Court Opinion

ID: 9444486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:02:21.278883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:53.341371
License: Public Domain

WOODBURY, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the result for I believe that it is more probable than not that the certificate means what Judge Clifford and this court think that it means. However, I do not wish to go on record as subscribing to the proposition that the failure of the parties to raise a question of fact below, or their stipulation that no issue of fact existed, necessarily requires that this case be disposed of on the motion for summary judgment filed by the Commission under Rule 56(c). That is to say, I think that in spite of the conduct of the parties or their stipulation, the district court might have refused to grant the Commission’s motion for summary judgment if in its opinion the resolution of an issue of fact was necessary for decision. Thus in this case, if I felt that the certificate standing alone was so ambiguous as to be wholly unintelligible, I would say that, since the rights claimed are “grandfather” rights, the district court in spite of the parties’ concessions, tacit or otherwise, that no issues of fact existed, might have required the production of evidence as to the scope of the carrier’s activities prior to the critical date to show what must have been the scope of the authority granted by the certificate. And I would say that if we were in grave doubt as to the meaning of the certificate we could remand to the district court for the purpose of receiving such evidence.