Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-92-07168/USCOURTS-caDC-92-07168-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 410
Nature of Suit: Antitrust
Cause of Action: 

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*Of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 294(d). 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 13, 1993 Decided August 16, 1994

No. 92-7168

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF CRUISE PASSENGERS,

APPELLANT

v.

CUNARD LINE, LTD.; CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES, INC.;

PRINCESS CRUISES COMPANY, ALSO KNOWN AS PRINCESS

CRUISES; P&O, INC., ALSO KNOWN AS PRINCESS CRUISES;

PAQUET CRUISES, INC.; OCEAN CRUISE LINE, INC.;

SITMAR CRUISES, INC.; MARRIOTT CORPORATION,

ALSO KNOWN AS SUN LINE CRUISES; ROYAL CARIBBEAN

CRUISE LINE, INC.; REGENCY CRUISES, INC.;

CRUISE LINES INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION; AMERICAN

SOCIETY OF TRAVEL AGENTS, INC.,

APPELLEES

-

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(86cv00571)

-

Stephen L. Snyder argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief were Sheldon N. Jacobs

and Amy B. Chappell.

J. Michael Cavanaugh argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Dewey Ballantine,

Saul P. Morgenstern, Jill D. Bicks, Burton A. Schwald, Edward Schmeltzer, Phillip H. Rudolph, and

David L. Roll. Arnold B. Calmann, Mark E. Warren, Mary B. Denison, and Deana F. Dudley

entered appearances.

Before GINSBURG and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges, and WILL, Senior District Judge.*

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: The American Association of Cruise Passengers appeals from the

district court's order dismissing without prejudice its antitrust suit against the defendant cruise lines

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on the ground that the claims withinthe jurisdictionofthe FederalMaritimeCommission predominate

over the claims within the court's Clayton Act jurisdiction. Because predominance is not the relevant

standard, nor dismissal the appropriate response, we remand this matter for the district court to

reinstate the suit insofar as it concerns non-common carriage.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1986 the AACP, a travel agency, sued a number of cruise lines and their two trade

associations, alleging that the cruise lines had boycotted the plaintiff in violation of the federal and

Maryland antitrust laws. The district court dismissed the suit in its entirety, holding that because the

cruise lines are common carriers any agreement to which they are parties is within the exclusive

jurisdiction of the Federal Maritime Commission.

On appeal, this court reversed. See American Association of Cruise Passengers v. Carnival

Cruise Lines, Inc. ("Cruise PassengersI"), 911 F.2d 786 (D.C. Cir. 1990). We held that a cruise line

is a "common carrier" within the meaning of the Shipping Act of 1984 only to the extent that it

operates between a United States port and a foreign port; "insofar as it travels only between foreign

ports," it is not operating as a common carrier. Id. at 792. We therefore concluded that "[t]o the

extent that a cruise line is a common carrier, but to that extent only, a boycott agreement to which

cruise lines are parties is subject to the prohibitions and procedures of the Shipping Act, rather than

to those of the Clayton Act." Id.

We remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings on the claim(s) within its

jurisdiction under the Clayton Act. Recognizing that our decision "may potentially result in some

parallel litigation" in the court and before the FMC, we left it to the district court "to consider

whether, when the FMC has jurisdiction over some aspect of an agreement in suit before the court,

there is a mechanism that would enable it to avoid proceedings duplicative of those before the

Commission." Id. at 792, 793.

On remand the district court again dismissed the case in its entirety. "The Court of Appeals,"

it said, "simply did not contemplate an all-or-nothing exercise of jurisdiction in situations where it is

alleged that a boycott involving common and non-common carriage exists." Asserting that "here

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common carriage activity predominates the alleged agreement," the district court dismissed the suit

"without prejudice in order to permit proceedings before the only bodythe FMCthat may

exercise jurisdiction over common carriage aspects of an alleged boycott agreement." American

Association of Cruise Passengers v. Carnival Cruise Lines, No. 86-571 (D.D.C.July21, 1992). The

AACP again appeals to this court.

II. ANALYSIS

The district court's order dismissing this suit was based upon its assertion that the aspects of

the suit over which it has no jurisdiction "predominate" over the aspects of the suit over which it has

exclusive jurisdiction, and upon the court's belief that dismissal would result in a more efficient use

of its resources. As we recently noted, however, the "federal courts are generally assumed to have

a "virtually unflagging obligation ... to exercise the jurisdiction given them.' " Reiman v. Smith, 12

F.3d 222, 223 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (quoting Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United

States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976)) (omission in original). To be sure, the inefficiency of parallel or

overlapping litigation should be minimized, but that is not a warrant for denying a suitor the access

to court that the Congress gave it.

Having in mind both the district court's obligatory jurisdiction and our decision in Cruise

Passengers I, the AACP's suit must be understood to consist of two distinct claims: one, which

pertains only to the defendant cruise lines' common carriage operations, allegesthat they violated the

Shipping Act of 1984, 46 U.S.C. App. § 1702(6); the other, which pertains only to the defendants'

non-common carriage operations, alleges that they violated the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 15, 26

(and the analogous provisions of Maryland law). Although there are issues of fact common to both

claims, the claims are nonetheless legally distinct, and must be brought in separate forathe FMC

and the district court respectively. Hence, the district court ought presumptively to have retained

jurisdiction over the Clayton Act claims involving non-common carriage.

