Opinion ID: 313974
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: applicable supreme court precedent.

Text: 50 We believe the starting point for our discussion must be AF of L v. NLRB, 308 U.S. 401, 60 S.Ct. 300, 84 L.Ed. 347 (1940). There, the Court was faced with a petition by the AF of L and its affiliated unions seeking review of a Board certification of the CIO-affiliated union as bargaining representative for the West Coast Longshoremen. Petitioners contended that the certification was a final order of the Board, that they were aggrieved by the final order, and that the certification, effectively determining the bargaining representative for an entire region, was beyond the Board's power. 51 Petitioners predicated their petition for review upon Sec. 10(f) of the NLRA (Wagner Act). 29 U.S.C. Sec. 160(f). That section provides for direct appellate review of final orders in the court of appeals by any aggrieved party. Petitioners contended the certification was a final order for purposes of review under Sec. 10(f). However, certification was nowhere spoken of as an order of the Board. Thus, the Court was required to ascertain whether these certifications of bargaining representatives by the Board were final orders for purposes of the statute. 308 U.S. at 408, 60 S.Ct. 300. 52 In examining the statutory history, the Court noted that the predecessor statute to the Wagner Act had allowed for review of the predecessor Board's certifications of bargaining representatives; in that statute, they had been denominated orders of certification. By the time of the debates on the Wagner Act, some experience under the prior act had been gained. As to the provisions allowing review of these orders of certification, Congress noted, with strong disapproval, that review of these orders had caused significant problems in gaining prompt compliance with the dictates of both the act and the Board. Resultantly, Congress deleted the phrase orders of certification in the Wagner Act and substituted only the word certification. With this history, the Court, in holding the certifications of the Board under the Wagner Act immune from direct appellate review under the terms of Sec. 10(f), stated: 53 Here it is evident that the entire structure of the Act emphasizes for purposes of review, the distinction between an order of the Board restraining an unfair labor practice [reviewable under Sec. 10(f)] and a certification in representation proceedings. . . . [Certification], authorized by Sec. 9, is nowhere spoken of as an order, and no procedure is prescribed for its review apart from an order prohibiting an unfair labor practice. . . . The statute on its face thus indicates a purpose to limit the review afforded by Sec. 10 to orders of the Board prohibiting unfair labor practices, a purpose and construction which the legislative history confirms. 54 . . . [I]n considering the provisions of Sec. 9(d) the committee reports were emphatic in their declaration that the provisions of the bill do not extend to Sec. 9 except as incidental to review of an order restraining an unfair labor practice under Sec. 10. . . . The conclusion is unavoidable that Congress, as the result of a deliberate choice of conflicting policies, has excluded representation certifications of the Board from review by federal appellate courts authorized by the Wagner Act. . . . 55 308 U.S. at 409-411, 60 S.Ct. at 304-305 [footnotes omitted]. 56 The relevance of the decision in AF of L is immediate and compelling. As in the legislative history of the statute the Court there examined, Congress here made it unequivocally clear that it did not intend rules or regulations promulgated by the Commission to be subject to direct appellate review. Amendments to both Secs. 19(b) and 25(a) were proposed to accomplish the very result which petitioners here seek, and those amendments were rejected. And the language used by the floor manager of the bill-Rep. Rayburn-was no less emphatic in the instant case as to an intent to preclude judicial review under Sec. 25(a) of Commission rules and regulations than was the Congressional history in the AF of L case. 57 Petitioners contend, however, that the opinion of the Supreme Court in Columbia Broadcasting System v. United States, 316 U.S. 407, 62 S.Ct. 1194, 86 L. Ed. 1563 (1942), made Commission rules and regulations subject to review under Sec. 25(a) despite the statutory language and Congressional history to the contrary. They maintain the Court in the Columbia Broadcasting decision eliminated distinctions between orders and rules and regulations for purposes of review under the Exchange Act. Thus, they argue, the determinative factor for predicating review jurisdiction under Sec. 25(a) is not whether the action is in form an order, but rather, what is the impact of the SEC's action upon the regulated parties. 