Court Opinion

ID: 8916592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 05:20:28.92826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:03.033138
License: Public Domain

THOMAS A. CLARK, Circuit Judge, with whom RONEY, Circuit Judge,
joins dissenting:
I concur in Judge Hill’s dissent and his thorough analysis of Midcal which demonstrates that compulsion is not a prerequisite for application of the state action exception.
Differing interpretations of Supreme Court opinions are not uncommon. What disturbs me so deeply about the majority opinion is that it completely ignores the Interstate Commerce Act, public policy, history, and fairness. As pointed out by Judge Hill, the functions of rate bureaus or conferences declared illegal by the majority have been accepted national policy for more than thirty years. These same defendants have performed the identical functions1 for interstate carriers whose rates are fixed by the Interstate Commerce Commission. These functions, when performed by these bureaus for interstate carriers are exempted from the Antitrust Act by the Interstate Commerce Act:
As provided by this subsection, a motor common carrier of property providing transportation or service subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission under sub-chapter II of chapter 105 of this title may enter into an agreement with one or more such carriers concerning rates (including charges between carriers and compensation paid or received for the use of facilities and equipment), allowances, classifications, divisions, or rules related to them, or procedures for joint consideration, initiation, or establishment of them.... If the Commission approves the agreement, it may be made and carried out under its terms and under the conditions required by the Commission, and the antitrust laws, as defined in the first section of the Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. 12), do not apply to parties and other persons with respect to making or carrying out the agreement.
49 U.S.C.A. § 10706(b)(2).
The states involved here likewise permit joint filings of rates by carriers through the medium of a bureau or conference, and permit individual carriers to file their own rates. Thus, not all carriers are compelled to file rates through a conference or bureau. The- majority holds that if a state compelled uniform action by the carriers, such a state statute would meet the Parker v. Brown requirement of state action and joint action would be exempt from the antitrust statute. Again, I turn to the Interstate Commerce Act and find that the national act forbids exclusive rate-fixing in the following manner:
(2) The Commission may not approve an agreement under this section—
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(C) establishing a procedure for determination of a matter through joint consideration unless the Commission finds that each party to the agreement has the absolute right under it to take independent action before or after a determination is made under that procedure.
49 U.S.C.A. § 10706(d)(2). Thus, as can be seen, the Commission does not compel carriers to participate in the agreement. The state statutes are patterned very much after the national act, permitting joint action through the bureaus and conferences, but also permitting individual action.
By way of hypothecation, Southern Motor Carriers Rate Conference, Inc. may file with the Interstate Commerce Commission rates for the carriage of carpeting from Rome, Georgia, to Nashville, Tennessee. *549That same Conference may perform the identical function for the intrastate carriage of carpeting from Rome to Macon, Georgia, approximately the same distance. This has been done for three decades prior to the filing of this action in 1976. It is patently unfair at this late date to declare that these defendants violated the antitrust act when following identical procedures that are not violative of the antitrust act when done in interstate commerce.

. Described in the majority opinion, at 534.