Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/98381/united-states-vs-jones
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Document Index: 13569280

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1339', '§ 549', '§ 525', '§ 41', '§ 250', '§ 1491', '§ 41', '§ 549', '§ 41', '§ 1339', '§ 10', '§ 10', '§ 536', '§ 535']

United States Vs Jones - Citation 98381 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize United States Vs. Jones - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/98381CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnApr-18-1949Case Number336 U.S. 641AppellantUnited StatesRespondentJonesExcerpt:
united states v. jones - 336 u.s. 641 (1949)
this amounted to a review and revision of the commission's.....Judgment:
this amounted to a review and revision of the Commission's findings and orders, and was beyond the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims. Pp.
336 U. S. 662
(a) Congress has not expressly empowered the Court of Claims to review rate orders of the Commission either to set them aside or to render a money judgment for additional amounts found due upon a determination of the invalidity of such an order, and to infer an intention to confer such jurisdiction would be contrary to the limitations Congress has placed upon review of such orders wherever expressly provided as well as to the whole history and practice of Congress in conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims. Pp.
(b) No such jurisdiction was intended to be suggested by the language of this Court's opinion in
336 U. S. 666
(c) In this case, the Court of Claims has not "given effect" to the Commission's rate order, but, in the guise of finding "error of law," has set it aside, together with the Commission's findings, has substituted "findings" of its own, and, in effect, has made a new order by its judgment. Pp.
336 U. S. 653
336 U. S. 669
and since the entry of a money judgment by the Court of Claims would short-circuit the Commission in the ratemaking process. Pp.
(e) Where the Commission is alleged to have acted in excess of its authority or otherwise illegally, a more appropriate remedy would be a suit in a district court as one arising under the postal laws, 28 U.S.C. § 1339, since, unlike the Court of Claims, a district court is not confined to rendering a money judgment by way of relief against the United States, but, if it found a rate order invalid, would have power under its general equity jurisdiction to remand the cause to the Commission for further proceedings. Pp.
336 U. S. 671
2. After reviewing the extended litigation arising out of application to this carrier of the Commission's general orders fixing rates for transporting mail, this Court finds (1) that the carrier has not sustained its burden of showing that the Commission acted arbitrarily or unreasonably, and (2) that the general rates fixed by the Commission's 1928 order are, upon the record made, fair and reasonable as applied to this carrier. Pp.
In a suit by the receiver of a railroad, the Court of Claims awarded a judgment for increased compensation for the transportation of mail notwithstanding findings and orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission (192 I.C.C. 779; 214 I.C.C. 66) denying any increase beyond the amounts already paid for that service under the general rates fixed by the Commission. 110 Ct.Cl. 330, 77 F.Supp. 197. This Court granted certiorari. 335 U.S. 883.
336 U. S. 673
This controversy began in 1931, when respondent's predecessors as receivers of the Georgia & Florida Railroad filed an application with the Interstate Commerce Commission for a reexamination of rates then applicable to it for transporting the mails. Since then, in one form or another, the dispute has found its way back and forth through the Commission and the courts, finally to come here now for the second time.
Through all these years, the carrier and the Commission have been at odds over whether the railroad is entitled to an increase in the rates prescribed for its service for the period beginning April 1, 1931, and ending, as covered by the present suit, February 28, 1938. [
] The case is now here on certiorari to the Court of Claims, 335 U.S. 883, which had rendered a judgment awarding respondent $186,707.06 as increased compensation due for the years 1931 to 1938,
110 Ct.Cl. 330, contrary to the findings and orders of the Commission denying any increase beyond the amounts already paid for that service under the rates fixed by it.
Railway Mail Pay, Georgia & Florida R. Co.,
192 I.C.C. 779;
39 U.S.C. § 549. Other sections specify and define four classes of service, namely, full railway post office car service, apartment service, storage car service, and closed pouch service. 39 U.S.C. §§ 525-530. [
] Only apartment service and closed pouch service are involved in this case.
On December 23, 1919, after extended investigation and hearings, the Commission entered its first general mail rate order.
Railway-Mail Pay,
56 I.C.C. 1. This
adopted the space basis for determining "fair and reasonable rates." On July 10, 1928, in proceedings for reexamination, the Commission granted a general increase of 15% over the preexisting rates.