58 In Columbia Broadcasting, the Court was confronted with a challenge to an order of the Federal Communications Commission promulgating the Chain Broadcasting Regulations. The effect of those regulations was to annul the provisions of the network's contracts with its affiliates and to outlaw its previous method of conducting business. The regulations effectively stated that any station which complied with the terms of its network contract would have its license denied at renewal time. Thus, the regulations operated to terminate the entire contractual basis on which the petitioner had built its business. 59 Section 402 of the Communications Act of 1934 [47 U.S.C. Sec. 402] governed the reviewability of Commission orders and procedures to be used in obtaining such review. Under Sec. 402(a), all orders of the Commission were subject to challenge, except those specified in Sec. 402(b). This latter section enumerated certain orders which were to be reviewed exclusively by direct appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Orders subject to review under Sec. (b) only involved exercise by the Commission of its quasi-adjudicatory powers. For example, a denial of a license was subject to review under Sec. (b). 60 Section 402(a) at the time of the Columbia Broadcasting decision, unlike Sec. (b), bore little procedural semblance to its modern-day counterpart. Rather, Congress had incorporated the provisions of the Urgent Deficiencies Act, 38 Stat. 219, 10 into the section. This latter act had been passed in 1913 and established procedures for review of orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. During the intervening twenty-one years between its original passage and its engraftment onto the Communications Act of 1934, a significant body of law had been compiled under the UDA. For present purposes, one of the most important propositions which had been established was on the scope of review jurisdiction of ICC orders under the UDA. It had been held they could be reviewed under its provisions whether they involved the quasi judicial function of determining controversies or . . . the delegated legislative function of rate making and rule making. United States v. Los Angeles & S.L. R.R., 273 U.S. 299, 309, 47 S.Ct. 413, 414, 71 L.Ed. 651 (1927). This entire structure was effectively incorporated into Sec. 402(a) at the time of its passage. 61 Although orders effecting exercise of delegated legislative power by a regulatory agency subject to the UDA had been held reviewable thereunder, the availability of such review had not been without qualification. Rather, the court, in resolving the appealability issue, had to examine the substance of the orders. This examination focused upon whether the orders were affirmative or negative: whether they ordered someone to do something or granted the requested relief; or whether they denied the requested relief. A third group had the characteristics of neither, i. e., an order assigning a case for hearing. Orders of the first category had been held subject to review under the UDA, while those of the last category had been held not so subject. See, e. g., Chicago Junction Cases, 264 U.S. 258, 263-264, 44 S. Ct. 317, 68 L.Ed. 667 (1924). Negative orders had been held subject to review only where certain criteria were met. See, e. g., Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U.S. 125, 131-132, 59 S.Ct. 754, 83 L.Ed. 1147 (1939). 11 62 To make the determination of whether the order was of the type subject to review, courts looked beyond the mere form in which the order was couched to determine the substantive effects upon the parties. For purposes of the UDA, it made no difference whether the substantive effect was created by the agency's exercise of its adjudicatory or quasi-legislative function. In Powell v. United States, 300 U.S. 276, 57 S.Ct. 470, 81 L.Ed. 643 (1937)-one of the jurisdictional cases primarily relied upon by the Supreme Court in Columbia Broadcasting, 12 the Court grappled with the parameters of the problem in weighing the Government's contention that the form of the order determined reviewability under the UDA. The order involved revoked a tariff which had been filed by a railroad; the impetus for the ICC's action had been a complaint filed by a competing railroad. The Government contended that the order neither named any party nor compelled any action. Rather, it contended, it was merely a record of the ICC's action revoking the tariff and was, therefore, nonreviewable under the UDA. The Court disagreed, stating: 63 But overemphasis upon the mere form of the order may not be permitted to obscure its purpose and effect . . . . In effect, the order grants the [requested] relief sought by the Central's complaint. . . . Interpreted according to its purposes, the order is in substance an affirmative one and therefore reviewable under the statute. 64 300 U.S. at 285, 57 S.Ct. at 475 [emphasis supplied; citations omitted]. 65 As in Powell, the Government in Columbia Broadcasting contended the FCC's order promulgating the regulations was not subject to review under Sec. 402(a). It argued that since the order was not directed against any particular person, penalized no past conduct, and merely established future guidelines for the renewal of radio licenses by the FCC, the order was not the type of order reviewable under Sec. 402(a). 