There is an exception to this generalrule which the district court did not specifically mention

but which it must have had in mind. A district court may dismiss a suit "on the ground that [an

agency] has primary jurisdiction [over it], i.e., that [the agency] is best suited to make the initial

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decision on the issues in dispute, even though the district court has subject matter jurisdiction."

Allnet Communication Service, Inc. v. National ExchangeCarrierAssociation, Inc., 965 F.2d 1118,

1120 (D.C. Cir. 1992). This doctrine is rooted in the teaching that "in cases raising issues of fact not

within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative

discretion, agencies created byCongressfor regulating the subject mattershould not be passed over."

Far East Conference v. United States, 342 U.S. 570, 574 (1952); see also Allnet Communication,

965 F.2d at 1120 ("The primary jurisdiction doctrine rests both on a concern for uniform outcomes

(which may be defeated if disparate courts resolve regulatory issues inconsistently) and on the

advantages of allowing an agency to apply its expert judgment") (citations omitted).

This is not a case that implicates the primary jurisdiction of the FMC, however. There are

common issues of fact between the two claims(e.g., whether the defendants boycotted the plaintiff),

but there are no common regulatory issues. The Congress applied two different legal regimes to

common and non-common carriers, involving not only different fora but distinctly different remedies

for a violation. Compare 46 U.S.C. App. § 1710(g) (permitting FMC to award up to double damages

for violation of Shipping Act) and id. § 1710(h)(2) (permitting private party to petition district court

to enjoin conduct in violation of Shipping Act during pendency of FMC proceedings) with 15 U.S.C.

§ 15 (requiring court to award treble damages for violation of Clayton Act) and id. § 26 (permitting

court to enjoin future violation of Clayton Act). As we noted in Cruise PassengersI, the relationship

between these two regimes does not involve:

the sort ofjurisdictional overlap that the Congresssought to avoid when it passed the

Shipping Act. Instead, the Congress was concerned about a carrier being subject to

"paralleljurisdiction,'i.e.,remedies and sanctionsfor the same conduct made unlawful

by both the Shipping Act and the antitrust laws.

911 F.2d at 792 (emphasis added). Because common and non-common carriage are distinct

activities, there is no chance that a cruise line will be subject to different regulations and different

sanctions for the same act. (An agreement to boycott the AACP with respect to common carriage

is not the same as an agreement to do so with respect to non-common carriage, although of course

one agreement may cover both.) Whether disparate legal treatment of the alleged boycott(s) is

unwise from a policy perspective is not our concern; nor is the possibility that the boycott might be

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found illegal in one context but legal in the other a sufficient reason to dismiss the putative victim's

suit. In addition, enforcement of the antitrust laws against a regulated industry insofar as it steps

outside the regulated domain is part of the work-a-day world of the district court. See, e.g., Barnes

v. Arden Mayfair, Inc., 759 F.2d 676, 679 (9th Cir. 1985) ("There is no per se exemption [from

antitrust law] for activities of carriers beyond the control ofthe [regulatory] agency") (citing Georgia

v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 324 U.S. 439, 456 (1945)); American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

v. Eastern Pay Phones, Inc., 767 F. Supp. 1335, 1343 (E.D. Va. 1991) ("Antitrust concerns are

within the usual province of the Court and require no special regulatory expertise"). Therefore, the

district court ought to have retained jurisdiction over that part of the suit within its exclusive

jurisdiction.

Even were it not so clear that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction is inapplicable to this case,

we would still be hesitant to see the case dismissed in its entirety. In general, when primary

jurisdiction lies with an administrative agency, the district court should stay the proceedings in front

of it, not dismiss the suit. See, e.g., Reiter v. Cooper, 113 S. Ct. 1213, 1220 (1993). Moreover, in

this case in particular, the AACP notes that a new suit filed against the cruise lines after the

completion of proceedings before the FMC might be barred by the Clayton Act statute of limitations.

Ifso, then dismissalwould have too harsh a consequence to impose upon the plaintiffmerely because

the FMC has jurisdiction over a distinct part of its suit, particularly where the district court could

effortlessly hold the suit in abeyance pending the outcome of proceedings before the FMC. See

Carnation Co. v. Pacific Westbound Conference, 383 U.S. 213, 222-23 (1966) (holding that

dismissal under primary jurisdiction doctrine is not appropriate if "dismissal would ... prejudice the

plaintiff's right to obtain antitrust relief at the appropriate time"). Further, the AACP informed the

district court that in light of our earlier decision requiring it to proceed in two fora, it would likely

not pursue any of its claims respecting the common carriage operations of the cruise lines and would

instead pursue only its Clayton Act claims in the district court. The district court should certainly

have explored that possibility, which would have left before it only a claim unarguably within its

exclusive and obligatory jurisdiction.

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III. CONCLUSION

To sum up, in Cruise Passengers I, we held that the district court has exclusive jurisdiction

over the non-common carriage claims brought by the plaintiff AACP. Today we hold that the

doctrine of primary jurisdiction being inapplicable, the district court must exercise that jurisdiction.

We observe that even where a court could justifiably stay its hand for proceedings to go forward

before the agency with primary jurisdiction, it should hold the suit in abeyance if outright dismissal

could impair the rights of a party.

Accordingly, we remand this case to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent

with this opinion. The order of the district court dismissing the suit is

Reversed.

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