Court Opinion

ID: 9692339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:52:00.831726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:34.152512
License: Public Domain

TEITELBAUM, District Judge
(dissenting).
I disagree with the view of the majority as to the application of the policies of the antitrust laws to the determinations made by The Interstate Commerce Commission in this ease. I would therefore enjoin the enforcement of its order.1
I think the Commission, consciously or unconsciously but in either event conspicuously, failed to consider and weigh the anticompetitive implications of its order. In McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U.S. 67, 64 S.Ct. 370, 88 L.Ed. 544 (1944) the Supreme Court exhaustively traced the history of the national transportation policy and concluded that, if “only in a qualified way”, the policies of the antitrust laws are influential in the determination of the “public interest" in formulating motor carrier policy. The Court, mindful that “[T]he premises of motor carrier regulation posit some curtailment of free and unrestrained competition”, resolved nonetheless that Congress had not authorized the Commission to ignore the policies of the antitrust laws. It concluded that the Commission was bound, “as an administrative matter”,
“ . . .to consider the effect of [the proposed merger]2 on competitors and on the general competitive situa*767tion in the industry in the light of the objectives of the national transportation policy.”
In the case sub judice, the Commission expressly recognized its duty under the national transportation policy “to promote safe, adequate, economical, and efficient service and foster sound economic conditions in transportation and among the several carriers”.3 The difficulty is that having recognized its duty, the Commission proceeded to abdicate it. Neither its order nor its accompanying report makes any substantive reference to the transportation policy; it never translates it, pro tanto, into the policies of the antitrust laws; and most importantly it makes no findings of fact or conclusions of law relating to it, either expressly or implicitly.
The relationship between the policies of the antitrust laws and administrative decisions in regulated industries, early explored in McLean Trucking, has since increased in both importance and scope. In Northern Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 220, 399 F.2d 953 (1968) this complex relationship was extensively reviewed. There it was suggested that,
“ . . . it appears that the basic goal of direct governmental regulation through administrative bodies and the goal of indirect governmental regulation in the form of antitrust law is the same — to achieve the most efficient allocation of resources possible.”
Further, it was stated that the “theory of complementary regulation” was the basis for a legion of cases holding that administrative decisions in regulated industries “must, to some degree at least, accommodate the antitrust laws”.4 On the other hand, it was carefully pointed out by the court that regulatory agencies were not necessarily bound by the policies of the antitrust laws, and that if other applicable economic, social or political considerations were “found to be of overriding importance” the policies of the antitrust laws were subjugable. The conclusion of the court was that,
“[I]n short, the antitrust laws are merely another tool which a regulatory agency employs to a greater or lesser degree to give ‘understandable content to the broad statutory concept of the “public interest”.’ ” 5
The Commission’s total disuse of that tool in this case I think, compels the enjoining of the enforcement of its order and further, I believe, the remanding of the case to the Commission for reconsideration in the light of the policies of the antitrust laws.

. Actually, I would go further and remand the case to the Commission, the precedent for which is ample — United States v. Carolina Freight Carriers Corp., 315 U.S. 475, 62 S.Ct. 722, 86 L.Ed. 971 (1942) ; Justice Frankfurter writing in dissent in Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Co. v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 351 U.S. 321, 76 S.Ct. 982, 100 L.Ed. 1220 (1956) ; Refrigerated Transport Co. v. United States, 297 F.Supp. 5 (D.C.N.D.Ga.1969) ; Freight Forwarders Institute v. United States, 263 F.Supp. 460 (D.C.S.D.N.Y.1967) ; and Ringsby Truck Dines, Inc. v. United States, 263 F.Supp. 552 (D.C.Colo.1967), appeal dismissed, National Small Shipments Traffic Conference, Inc. v. Ringsby Truck Lines, Inc., 389 U.S. 576, 88 S.Ct. 689, 19 L.Ed.2d 775 (1968).

. The fact that in McLean Trucking the Court was confronted with a case involving a merger does not limit its announced principles since they obtain, more broadly, where the. “public interest” needs to be assessed. See Cities of Statesville v. Atomic Energy Commission, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 272, 441 F.2d 962 (1969), in which Judge Leventhal, writing in dissent, observed that,
“The decisions of the Supreme Court and this court over a period of at least 25 years have evolved and defined a substantial jurisprudence making clear that the administration of federal regulatory statutes calling for determinations of the public interest establish the authority, and in some instances the duty, of the cognizant agency to take into account what has been aptly called the nation’s ‘fundamental national economic policy,’ namely the principles of the antitrust laws.” [Emphasis supplied]
In the case sub judice, involving, statutorily, 49 U.S.C. § 306(a), an assessment of the “public interest” is clearly needed.

. See Ace Doran Hauling & Rigging Co., Investigation of Operations, 108 M.C.C. 717 (Interstate Commerce Commission No. MC-C-4397, April 22, 1969) p. 732.

. The cases cited for that proposition were: F.M.C. v. Aktiebolaget Svenska Amerika Linien, 390 U.S. 238, 88 S.Ct. 1005, 19 L.Ed.2d 1071 (1968) (ocean carriers) ; United Mine Workers of America v. Pennington, 381 U.S. 657, 85 S.Ct. 1585, 14 L.Ed.2d 626 (1965) (labor union) ; United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 376 U.S. 651, 84 S.Ct. 1044, 12 L.Ed.2d 12 (1964) (natural gas distributors) ; United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U.S. 321, 83 S.Ct. 1715, 10 L.Ed.2d 915 (1963) (banking) ; Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U.S. 341, 83 S.Ct. 1240, 10 L.Ed.2d 389 (1963) (stock exchange) ; United States v. Radio Corporation of America, 358 U.S. 334, 79 S. Ct. 457, 3 L.Ed.2d 354 (1959) (television communication) ; Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. 439, 65 S.Ct. 716, 89 L.Ed. 1051 (1945) (railroads) ; United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass’n, 322 U.S. 533, 64 S.Ct. 1162, 88 L.Ed. 1440 (1944) (insurance) ; McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, supra (trucking) ; and United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 188, 60 S.Ct. 182, 84 L.Ed. 181 (1939) (agricultural cooperatives) .

. The obligation of a regulatory agency to consider the policies of the antitrust laws in determining the public interest was most recently reaffirmed in General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. United States, 449 F.2d 846 (5th Cir. 1971) p. 858, citing McLean Trucking and Northern Natural.