principle of having this Court review decisions only after they have gone through 73 FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting. two judicial sieves, or, in the case of federal regulatory legislation, through the administrative tribunal and a Court of Appeals. Also, where issues of local law have to be adjudicated before reaching questions under the United States Constitution, the desirability of having the appropriate Court of Appeals adjudicate such local issues becomes operative. I deem regard for these demands which the three-judge requirement makes upon the federal judiciary to be the jurisdictional consideration of principal importance in a case such as this where a claim is seriously urged which necessarily involves, certainly in the first instance, construction of local or federal statutes, thus making potentially available a non-constitutional ground on which the case may be disposed of. It is more important that the ordinary operation of our judicial system not be needlessly disrupted by such a case than it is to insure that every case which may turn out to be constitutional be heard by three judges. I am led therefore to construe strictly the statutes providing the three-judge procedure relevant to this case so as to permit their invocation only when the claim is solely constitutional, thus tending to insure that the three-judge procedure will not be extended to non-constitutional cases not within its proper sphere. My adherence to such confining construction of the necessity both for convening three judges and for this Court to be the first appellate tribunal is consistent with the approach this Court has taken when it has in the past refused to apply this legislation. See Moore v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 272 U. S. 317; Smith v. Wilson, 273 U. S. 388; Ex parte Collins, 277 U. S. 565; Oklahoma Gas Co. v. Packing Co., 292 U. S. 386; Ex parte Williams, 277 U. S. 267; Ex parte Public National Bank, 278 U. S. 101; Rorick v. Board of Commissioners, 307 U. S. 208; Ex parte Bransford, 310 U. S. 354; Wilentz v. Sovereign Camp, 306 U. S. 573; Phillips v. United States, 312 U. S. |