Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/347/645.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:08:46+00:00

Document:
The Interstate Commerce Commission approved special charges, in addition to the existing line-haul rates, for unloading services performed by railroads transporting fruits and vegetables into New York and Philadelphia. Normally unloading is done by the consignees, but at these points, due to special conditions, the unloading is performed by the carriers at considerable expense. The produce is not accessible to the consignees until after it has been unloaded. Various protestants contended that since circumstances here make the unloading a part of the transportation service, the Commission could not allow these special charges without first examining the sufficiency of the line-haul rates to cover these unloading costs. On appeal from a judgment of the District Court upholding the order of the Commission, held: The judgment is vacated and the cases are remanded to the Commission because of the inadequacy of its findings to explain the legal basis of its decision. Pp. 646-655.
(a) In dealing with technical and complex matters, the Commission must necessarily have wide discretion in formulating appropriate solutions. But here the Commission has not adequately explained its departure from prior norms. A court must know clearly what a Commission decision, when challenged, means before it can say whether that decision can be sustained. Pp. 650-654.
(c) The Commission should also be more explicit in stating the reasons that led it to assimilate, so far as these unloading charges are concerned, the situation at Philadelphia to that at New York. P. 655.
114 F. Supp. 420, judgment vacated and cases remanded.
[ Footnote * ] Together with No. 481, Florida Citrus Commission et al. v. United States et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Neil Brooks argued the cause and filed a brief for appellant in No. 480.
Maxwell W. Wells argued the cause for appellants in No. 481. On the brief were Mr. Wells for the Florida Citrus Commission et al., John F. Donelan and Preston B. Kavanagh for the California Citrus League et al., Sidney Goldstein, Francis A. Mulhern, Wilbur LaRoe, Jr., Arthur L. Winn, Jr. and Samuel H. Moerman for the Port of New York Authority, James J. Thornton and G. Gary Sousa for the City of New York, Earl J. Gratz and David B. Fitzgerald for the Philadelphia Terminals Marketing Association et al., and Wilmer A. Hill for the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association et al., appellants in No. 481.
Edward M. Reidy argued the cause for the Interstate Commerce Commission, appellee. With him on the brief was Leo H. Pou.
Hugh B. Cox argued the cause for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. et al., appellees. With him on the brief were Francis L. Brown, A. P. Donadio, Joseph F. Eshelman and Charles A. Horsky.
Five railroads which transport fruits and vegetables into New York and Philadelphia filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission schedules of charges for unloading services performed by them at these points. Various shippers and shipper organizations, State Commissions, and other interested parties, protested the proposed [347 U.S. 645, 647] charges. The Secretary of Agriculture, acting on behalf of the affected agricultural interests, intervened. 1 The Commission in due course approved the charges, 272 I. C. C. 648. On further consideration, the approved charges were cut roughly in half, 286 I. C. C. 119. Complaints against even these reduced charges were then filed with the Commission, but these were dismissed by it on the basis of its prior decision, and this litigation to enjoin and set aside the Commission's order followed. 28 U.S.C. 1336, 2325. Numerous parties again intervened - the shipper and consumer interests on the side of the protestants, and the carriers involved on the side of the Commission. The three-judge district court, with Judge De Vane dissenting, upheld the Commission, 114 F. Supp. 420. Direct appeals under 28 U.S.C. 1253 brought the cases here. 347 U.S. 902 .
The general rule is that it is the responsibility of the carrier, as part of the transportation service covered by the line-haul rate, to "deliver" the goods by placing them in such a position as to make them accessible to the consignee. Normally unloading is not a part of the delivery and is performed by the consignee. In accordance with these principles, the railroad spots the car on the team track in its yards in the destination city, and the consignee is given appropriate free time in which to unload. In the case of private sidings, the railroad's job ends when it has placed the car on the consignee's siding.
