Court Opinion

ID: 9477909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:34:37.293044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:07.348209
License: Public Domain

FAGG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In this case Winona Bridge is an imposter. It is inescapably clear from the information presented to the Commission, see ante at 1060, that Winona Bridge is not a rail carrier — it is nothing more than the owner of a defunct railroad river bridge. For this reason it will be impossible for Winona Bridge, without carrier status, to “invoke the trackage rights class exemption from 49 U.S.C. § 11343(a)(6), which regulates transactions between two carriers.” Ante at 1059.
In my view, it is farcical to permit the trackage rights agreement to go forward on the strength of the Commission’s mischievous “belie[f] that it did not have sufficient information before it to establish that Winona Bridge was not a carrier subject to its jurisdiction.” Ante at 1063. The exact contours of rail carrier status are no doubt open to interpretation. Even so, unless those contours are gerrymandered by the *1065Commission, Winona Bridge will not qualify-
It is one thing for Congress “to liberalize the regulatory framework,” ante at 1058, and to permit the Commission to exempt trackage rights agreements between rail carriers. It is an entirely different matter, however, for the Commission to countenance the charade at hand. There is a clear jurisdictional defect here. In this circumstance, the court should not turn Winter away empty-handed, particularly when it recognizes that “lack of jurisdiction will no doubt burden railroad employees.” Ante at 1063.
Whatever else Winona Bridge may be it is not a rail carrier, and to treat it as one is a distortion of the regulatory process. Thus, I dissent.