Court Opinion

ID: 9458346
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:49:42.283966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:44.024025
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc
Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and WRIGHT,' McGOWAN, TAMM, LEV-ENTHAL, ROBINSON, MacKINNON, ROBB and WILKEY, Circuit Judges.
ORDER
PER CURIAM.
On consideration of appellants’ suggestion for rehearing en banc, it is
Ordered by the Court en banc that the aforesaid suggestion is denied.
Circuit Judge McGOWAN took no part in the consideration or disposition of the suggestion for rehearing en banc.
Statement of Circuit Judge LEVEN-THAL, in which Chief Judge BAZEL-ON, and Circuit Judges J. SKELLY WRIGHT and SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, join, as to Why He Would Grant Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc.
The suggestion of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for rehearing en banc fails because not favored by five active judges. One judge is not voting. This is a memorandum of the view of four judges that the panel decision should be vacated and the matter subjected to further review.
Looking at the question broadly and prima facie, it seems to us likely that the ICC has authority to conduct an investigation when railroads are paying out dividends in excess of current earnings, and to examine the carriers’ income and cash flow forecasts — at least where, as here, there is a context of proposals under consideration for legislation to make available loan guarantees to the railroad industry as one beset by financial strains.1 We do not say that the authority may be exercised routinely, The items involved are internal papers that stand at the heart of management effort, and so long as our carrier operations are rooted in private enterprise there is a strong element of privacy in such items. That is,, however, a reason for limiting the occasion of such production — by agency or judicial limitation— and for forbidding its disclosure outside the agency except under careful conditions subject to court review. It is not a basis for a decision finding the ICC totally without power to call for and study such critical documents.
*289Hence a question may have to be faced as to whether and to what extent such information may be required for the purpose of transmittal to a legislative committee. However, it is in general a factor supporting latitude of investigation by a regulatory commission that it is intended to add flexibility to the implementation of legislative policy, and to make investigations of abuses and problems that may call in part for use of existing administrative authority and in part for new legislation.
Looking at the question as a technical issue of statutory construction, we note that the panel relies on Justice Day’s opinion in United States v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 236 U.S. 318, 35 S.Ct. 363, 59 L.Ed. 598 (1915), as giving a narrow reading to § 20(5) of the Interstate Commerce Act, as added by the 1906 Hepburn Act. The Court held that there was no right to demand production of correspondence.
We have these comments: (1) The 1915 interpretation served to avoid constitutional doubts presented by the Court’s then views as to the extent of the protection of the Fourth Amendment against compulsory production of corporate documents. See FTC v. Am. Tobacco, 264 U.S. 298, 306, 44 S.Ct. 336, 68 L.Ed. 696 (1924) (“fishing expeditions”). But those constitutional doubts no longer exist. See United States v. Morton Salt, 338 U.S. 632, 637, 70 S.Ct. 357, 94 L.Ed. 401 (1950). The removal of the constitutional doubts opens up the propriety of the interpretation of the statute in accordance with its terms. This point was not only noted in this court’s opinion in Montship Lines Ltd. v. FMB, 111 U.S.App.D.C. 160, 295 F.2d 147 (1961), but was developed last Term in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88,. 95-96, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971), where Justice Stewart wrote for a unanimous Court in reversing the restrictive interpretation given 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) in 1951, that it reached only conspiracies under color of state law. In 1971 Justice Stewart wrote that since the constitutional problems that concerned the Court in 1951 had been dissipated by subsequent opinions, there was no reason to deny the words of the statute their apparent meaning as applicable to all conspiracies, including private conspiracies, to deprive persons of their Federal rights.
(2) Congress specifically rejected the 1915 Louisville & Nashville decision in the 1920 amendment of § 20, which spells out that the ICC right of access “to all accounts, records, and memoranda” includes “all documents, papers, and correspondence now on hereafter existing, and kept or required to be kept by carriers subject to this Act.”
As to “correspondence,” this plainly undercuts Justice Day’s reliance that the Hepburn Act wording had not gone so far as to refer expressly to “correspondence.”
More important for present purposes, the 1920 wording makes clear that § 20 governs documents that are “kept” whether or not “required to be kept.” This is significant in view of Justice Day’s comment that the Hepburn Act’s purpose was to allow the ICC to prescribe the forms of accounts, record, and memoranda to be kept by carriers, which it is given access at all times, after which he added: “The railroads are not allowed to keep any other than those prescribed by the Commission.” 236 U.S. at 333,. 35 S.Ct. at 368. And he noted that the ICC was surely not authorized to prescribe the forms of correspondence, see 236 U.S. at 334, 35 S.Ct. 363.
The change in wording to cover memo-randa including documents and correspondence actually kept whether or not required to be kept was part of the Transportation Act of 1920, a thoroughgoing revision of the ICC laws which expanded enormously the responsibilities of the ICC for the integrity and balance of the transportation system.
(3) Finally, it is not certain whether the Louisville & Nashville opinion, in prohibiting compulsory production of correspondence, necessarily prohibits compulsory production of earning fore*290cast memoranda. The Court reserved the possibility that the Hepburn Act was broad enough to authorize an inspection of accounts, records and memoranda for which no form has been prescribed by the Commission (236 U.S. at 334, 35 S.Ct. 363).
* * *
The question is important, and the panel decision is so doubtful that we think it should be vacated and reconsidered en banc.

. On July 17, 1970, subsequent to a Senate Committee hearing, the ICC requested forecasts from 73 major railroads; 37 roads furnished the requested information; the others did not. In August 1970, it became public that Burlington had continued its dividend of $8,615,000 in the second quarter, as in the first quarter, notwithstanding a substantial loss in the first quarter, the first in 10 years, and earnings in the second quarter of only $4,547,000. The September 4, 1970, letter of the Director of ICC's Bureau of Accounts noted Ms concern over the adverse impact of the dividend declarations on the company’s working capital and cash position, and made the request for information identified in the panel opinion, including a request for the company’s “plans to pay debt obligations coming due.” The Company expressly declined to furnish forecasts of income and cash flow, and transmitted opinion of counsel that the company was not required to furnish such information to the ICC.