66 Against the background of the mass of precedent arising under the UDA as to amenability of agency orders to review under its provisions, the Court rejected the Government's arguments. It stated the label put upon an order by the FCC was not decisive for purposes of review under the statute. Rather, the order had to be examined to determine its net impact upon the regulated parties, as mandated in Powell. Then the order had to be examined to determine whether it was the type of order for which review was intended under the statute, as mandated in AF of L v. NLRB. The carry-through or these central concepts into the Columbia Broadcasting decision is reflected in the Court's conclusion predicating reviewability that: (1) the order (2) promulgates regulations which operate to control contractual relationships of the regulated parties; (3) even though not directed against any particular party, (4) it determines rights generally and (5) is therefore reviewable under the UDA. 316 U.S. at 417, 62 S. Ct. 1194. 67 Petitioners here contend, however, the fact that review of an FCC order was involved in Columbia Broadcasting was inconsequential to the Court's resolution of the jurisdictional issue there presented. They point to repeated statements by the Court that because these regulations, issued by the Commission in the avowed exercise of its quasilegislative powers, had a substantial impact upon the business affairs of the petitioner, they were subject to review under Sec. 402(a). Thus, they contend, the operative factor determining reviewability is not the form of the administrative action; rather, it is the substantive effect of the agency's action upon the regulated parties. 68 First, the Court in Columbia Broadcasting was not faced with the question of whether quasi-legislative actions of the agency per se were subject to review under the UDA. It had long been a settled doctrine that orders of those agencies subject to review under the UDA, e. g., the ICC, could be reviewed whether they involved a quasi-judicial or -legislative exercise of that agency's powers. The crucial factor for jurisdictional purposes was the substantive effect upon the parties. 69 Second, whereas orders of the FCC involving the exercise of certain of its quasi-adjudicatory powers could be reviewed only under Sec. 402(b), quasi-legislative orders of the Commission, if they were subject to immediate appellate review at all, were so subject only under Sec. 402(a). The Government interposed an argument that the proper procedure for obtaining review of the FCC's action was under Sec. 402(b), the subsection specifically intended only for clearly adjudicatory orders of the Commission. 70 The Court rejected the Government's contention. The Court emphasized the Commission had chosen to exercise its delegated legislative powers to implement the challenged guidelines. Consequently, the Court would not entertain an argument that the petitioners be relegated to judicial review under Sec. 402(b), or otherwise, which would be the proper procedure for reviewing the Commission's actions had it acted by adjudicatory order. Rather, because the Commission's order was a quasi-legislative exercise of its delegated powers, the only proper method of reviewing that order lay exclusively under Sec. 402(a). And because of its impact upon the parties, the order was of the type reviewable under the UDA. 316 U.S. at 421-422, 62 S.Ct. 1194. 71 Thus, in Columbia Broadcasting the Court was faced with the contention that a clearly quasi-legislative exercise of power should be subjected to review under the provisions set up exclusively for review of adjudicatory orders of the FCC. Although the contention was pressed there to defeat the Court's exercise of its jurisdiction while petitioners press the argument upon us here in their attempt to invoke our jurisdiction, the mandate of the Court is still directly applicable to the instant case: the contention must be rejected. 72 Finally, although the Court in Columbia Broadcasting talked of the impact of the regulations upon the parties and the use by the Commission of its rule-making power, the Court made clear it was not concerned with the reviewability of the regulations qua regulations. Rather, the regulations and their impact upon the regulated industry were relevant only because they constituted the substance of the order under review. The substance of the order had to be analyzed to determine whether it was an affirmative order or the type of negative order subject to review under the UDA -in which case, the Court had jurisdiction to review the order under Sec. 402(a) -or whether it was an unreviewable order under the precedent attaching under the UDA. Resultantly, the terms and effects of the regulations had to be scrutinized. In this regard, the Court stated: 73 Such regulations have the force of law before their sanctions are invoked as well as after. When, as here, they are promulgated by order of the Commission and the expected conformity to them causes injury cognizable by a court of equity, they are appropriately the subject of attack under the provisions of Sec. 402(a) and the Urgent Deficiencies Act.