Railway Mail Pay,
144 I.C.C. 675. The Georgia & Florida Railroad accepted these general rates until April 1, 1931.
At that time, it applied to the Commission for a reexamination of the rates as applied to itself. The application was heard and determined by Division 5. On May 10, 1933, the Commission denied any increase, holding the general rates established by the order of July 10, 1928, fair and reasonable as applied to this carrier.
192 I.C.C. 779. This order is, in substance, though not technically, the one now involved.
After the Commission had denied reconsideration, the railroad sued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to set aside the Commission's order. A special three-judge court was convened,
the Urgent Deficiencies Act, former 28 U.S.C. §§ 41(28), 47; held the order unlawful, and remanded the case to the Commission for further proceedings. This decree was filed on January 23, 1935.
Thereupon, the full Commission conducted further hearings, and, in a report filed February 4, 1936, again found the rates previously fixed to be fair and reasonable in their application to the Georgia & Florida Railroad. The order therefore denied any increase.
Again the carrier resorted to the District Court, filing a supplemental bill. And again that court, composed of the same three judges, held the Commission's order unlawful in a decree filed on February 23, 1937. The Government appealed directly to this Court, which, in
held that the order was not of a type reviewable under the Urgent Deficiencies
] Accordingly, on February 28, 1938, the District Court's judgment was reversed, with directions to dismiss the bill and without determination of the cause on the merits.
After nearly four years, the receivers renewed the litigation by filing this suit in the Court of Claims. The amended petition sets forth in some detail the history of the previous stages of controversy before the Commission and the courts. The carrier's basic claims on the merits are substantially the same as in those proceedings. They are, in effect, (1) that the Commission's orders denying any increase are confiscatory, in that the rates prescribed by the general rate order on July 10, 1928, and continued in effect specifically as to this carrier by the orders of May 10, 1933, and February 4, 1936, do not afford just compensation under the Fifth Amendment on the ground that they do not provide for payment of the cost of the service rendered plus a reasonable return upon invested capital allocated to that service, and (2) that the Commission's orders do not afford the "fair and reasonable" compensation required by the Railway Mail Pay Act. [
] Both claims rest upon attacks made on the Commission's findings as being unsupported by the evidence before it, and on its conclusions as being contrary to that evidence.
§ 250, now 28 U.S.C. § 1491, and upon statements made in part Fourth of the opinion in United
States v. Griffin,
Although the Railway Mail Pay Act contains no explicit provision for judicial review of orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission fixing rates of pay for transporting the mails pursuant to authorizations of the Postmaster General for such service, it had been thought, until the decision in
that such orders were of the kind reviewable under the Urgent Deficiencies Act. The affect of that decision, however, was to rule out such orders as those now in question from the jurisdiction conferred by the latter Act.
While the "negative order" basis for the Court's ruling is no longer effective,
, the alternative grounding remains in full force. 303 U.S. at
] Since the very orders now in issue were involved in the
case, it is settled that the railroad or its receivers had no recourse to
case, however, was not content to rest merely with this negative jurisdictional ruling. In part Fourth of the opinion, the Court went on to say that its ruling did not "preclude every character of judicial review." 303 U.S. at
. The opinion then suggested three possible other methods, two in the Court of Claims and one in the district courts.
"If the Commission makes the appropriate finding of reasonable compensation, but fails, because of an alleged error of law, to order payment of the full amount which the railroad believes is payable under the finding, the Court of Claims has jurisdiction of an action for the balance, as the claim asserted is one founded upon a law of Congress.
65 Ct.Cl. 115, 121. And since railway mail service is compulsory, the Court of Claims would, under the general provisions of the Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 505, have jurisdiction also of an action for additional compensation if an order is confiscatory.
. Moreover, as district courts have jurisdiction of every suit at law or in equity 'arising
under the postal laws,' 28 U.S.C. § 41(6), suit would lie under their general jurisdiction if the Commission is alleged to have acted in excess of its authority, or otherwise illegally.
-289."
On the other hand, the Court of Claims expressly disclaims that it was exercising any jurisdiction over constitutional matters. This was done in denying the carrier's claim to interest on the award. [
] In the court's view, therefore, the jurisdiction which it was exerting fell within the first class of cases stated in the
opinion to be within the Court of Claims' jurisdiction, namely, where the Commission makes the appropriate finding of reasonable compensation but fails, because of an alleged error of law, to order payment of the full amount the carrier believes payable under the finding.
