Lichter v. United States

In 1942, Congress passed the Renegotiation Act to address the increased need for wartime equipment during World War II, authorizing the government to determine and recover excessive profits made by private contractors on wartime goods. A group of contractors (plaintiffs) challenged the Act's constitutionality, arguing its standards for determining excessive profits were too vague to constitute a lawful delegation of administrative authority, amounting instead to an unconstitutional transfer of legislative power. The Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Act, and the contractors appealed.