Opinion ID: 405328
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: pre-staggers act law

Text: 15 Southern's argument that the ICC has never been able to accept joint-rate-cancellation tariffs without suspending and investigating comes in two parts. First, Southern claims that 49 U.S.C. § 10762(b)(2) requires the concurrence of all participating carriers in a tariff canceling joint rates. That section provides: A joint tariff ... shall identify the carriers that are parties to it. The carriers that are parties to a joint tariff, other than the carrier filing it, must file a concurrence or acceptance of the tariff with the Commission .... Unilateral cancellation of joint tariffs, argues Southern, is prohibited by this section unless and until the ICC determines, under section 10705(e), that it is consistent with the public interest. Second, Southern contends that the ICC is unable to cite a single unreversed case in which it actually did fail to suspend a joint-rate-cancellation tariff, so it must have always lacked the power not to suspend. 16 The ICC responds that section 10762(b)(2), by its plain language, applies only to an establishment of or a change in a joint rate, not to a cancellation of a joint rate. The ICC further responds that it has always had the power to suspend or not to suspend; it has simply exercised that power consistently in the past to suspend joint-rate-cancellation tariffs. Southern replies:Does the Commission seriously mean to suggest that a joint rate is not changed when FLS cancels its participation in it? Definitions of the verb to change in Webster's include not only to make different in some particular, but also to make radically different or transform or even reverse. Certain it is that the scope and effect of the involved joint rates do not remain the same when FLS ceases to participate in them. 17 Supplemental Brief for Petitioner at 17 (emphasis in original) (citing Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 185-86 (1977); Webster's Third New International Dictionary 373-74 (1976)). 18 We are unconvinced by Southern's argument. The statute's plain language supports the reading offered by the ICC, and Southern's attempt at a semantic reply fails. First, the word change does not appear in the statute at all, only the phrase joint tariff. Second, playing with dictionary definitions devoid of legislative context can be a dangerous business in statutory construction. For example, the dictionary might be cited for the proposition that facially permissive language is actually mandatory. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1396 (1976) (may ... 5: SHALL, MUST-used esp. in deeds, contracts, and statutes). Third, even if we were to join in the game, a joint-rate cancellation would not necessarily effect a change in a joint rate. A canceled joint rate is not ma(d)e radically different or transform(ed) or reverse(d). It is simply obliterated. 19 But there are more important commonsense reasons why the ICC's reading of section 10762(b)(2) is correct. It would invite chaos to permit carriers to establish (or even change) joint rates without the consent of the other carriers involved. Southern could impose a wholly unwanted joint rate on FLS, and FLS could just as quickly change the terms to make them oppressive to Southern; the process would continue ad infinitum. But there is no comparable problem with the cancellation of joint rates; a single cancellation of a joint rate does away with that rate once and for all; it can only be affected further by a consensual or ICC-imposed re-establishment. Put simply, a joint-rate participant is like a gameplayer: he cannot unilaterally change the rules of the game, but he can always pick up his marbles and go home. 20 We are also unpersuaded by Southern's negative argument based on the lack of citations in ICC Reports of instances in which the ICC failed to suspend a joint-rate-cancellation tariff. Southern is quite correct in noting that a  'free and easy' climate for pre-Staggers Act joint rate cancellations ... simply never existed. Supplemental Brief for Petitioner at 4-5. 11 But Southern misapprehends the reason why, before passage of the Staggers Act, it was difficult to cancel joint rates. This difficulty arose not from any automatic statutory obstacle to joint-rate cancellation, but from the ICC's consistent use of its discretionary powers under section 10707 to bring about the routine suspension of proposed joint rate cancellations ... until a final decision could be reached on the merits. Joint Rates via the Ann Arbor System, 362 I.C.C. 493, 505 (1979), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Green Bay & Western Railroad v. United States, 644 F.2d 1217 (7th Cir. 1981). 12 There may or may not be some inconsistency between the ICC's routine suspension in the past and its failure to suspend in this case, but that need not concern us. So long as the ICC is exercising discretion under section 10707, and not avoiding any statutory duty to suspend, its action is unreviewable. See supra part II. 21 Furthermore, Southern itself seems to realize that in the past the ICC has recognized its power not to suspend joint-rate-cancellation tariffs. In addition to the Ann Arbor case, see supra note 12, Southern cites in its opening brief at page 44 four joint-rate-cancellation cases where the agency did not suspend pending investigation. 13 Southern goes on to assert that the cases are-in Southern's words-arguably distinguishable. We agree that nice distinctions might be drawn between those cases and this one, but the thrust of those cases is clear: they support the ICC's argument. Southern, by contrast, has cited not one decision-judicial or administrative-in which it is even hinted that the ICC lacks the statutory power not to suspend. Indeed, were it not for section 10707, the ICC would seem to lack the power to suspend joint-rate-cancellation tariffs. Yet Southern somehow fathoms from the ICC's past routine suspensions and the language of section 10762(b)(2)-which nowhere mentions suspension-a duty to suspend. We cannot accept this argument. 22