It disputes that the court "gave effect," as the court stated, [
] to the Commission's order or ordered payment of any balance due under the Commission's finding. Rather, the Government urges, the court flouted that order, substituted its own judgment for the Commission's concerning the appropriate order to be entered, and in effect entered a wholly new and different order from that made by the Commission, together with a money judgment giving its own view effect.
If, as the court asserts, it was "giving effect" to the Commission's order, and doing so without substituting its own judgment for the Commission's as to what was a "fair and reasonable rate," there should be little difficulty in sustaining the jurisdiction [
] -- that is, unless respondent is right in his contention the the Court was called upon to and, notwithstanding its disclaimer, in fact did, adjudicate his claim for just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. In that event, and on the assumption that the award was proper on the merits, reversal would be required in order that the court might make appropriate allowance for interest. [
substituted its own judgment for the Commission's concerning what constituted a "fair and reasonable rate," the question arises whether the
statements were intended to give that power to the Court of Claims under either category of jurisdiction the opinion said that court might have.
It would be strange, indeed anomalous in the extreme, if this Court, by its
pronouncements, intended to confer on the Court of Claims, by implication in the cases there held not reviewable under the Urgent Deficiencies Act, a broader, more conclusive, and final power of judicial review than that Act expressly provided for like orders within its purview. The assumption is hardly tenable that Congress intended such a result when it enacted the Railway Mail Pay Act or the Urgent Deficiencies Act or both. Congress in no instance has expressly empowered the Court of Claims to review rate orders of the Commission, [
] either to set them aside or to render a money judgement for additional amounts found due upon a determination of an order's invalidity. To infer such an intention would be contrary not only in spirit to the limitations Congress has placed upon review of such orders wherever expressly provided, but
Necessarily, this restraint reflected the jurisdictional limitations placed upon the court by the Urgent Deficiencies Act. But those limitations themselves reflected another policy, quite apart from and in addition to that giving effect to the constitutional limitations of Article III. [
] The limitations exemplify settled congressional policy concerning the relations of ratemaking bodies and reviewing courts. Not only is ratemaking essentially legislative in the first instance. The policy of judicial restraint is one having regard for the expertise of special agencies charged with performing the ratemaking function, and for the inherent actual, as well as legal, disability of courts to execute that function. Such doctrines or policies as those of "primary jurisdiction" [
] and exhaustion of administrative remedies [
] lie at the very root of the problem. And this is as true of the jurisdiction
of the Court of Claims, which is not restricted by Article III, as it is of courts so limited. [
A full understanding of the Commission's orders and of the effects of the action taken regarding them, both by the three-judge district court and by the Court of Claims, can be had only by reading and comparing the reports and opinions. [
] The limitations of space prevent summarizing their content here in substantial detail. But the gist of the controversy between the Commission and the courts may be indicated.
In its first general rate proceeding, the Commission classified the nation's carriers, for mail-pay compensation purposes, placing the Georgia & Florida Railroad in Class I. [
] It also decided generally upon the space basis as an appropriate method of determining fair and reasonable compensation. 56 I.C.C. 1.
The problem arose both in the proceedings culminating in the first general rate order, 56 I.C.C. 1, and in those resulting in the general rate increase of 1928. 144 I.C.C. 675. In the latter, the initial separation of total operating expenses between freight and passenger services was made on the basis of the Commission's rules governing such separation on large steam railways.
at 685-688. But, for determining the cost of service in respect to the further allocation and apportionment of passenger train service among its three components, the Commission, having determined upon the space basis for this initial stage in fixing "fair and reasonable rates," was faced with the problem of what should be done with unused space.
That problem presents the crux of this case, as it did of the Commission's action. In the proceedings leading to the 1928 order, three general plans were given primary consideration for distributing space. They are described in the report last cited.
at 681, 689. In general, they were alike in allocating full car [
] space to the service it performed. But they differed widely in allocating unused space in so-called combination cars and mixed cars. [
] Without going into further detail here, suffice it to say that Plan 3 allocated the largest amounts of unused space to passenger and express service and correspondingly the smallest amount to mail service; Plan 2, more nearly approximating the carrier's proposals, worked out in inverse proportions, and Plan 1 lay between the two.