These are not inflexible rules. The law recognizes and reflects the practicalities of transportation by rail and the diversities to which they give rise. Prior to 1925, the railroads, in order to meet the demands of competitive transportation industries, performed the unloading [347 U.S. 645, 648] without additional charge at specified points. In the case of Loading and Unloading Carload Freight, 101 I. C. C. 394, the Commission approved tariffs by the railroads abolishing free unloading at most of these points, and authorized the carriers to make an additional charge thereafter for performing the unloading at the consignee's request. By the time the present proceeding was instituted, Philadelphia and New York were the only points where the carriers were still performing unloading without any charge in addition to the line-haul rate.
It was in the light of this background that the carriers, faced by the sharply rising costs of the unloading operation, sought the Commission's approval for special unloading charges at these two cities. Such charges, the carriers urged, would serve to bring New York and Philadelphia into line with the generally prevailing practice - that consignees must either do their own unloading or, if they want the carrier to do it for them, they must be prepared to pay for it.
These are claims that must be met, and the real question before us is whether the Commission has met them with an adequacy that satisfies the requirements of judicial review, limited though its scope may be. With respect to New York, the Commission's findings clearly show that since the consignees were not permitted to do [347 U.S. 645, 651] their own unloading, the goods were not accessible to them until unloaded by the carriers. 7 Cf. United States v. United States Smelting Co., 339 U.S. 186 . Moreover, prior cases of the Commission dealing with the New York terminal have indicated that the unloading cost there is an integral part of the through rate. See Fruits and Vegetables to Duane St., N. Y., 66 I. C. C. 135, 139; Erie R. Co. v. Alabama & V. R. Co., 98 I. C. C. 268, 272, 280-281. Yet the court below attributed to the Commission findings that "the line haul service terminated when the cars reached the pier station," and that "unloading is an additional service, wholly distinct from delivery." 114 F. Supp., at 424. But the findings of the Commission, taken as a whole, do not support these statements.
Prior cases where the Commission had sustained the imposition of unloading charges do not serve as useful precedents here. E. g., Loading and Unloading Carload Freight, supra. In those cases, there was an absence of circumstances to justify deviation from the normal rule that unloading is not part of delivery, and therefore the Commission was warranted in concluding that the carrier might impose a separate charge for the unloading where the consignee requested it. Here, however, because of the peculiar conditions prevailing at the New York piers, [347 U.S. 645, 652] the unloading is an essential part of the delivery and hence is necessarily encompassed in the line haul. Instead of treating this situation on its own merits, the Commission appears to have relied too much on prior decisions dealing with the problem of unloading charges in different contexts.
While the normal course for the Commission in dealing with a situation like the present would have been to re-examine the sufficiency of the line-haul rate, or to initiate a new division of the existing line-haul rate, 8 the Commission was not precluded from following a procedure fairly adapted to the unique circumstances of this case. The Commission may not unnaturally have felt that it would be undesirable to revise the line-haul rate with its inevitable effect on the entire tariff structure, in order to deal appropriately with the special, localized situation presented at the New York piers. Or the Commission might well have thought that a redivision of the line-haul rate would not be appropriate for the substantial additional cost here involved.
It is not necessary now to consider the Commission's power, under appropriate findings, to approve such unloading charges without pursuing one of these courses. In dealing with technical and complex matters like these, the Commission must necessarily have wide discretion in formulating appropriate solutions. But we do say that while the Commission has adumbrated the reasons [347 U.S. 645, 653] that commended these charges to its approval, 9 the Commission has not adequately explained its departure from prior norms and has not sufficiently spelled out the legal basis of its decision. We do not know whether the Commission has disregarded its own findings that the unloading here is a prerequisite to delivery of the goods; or whether, in order to meet an unusual situation, the Commission has modified the normal doctrine that delivery is the responsibility of the carrier, see New England [347 U.S. 645, 654] Coal & Coke Co. v. Norfolk & W. R. Co., 33 I. C. C. 276; or whether the Commission, for a reason not made explicit, has here deemed irrelevant the prevailing rule of its prior cases that a service necessarily encompassed by the line-haul rate cannot be separately restated without examining the sufficiency of the line-haul rate to cover it. See, e. g., Terminal Charges at Pacific Coast Ports, 255 I. C. C. 673; Unloading Lumber to New York Harbor, 256 I. C. C. 463. In short, the Commission has not explained its decision "with the simplicity and clearness through which a halting impression ripens into reasonable certitude. In the end we are left to spell out, to argue, to choose between conflicting inferences. Something more precise is requisite in the quasi-jurisdictional findings of an administrative agency. Beaumont, S. L. & W. R. Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 74, 86 ; Florida v. United States, 282 U.S. 194, 215 . We must know what a decision means before the duty becomes ours to say whether it is right or wrong." United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 294 U.S. 499, 510 -511.
