Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/238/812/247966/
Timestamp: 2018-04-20 06:41:00
Document Index: 490375808

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 171', '§ 401', '§ 551', '§ 402', '§ 401', '§ 60']

Allegheny Airlines, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs-appellees,civil Aeronautics Board and Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, Intervenors-appellees, v. Village of Cedarhurst et al., Defendants-appellants, 238 F.2d 812 (2d Cir. 1956) :: Justia
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Allegheny Airlines, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs-appellees,civil Aeronautics Board and Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, Intervenors-appellees, v. Village of Cedarhurst et al., Defendants-appellants, 238 F.2d 812 (2d Cir. 1956)
US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 238 F.2d 812 (2d Cir. 1956)
Argued October 9, 1956
Decided December 13, 1956
The case was tried to the court without a jury, and Judge Bruchhausen permanently enjoined enforcement of the ordinance. His lengthy and thorough opinion is reported in 132 F. Supp. 871. Reference to it will avoid the necessity of recounting here the earlier stages of the litigation or the findings of fact stated in his opinion.2 It will suffice to say, in brief, that the trial court held that under the Commerce Clause, Article 1, section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution, Congress had power to regulate the flight of aircraft in interstate and foreign commerce, that this power was exercised by the Air Commerce Act of 1926, 49 U.S.C.A. § 171 et seq., the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, 49 U.S.C.A. § 401 et seq., and the Regulations of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, that thereby the federal government preempted the field of air traffic regulation, and that the ordinance, which plainly conflicts with the federal statutes and regulations, was invalid.
"* * * to promote safety of flight in air commerce by prescribing and revising from time to time —
The appellants attack the validity of the federal regulations on two main grounds: (a) that they are the product of an invalid delegation of legislative power, and (b) that they constitute a taking of private property without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment. With respect to the latter ground little need be said. In United States v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 66 S. Ct. 1062, 90 L. Ed. 1206, it was held that flights of military aircraft over private land which were so low and so frequent as to result in the destruction of the property as a commercial chicken farm constituted the taking of an easement of flight compensable under the Fifth Amendment. But the opinion recognizes that the ancient common law doctrine that ownership of the land extends to the zenith "has no place in the modern world," 328 U.S. at page 261, 66 S. Ct. at page 1065, and that "Flights over private land are not a taking, unless they are so low and so frequent as to be a direct and immediate interference with the enjoyment and use of the land," 328 U.S. at page 266, 66 S. Ct. at page 1068. In the case at bar the court found that the operation of aircraft over the Village of Cedarhurst, in landing at and taking off from Idlewild, occurs at altitudes of from 450 feet upward to 1,500 feet; that a great majority of flights would be at altitudes of 1,000 feet or above; that aircraft do not operate continually over the Village at even these altitudes but only under particular weather conditions and in the use of particular runways under various sets of circumstances which make it impossible to be precise as to the number of flights over the Village at any specific altitude; and that there is no evidence that the operations constitute a trespass or nuisance to the people of the Village.6 Such findings preclude the possibility of finding a "taking" within the doctrine of the Causby case. See also Hinman v. Pacific Air Transport, 9 Cir., 84 F.2d 755, certiorari denied 300 U.S. 654, 57 S. Ct. 431, 81 L. Ed. 865, which held that flights under 100 feet above the surface do not constitute a trespass in the absence of allegations of actual and substantial damage.
The other main ground of attack upon the regulations of the Board which require a plane on landing or taking off under certain conditions to invade the air space above the land of the Village at less than 1,000 feet is that it represents an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. By section 601(a) (7), 49 U.S.C.A. § 551(a) (7), previously quoted, Congress delegated to the Board the power and the duty to prescribe "rules as to safe altitudes of flight." By section 2(b), 49 U.S.C.A. § 402(b), it was directed to consider as being in the public interest the regulation of air transportation in such manner as to "assure the highest degree of safety." The substance of the appellants' argument is that the word "safe" is not a sufficiently definitive standard to permit valid administrative action under the delegation. They assert that Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S. Ct. 241, 79 L. Ed. 446 and Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S. Ct. 837, 79 L. Ed. 1570, are determinative of the case at bar. Those cases, however, involved delegations without any guiding standard at all. It is not necessary that Congress prescribe a standard that can be applied with mathematic certainty. As the court said in Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742, 785, 68 S. Ct. 1294, 1316, 92 L. Ed. 1694:
"It is not necessary that Congress supply administrative officials with a specific formula for their guidance in a field where flexibility and the adaptation of the congressional policy to infinitely variable conditions constitute the essence of the program. `If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle * * * such legislative action is not a forbidden delegation of legislative power.' J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394, 409, 48 S. Ct. 348, 352, 72 L. Ed. 624. Standards prescribed by Congress are to be read in the light of the conditions to which they are to be applied."
Under the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, as originally passed, the Board was called "Civil Aeronautics Authority."
Prior proceedings have been before this court in All American Airways v. Village of Cedarhurst, 201 F.2d 273 and All American Airways v. Elderd, 209 F.2d 247
"Air commerce" is defined in section 1(3) as including "any operation or navigation of aircraft which directly affects, or which may endanger safety in, interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce"; and "navigable air space" is defined in section 1(24) as "air space above the minimum altitudes of flight prescribed by regulations issued under this chapter." 49 U.S. C.A. § 401
14 C.F.R. "§ 60.17 Minimum Safe Altitudes. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person shall operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
See Chicago & Southern Air Lines v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 107, 68 S. Ct. 431, 92 L. Ed. 568; Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S. Ct. 1146, 91 L. Ed. 1447
These findings appear at pp. 600a-601a, Appellants' Appendix
For example, see Avent v. United States, 266 U.S. 127, 45 S. Ct. 34, 69 L. Ed. 202; Tagg Bros. & Moorhead v. United States, 280 U.S. 420, 50 S. Ct. 220, 74 L. Ed. 524; New York Central Securities Corp. v. United States, 287 U.S. 12, 53 S. Ct. 45, 77 L. Ed. 138; Federal Radio Commission v. Nelson Bros. Co., 289 U.S. 266, 53 S. Ct. 627, 77 L. Ed. 1166; American Power & Light Co. v. S. E. C., 329 U.S. 90, 105, 67 S. Ct. 133, 91 L. Ed. 103