144 I.C.C. at 681, 689.
The differences in results following from use of the various plans were highly significant, making the difference between net return and net deficit, or deficits of different sizes, depending upon which plan was used. [
] In each plan, after the ultimate space ratios were determined by complicated statistical studies, they were applied to total passenger train service expense to determine expense ratios for the three constituent services. And those expense ratios were also used to apportion investment in road and equipment assigned to passenger train service.
The Commission rejected Plan 3 because, it said, that plan had departed from the car operating unit which it had adopted for making space allocations. 144 I.C.C. 689-691. While not specifically eliminating Plan 1 from consideration for purposes of comparison, the Commission primarily rested its allocations of space for purposes of tentative or preliminary apportionment of costs and capital on Plan 2.
"In connection with the cost studies under any of the plans for dividing the train space, it should be borne in mind that, in computations of this character, where the direct allocations are relatively small and the great bulk of expenses and investment are necessarily divided, subdivided, apportioned, and reapportioned upon
various theories and assumptions,
the results cannot be accepted as an accurate ascertainment of the costs of service.
they are approximations to be given such weight as seems proper in view of all the circumstances under which they have been obtained and the theories underlying the assumptions and the various steps in the computations."
The Commission proceeded to consider the results obtained by the use of the Plan 2 formula in the light of other circumstances and considerations deemed relevant, including comparison with results obtained upon the basis of the total equated 60-foot-car miles (
144 I.C.C. at 692), the fact that there was no such incentive to limit the amount of space utilized for passenger, baggage, and express services as existed in the case of mail service,
at 693, and other factors. The Commission then concluded:
"Giving consideration to all the figures
based upon the respective cost studies;
to the fact that none of these figures except those in the carriers' exhibits includes any charge against the passenger train service for its proportion of the cost of handling nonrevenue freight; giving special weight to the figures based on the plan for the division of train space followed in the original proceeding and subsequent reexaminations, and making allowance for weaknesses of theories and methods, an increase of 15 percent in mail revenues for the carriers as a whole in this group is justified."
As in the general rate investigations and for the same reasons, the Division was unwilling to rest exclusively upon the results obtained by the computations under Plan 2, and went on to consider other factors which it deemed relevant in determining the fairness and reasonableness of the rates. It found that of the three component services in passenger train service, "the mail service makes the best showing with respect to revenue." [
"The cost study is not considered to be an accurate ascertainment of the actual cost of service. It is an approximation to be given such weight as seems proper in view of all the circumstances.
See Railway Mail Pay, supra.
When the cause was returned to the Commission by the Georgia District Court in 1935, the full Commission reopened the proceeding and held a further hearing at which further evidence was received. In remanding the cause, the district court had stressed the computed finding under Plan 2 that "[t]he distribution of expense upon the space ratios shows that the operating ratio for mail service was 102.79," [
] or, as the court added, "that, for every dollar applicants received for transporting mails, they expended one dollar and 2.79 cents." The court then asserted that other considerations taken into account by Division 5
The Commission then again repeated its insistence that cost computed under such a formula as Plan 2 "is a hypothetical cost, and not an actual cost,"
that, in other mail-pay proceedings, consideration had been given to other factors; [
] and, again taking such factors into account, concluded upon the augmented record that the rates then applicable to the carrier were fair and reasonable. 214 I.C.C. at 70-76.
On return of the cause, the district court disclaimed entertaining the view "that the hypothetical cost is
necessarily conclusive.'" Rather, the court said, "It is merely the fairest method that has been devised." It held inapplicable to the carrier the considerations utilized by the Commission to qualify the results computed by
It is obvious from the foregoing account that the basic difference between the Commission and the district court lay in whether the Commission's statistical and mathematical computations under Plan 2 alone should be taken as determinative of costs, and thus of fair and reasonable rates, [
] or whether those computations were rightly taken by the Commission as merely tentative estimates or approximations, applicable in the initial stage of rate determination, but subject to qualification by comparison with results obtained under other plans and, in the final stage, by consideration of other factors found pertinent in the Commission's judgment.
"Under finding 16 herein, it is shown that the Interstate Commerce Commission found and determined that plaintiff would require an increase in its mail revenue of 87.4% in order to secure for itself, under Plan 2 adopted by the Commission, a return of 5.75% theretofore fixed by the Commission, on its investments in road and equipment engaged in mail traffic. . . .
