Opinion ID: 511587
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Applicability of Tariff 205

Text: 24 We now turn to Valley's principal contention--that Tariff 205 did not apply to the shipments at issue because the transportation provided by Trucking and Authority was not a joint through service subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC. This argument assumes the correctness of the district court's factual findings and presents a question of law as to which our review is plenary. 25 Authority's water carrier service between the United States and Puerto Rico would, without more, be subject to FMC jurisdiction pursuant to the Intercoastal Shipping Act. Trailer Marine, 602 F.2d at 393-97. Authority claims authority for its alleged joint through route with Trucking under 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10703. This section provides in pertinent part as follows: 26 (a) A carrier providing transportation subject to the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission under chapter 105 of this title [49 U.S.C. Secs. 10501-10561] shall establish through routes as follows: 27 .... 28 (4)(A) A motor common carrier of property may establish through routes and joint rates and classifications ... with water common carriers.... 29 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10703 (1982) (emphasis added). 30 As the italicized language indicates, the existence of a valid joint through route requires that the motor carrier's portion of the route be independently subject to ICC jurisdiction under 49 U.S.C. Secs. 10501-10561. The only one of those provisions that is arguably relevant to Trucking's leg of the alleged joint through route is section 10521, which sets forth the ICC's general jurisdiction over motor carriers. That section reads in pertinent part as follows: 31 (a) [T]he Interstate Commerce Commission has jurisdiction over transportation by motor carrier ... to the extent that passengers, property, or both, are transported by motor carrier-- 32 (1) between a place in-- 33 .... 34 (C) the United States and a place in a territory or possession of the United States ...; 35 .... 36 (E) ... and 37 (2) ... on a public highway. 38 49 U.S.C. Sec. 10521 (1982). Section 10521 thus establishes two prerequisites of ICC jurisdiction. The motor carrier service must (1) be interstate in nature (a requirement satisfied if the transportation is between a state and a territory 4 ), and (2) involve transportation on a public highway. 39 Trucking's motor service clearly met the first requirement. It is settled that transportation between two points in the same state is interstate in character if it is part of a continuous interstate movement of freight. Texas & N.O.R.R. v. Sabine Tram Co., 227 U.S. 111, 33 S.Ct. 229, 57 L.Ed. 442 (1913). 40 Whether Trucking's service satisfied the on a public highway requirement presents a closer question. Valley strenuously maintains that the service did not meet that requirement. In support of its position, Valley first points to the district court's finding that on each of the fifty-seven shipments Trucking transported the freight between Authority's vessel and a point of rest within the Authority-Trucking terminal facility. 5 Next, Valley notes that the terminal facilities at both Elizabeth and Miami were controlled by Authority pursuant to long-term lease agreements with the port authorities of those cities. Neither facility was open to the public. 6 Valley then concludes that, because Trucking transported the freight entirely within privately controlled terminal facilities, its services did not meet the on a public highway requirement of section 10521. In other words, Valley contends that Trucking's service was not subject to ICC jurisdiction because Trucking itself did not carry the freight over public thoroughfares. 41 Valley's reading of the on a public highway requirement is directly at odds with the recent decision of the ICC in Valley Freight Sys., Inc. v. Trailer Marine Transp. Corp., MC-C-30017 (Interstate Commerce Comm'n, July 13, 1988), the related case that the district court referred to the Commission under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. There the Commission ruled, on facts indistinguishable from those of the present case, that motor carrier service provided entirely within a privately controlled marine terminal as part of a continuous interstate movement of freight is subject to ICC jurisdiction. The Commission noted that the containers hauled by the motor carrier are regularly used on public thoroughfares and in fact travel on public roads either directly before or directly after the motor carrier handles them. The Commission reasoned that this gives the motor carrier's inside-the-terminal service a sufficient nexus with transportation on the highways to bring that service within the jurisdiction of the ICC. 7 Id. at 8. Accordingly, the Commission concluded that the motor carrier service properly forms the basis for a joint motor-water through route. Id. at 9. 42 Were the question being considered as an original matter, one might reasonably prefer Valley's reading of the on a public highway requirement to the Commission's less-than-literal interpretation. However, the Supreme Court has made clear that a court must grant substantial deference to an agency's interpretation of the statute it administers. When Congress has not directly and unambiguously addressed the precise question at issue, a court must accept the interpretation set forth by the agency so long as it is a reasonable one. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-45, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782-83, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). This rule of deference is fully applicable to an agency's interpretation of its own jurisdiction. Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 844, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 3254, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986). 43 It is plain that Congress has not addressed the question of whether motor carrier service of the type at issue here is within ICC jurisdiction. This is hardly surprising in view of the extremely fact-specific nature of the problem. The sole inquiry, then, is whether the Commission acted reasonably in determining that the service meets the on a public highway requirement of the Interstate Commerce Act. We conclude that it did. In granting authority over joint through routes to the ICC, the Act contemplates that ICC jurisdiction will attach even in cases where the motor carrier leg of the route--the technical prerequisite of jurisdiction--is de minimis. See Sea-Land Serv., Inc. v. Federal Maritime Comm'n, 404 F.2d 824, 827 (D.C.Cir.1968) ([T]hrough routes have historically been validated in situations where one of the participating transporter's activities have been extremely minimal.); Alaska S.S. Co. v. Federal Maritime Comm'n, 399 F.2d 623, 626 (9th Cir.1968). Thus, it is certainly consistent with the statutory scheme for the ICC to assert jurisdiction over motor-water routes in which the motor leg consists solely of a short haul entirely within a marine terminal. We can think of no policy justification for treating such routes differently from those in which the motor haul originates on a public thoroughfare just outside the terminal gates. 44 The on a public highway language is sufficiently flexible to bear the Commission's interpretation. As noted earlier in our discussion, the courts have long attached a less-than-literal meaning to the other prerequisite of ICC jurisdiction, that the transportation be interstate in character. In determining whether a carrier's service meets that prerequisite, the courts consider the character of the entire movement and not just that of the particular carrier's participation in the movement. See Texas & N.O.R.R. v. Sabine Tram Co., 227 U.S. 111, 33 S.Ct. 229, 57 L.Ed. 442 (1913). It was reasonable for the Commission to read the on a public highway language of the Act in a similarly liberal fashion and to take into account the use of the containers before and after the motor carrier's handling of them. 45 Thus, we believe that the Commission's interpretation controls this case. Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not err in determining that the transportation service provided by Trucking and Authority constituted a joint through route subject to ICC jurisdiction. Authority's Tariff 205 applied to the fifty-seven shipments at issue, and Authority is entitled to recover the claimed undercharge. 8