Similarly, we deem it desirable that upon reconsideration of this controversy, the Commission should also be more explicit in stating the reasons that led it to assimilate, so far as these unloading charges are concerned, the situation at Philadelphia to that at New York.
The judgment is vacated, and the cases are ordered to be remanded to the Commission for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
[ Footnote 1 ] Under 7 U.S.C. 1291, the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to make complaint to the Commission as well as to intervene before the Commission and resort to original and appellate judicial remedies in cases affecting the transportation of farm products.
[ Footnote 2 ] The New York Central and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads also perform such floatage.
[ Footnote 3 ] The unloading practices vary somewhat from carrier to carrier. For example, the Erie has a special contractor do its unloading; the Pennsylvania uses automatic equipment instead of manual labor.
[ Footnote 4 ] 272 I. C. C., at 655. In its later report, the Commission also made the somewhat inconsistent finding that "at the original hearing the railroads offered to permit consignees to unload their freight from the car float." 286 I. C. C., at 125. But when the California Fruit Growers Exchange, after the Commission's initial decision, requested the railroads to "permit the consignees, as a whole, to perform the unloading at the piers" the railroads refused.
[ Footnote 5 ] The B. & O. terminal is used jointly by it and the Reading Railroad.
[ Footnote 6 ] At Philadelphia, too, the consignees requested the carriers to be permitted to do their own unloading, or to let the auction company which was selling the fruit on their account do the unloading. The Pennsylvania refused, on the ground that the "terminal was a public facility and that the granting of such permission might give rise to a dual method of unloading, one to be conducted by the fruit and vegetable trade, and the other by the railroad for the general public." 286 I. C. C., at 137. In this connection, it should be noted that the Commission made no findings that it would be "impracticable" for the consignees to do the unloading at the Philadelphia produce terminals.
[ Footnote 7 ] 272 I. C. C. 648, 654-655: "Delivery to the consignee is not effected until after the cars are unloaded and the lading placed at a convenient location on the pier floor." 286 I. C. C. 119, 125: "The pier floor is the first place where, after the freight has been unloaded, delivery can be taken." 286 I. C. C. 119, 127: "After the vegetables are placed on the pier platform they are accessible to the consignee . . . ." 286 I. C. C. 119, 129: The proposed charge, in addition to the line-haul rate, is "for making delivery at New York piers." The relation between the unloading charges and the line haul was also adverted to in the Commission's earlier report, 272 I. C. C., at 662, but not with sufficient clarity.
[ Footnote 8 ] Under 49 U.S.C. 15 (6), the Commission may authorize a new division of the rate among the participating carriers if it finds the present division "unjust, unreasonable, [or] inequitable." In such a proceeding special terminal costs can be taken into account prior to allocating the rate among the line-haul carriers. See Erie R. Co. v. Alabama & V. R. Co., 98 I. C. C. 268, 280; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Arcade & A. R. Corp., 194 I. C. C. 729, 745-747; Official-Southern Divisions, 287 I. C. C. 497, 538-543; Official-Southwestern Divisions, 287 I. C. C. 553, 584-593.
[ Footnote 10 ] 49 U.S.C. 2 prohibits a carrier from charging or receiving "a greater or less compensation for any service rendered . . . than it charges . . . any other person . . . [for] a like and contemporaneous service in the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances . . . ." Section 3 (1) makes it unlawful for any carrier to subject "any particular description of traffic to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever . . . ."

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