The Commission has, by its
use of Plan No. 2, adjudged it to be a fair and reasonable basis.
And out of that basis there has been ascertained, by formulae prescribed by the Commission, what is the fair and reasonable compensation for plaintiffs' carriage of the mails beginning the first of April 1931, and ending at the close of February, 1938. Fair and reasonable compensation cannot be both a deficit and the amount of $186,707.06 so found. It is, we conclude, the latter."
In the latter respect, the court disregarded not only the general rule which gives administrative determinations in such matters presumptive weight, [
] but also the effect of the statute itself. As has been noted, the Railway Mail Pay Act expressly authorized the Commission to classify carriers, and, "where just and equitable, fix general rates applicable to all carriers in the same classification." 39 U.S.C. § 549. While this general authority did not preclude examination of the general rate's application to a particular carrier, it gave that rate
validity as to all within the classification. Indeed, contrary to the court's holding that the Commission could not consider rates paid to other carriers or their effects, the statute required the Commission to take those rates
The burden of proof was therefore clearly upon the carrier to show that the general rate was unfair and unreasonable as applied to it, and not, as the court held, upon the Commission to show that that rate as applied was fair and reasonable.
"As the Supreme Court has said, this Court has jurisdiction to render judgment of recovery for an amount sufficient to constitute fair and reasonable compensation
under the facts as found by the Commission,
unpaid through failure of the Commission,
because of an error of law,
to order payment thereof."
110 Ct.Cl. at 366. (Emphasis added.) That language, on its face, seems fully in accord with the
pronouncement. As will be recalled, it was:
"If the Commission makes the appropriate finding of reasonable compensation but fails,
because of an alleged error of law,
to order payment of the full amount which the railroad believes is payable
under the finding,
the Court of Claims has jurisdiction of an action for the balance, as the claim asserted is one founded upon a law of Congress."
On its face, this language does not authorize revision of the Commission's findings or of the rate it prescribes by the Court of Claims. The claim of which it is said to have jurisdiction is one for "the full amount which the railroad believes is payable
" some part of which the Commission has failed to order paid by reason of an error of law. There was no intimation of authority for the court to reexamine the facts or to substitute its own judgment concerning the facts to be considered or the weight to be given them in determining the rate. True, the wording reads "appropriate" finding. But we cannot construe that single word to mean that this Court intended the Court of Claims to reopen the entire question of the order's appropriateness and substitute
Such a construction is sustained by none of the cases cited in the
opinion to support the statement, [
and is directly contrary to previous decisions by the Court of Claims with reference to its power to review such orders of the Commission. [
] Moreover, to conceive
statement as sanctioning the broad authority assumed by the court would be, for reasons already stated, to give it by implication a jurisdiction which Congress has never expressly conferred.
language contemplated a much narrower jurisdiction. The purpose was, in our judgment, to indicate that review might be had of the carrier's claim whenever it does not run in the teeth of the Commission's findings or order or seek revision of that order. In other words, the claim must be one consistent with the Commission's order fixing the rate, but asserting underpayment by reason of some error of law in its application which would not require the Commission's further consideration for fixing a new rate. This view is consistent with all of the authorities cited in
to sustain the first category of jurisdiction said to reside in the Court of Claims. It is the view we think this Court meant to be taken.
As we have pointed out, however, here, the Court of Claims, though asserting the contrary, has not "given effect" to the rate order, but, in the guise of finding "error of law," has set it aside, together with the Commission's findings; has substituted "findings" of its own, and has made, in effect, a new order by its judgment. It follows, in our view of what was intended by the Griffin statement, that the Court of Claims had no jurisdiction in this case, since it involves no such "error of law" as that statement contemplated, but relates only to questions essentially of fact going to the order's appropriateness on the merits. The case is wholly unlike
United States v. New York Central R. Co.,
, and other cases cited in the
respondent insists it was. For the reasons already stated, respondent has not shown that the Commission's order was confiscatory in its effects. Moreover, jurisdictionally speaking, none of the cases cited by the
opinion to sustain the second category [
] of jurisdiction in the Court of Claims involved any problem of reviewing rate orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. All related to questions of compensation resulting from takings of private property for public use, in which the only questions determined were the value of the property taken or that value coupled with the right to interest on the award. [
] While respondent contends that the effect of the Commission's order here has been to deprive it of its property without just compensation, and justifies the Court of Claims' award on that basis, the court did not so ground its decision, and, as we have said, respondent has not made out any such case.
