Court Opinion

ID: 9651401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:18:41.169222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.583622
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am not convinced that the Shipping Act (46 USCA § 801 et seq.) should be construed to oust the courts of jurisdiction to issue an injunction under the circumstances here disclosed. The agreement under which the carriers acted and are threatening to act to plaintiff's prejudice has not been filed with and approved by the Board. Hence the acts doné under it are forbidden by the Shipping Act as well as by the Sherman AntiTrust Act (15 USCA §§ 1-7, 15). Conceded-1 y, on the facts alleged, the plaintiff should have an injunction unless this remedy has been taken away from him because similar relief may be obtained from the Shipping Board. The act does not expressly repeal existing rights and remedies, and repeals by implication are not favored. An injunction forbidding the carriers from acting under the agreement unless and until they shall file it and obtain the Board’s approval of it would in no way hamper the Board’s administrative functions; indeed, under the allegations of the complaint (admitted by the demurrer), the Board could not legally ap*92prove the agreement, nor can I see that such an injunction would he inconsistent with the rights and remedies given the plaintiff by the Shipping Act. The attempt to apply the principle that repeals by implication are not favored leads me to the belief that the similar injunctive relief which I have assumed the plaintiff might obtain from the Board, though the language of the act does not seem to be so clear as to put the matter entirely beyond question, should be considered an additional remedy, not a remedy in substitution for that which the plaintiff might seek in the courts. While the construction placed by the Supreme Court on the Act to Regulate Commerce in such cases as Keogh v. C. & N. W. Ry. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 43 S. Ct. 47, 67 L. Ed. 183, and Texas & Pac. Ry. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 27 S. Ct. 350, 51 L. Ed. 553, 9 Ann. Cas. 1075, tends to support the view taken by my colleagues, I do not regard the decisions as controlling of the present problem. In the Keogh Case the rates complained of as violating plaintiff’s rights had been approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in the Abilene Case the tariff schedule had been duly filed and published and not found unreasonable by the Commission. In the ease at bar, however, the agreement complained of has not been, and cannot legally be, approved by the Shipping Board. I think the decree should be reversted.