Moreover, in view of the fact that the Court of Claims has jurisdiction only to render a money judgment against the United States, and none to remand to the Commission for further consideration a rate order which it might find confiscatory, we do not think the
ruling can be taken to have contemplated that, upon such a finding, made after reviewing the Commission's order on the merits, the Court of Claims could foreclose the Commission from further consideration of the order, and render
final judgment for the amount by which it had found the order confiscatory. This not only would short-circuit the Commission in the ratemaking process, but would involve substituting the court's judgment for the Commission's as to the amount of any new rate which might be fixed. Consequently, we do not think this case falls within either category of jurisdiction indicated by the
statement as possibly available in the Court of Claims.
There remains the third remedy suggested in the
opinion, namely, by suit in the district court as one at law or in equity "arising under the postal laws," former 28 U.S.C. § 41(6),
present 28 U.S.C. § 1339, where the Commission is alleged to have acted in excess of its authority, or otherwise illegally. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary to consider whether this remedy would have been available to respondent, since it has not been followed.
However, notwithstanding some obvious difficulties in making district court jurisdiction available for review in such a proceeding as this, [
] that jurisdiction possesses one outstanding advantage over review in the Court of Claims. It is that the district courts are not confined, as is the Court of Claims, to rendering a money judgment by way of relief against the United States. Under their general equity jurisdiction, they would have power, on finding a rate order invalid, whether as confiscatory or as not complying with the statute, to remand the cause to the Commission for further proceedings. In this respect, the review afforded and the relief given would more
case was decided, Congress has adopted the so-called Administrative Procedure Act, [
] which, by § 10, entitled "Judicial review of agency action," provides:
This provision, we think, adds force to the suggestion made in the
case concerning the jurisdiction of the district courts in relation to review of rate orders like those now in question. Such review under the equity or declaratory jurisdiction of those courts would seem to afford a remedy consonant with § 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, and also more nearly like that afforded by the Urgent Deficiencies Act, though without its expediting features. The relief afforded, unlike that required in the Court of Claims, could thus be limited to setting aside or enjoining the Commission's order and remanding the cause to it for further consideration, as
is done in like cases reviewable by three-judge courts. Consistently with that jurisdiction also, the review could be confined to the record made before the Commission, [
] rather than one compiled by independent evidence not presented to the Commission or considered by it.
* Together with No. 198,
Jones, Receiver v. United States,
As has been stated, the Court of Claims, accepting jurisdiction, rendered judgment for the respondent for $186,707.06. Its determination was based upon the various reports of the Commission above cited, although evidence was received by the court's commissioner which was not before the Interstate Commerce Commission. He made extensive special findings of fact based in part upon this evidence which were adopted by the court and filed, together with its opinion. 110 Ct.Cl. 330. Both the Government and the respondent applied for certiorari and both petitions were granted.
The opinion, quoting the Court of Claims' language in an earlier railway mail pay case,
65 Ct.Cl. 115, 128-129,
aff'd, United States v. New York Central R. Co.,
110 Ct.Cl. at 373.
S. 641fn29|>29
Cf. Jacobs v. United States,
Which, among other things, forbid non-District of Columbia courts created pursuant to that Article to exercise legislative functions such as ratemaking.
Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation,
51 Harv.L.Rev. 1251.
-464 (
concurring opinion, 291 U.S. at
291 U. S. 465
Berger, Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies, 48 Yale L.J. 981; 44 Mich.L.Rev. 1035.
Combination cars include space separated by partitions into "apartments,"
with each apartment devoted exclusively to a different use. Mixed cars contain no partitions or "apartments," but are used for several different services,
baggage, express and mailpouch services.
note 2; 144 I
C.C. at 679.
See Railway Mail Pay,
144 I.C.C. at 688-689. Plan 3, the Commission said in that general rate proceeding, would result in a
at 689, giving a net return under Plan 3 of 5.94 percent, but requiring an increased rate of 26.48 percent under Plan 2 and of 7.43 percent under Plan 1 to meet the computed deficits and give a net return of 5.7 percent on the invested capital allocated to mail.
"In other mail pay proceedings, in which space authorized and paid for was found to be the space that should be charged to mail in cost studies similar to that here, consideration was given to other factors as well, such as the amount and character of the unused space reported as operated,
85 I.C.C. 157, 170, 123 I.C.C. 33, 39; the actual space occupied by mail, as distinguished from authorized space, determined by the mail load, carried, based upon a count of bags and of packages outside of bags, and, in some instances, by the weight,
95 I.C.C. 493, 500, 511, 120 I.C.C. 439, 446; comparisons with compensation received from other services in passenger train cars,
144 I.C.C. 675, 706; comparisons with freight rates,
144 I.C.C. 675, 705, 151 I.C.C. 734, 742; comparisons per car-mile and per car-foot-mile of the computed cost of mail service and the revenue from authorized mail service with the computed cost of corresponding units in passenger train service as a whole,
144 I.C.C. 675, 699, and the character of the service performed in connection with transporting the mail,
56 I.C.C. 1, 8,
Electric Railway Mail Pay,
58 I.C.C. 455, 464, 98 I.C.C. 737, 755."
See, e.g., Shields v. Utah Idaho Cent. R. Co.,
Cf. Norton v. Warner Co.,
Cited in the text, 303 U.S. at
, upholding the Court of Claims' view on demurrer that Congress, in enacting 39 U.S.C. § 536, not only intended to, but had power to, provide that land grant railroads were to receive only 80% of whatever mail pay rate the Commission should set not only for mere transportation of mail (
closed pouch space) but for space in which postal employees sorted mail (
apartment mail cars), and
, affirming the Court of Claims' conclusion that the Commission had power to make mail rate revisions applicable as of the date of the carrier's request for reexamination of rates, rather than as of the date of the Commission order raising the rate.
Court of Claims mail pay decisions cited in a footnote, 303 U.S. at
, n. 10, included:
Chicago & E.I. R. Co. v. United States,
63 Ct.Cl. 585;
Nevada County Narrow Gauge R. Co. v. United States,
65 Ct.Cl. 327;
72 Ct.Cl. 407;
78 Ct.Cl. 251; 79 Ct.Cl. 298. In each of these cases, the claimant carrier recovered compensation in excess of that allowed it by the Postmaster General, but, in each case, the dispute centered around the meaning of a Commission rate order or the Commission's power to enter the order made; in none was there any challenge to the rate itself. Thus, in the first
Chicago & E.I. R. Co. case, supra,
the question was whether the Commission had, in accordance with 39 U.S.C. § 535, ordered compensation for the return to their departure points of mail storage cars. In the second
the question was whether "closed pouch space" was a "lesser unit" within the meaning of a rate order setting compensation for a "storage car or lesser unit." The
Nevada County Narrow Gauge R. Co. case, supra,
was a companion to
65 Ct.Cl. 115,
, holding that the Commission had power to order a rate increase effective as of the date of the application for such increase. Similarly, the two opinions in
Macon, D. & S. R. Co., supra,
held that the Commission had power retroactively to reclassify the claimant carrier in a higher compensation bracket as of a date prior to the carrier's application for reclassification so as to impose on the United States liability for additional compensation from that retroactively determined date of reclassification.
Pere Marquette R. Co. v. United States,
59 Ct.Cl. 538, the carrier sought compensation for mail car space furnished by the carrier where that space was neither authorized by the Post Office Department nor in fact used for mail transportation, and where the Commission had not ordered compensation; the Court of Claims said,
at 545, in dismissing the petition:
80 Ct.Cl. at 248.
Cf. Denver & Rio Grande R. Co. v. United States,
50 Ct.Cl. 382, 391.
"And, since railway mail service is compulsory, the Court of Claims would, under the general provisions of the Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 505, have jurisdiction also of an action for additional compensation if an order is confiscatory.
As to interest,
case, both cited in
Our attention has not been called to attacks on railway mail rate orders based on this grant of jurisdiction, but it may be noted that district court suits to enjoin the Postmaster General's fraud orders are commonplace.
332 U. S. 492
See Tagg Bros. & Moorhead v. United States,
Cf. National Broadcasting Co. v. United States,
319 U. S. 227
Shields v. Utah, Idaho Cent. R. Co.,