Court Opinion

ID: 9419437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:29.536001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:18.091839
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Black concurs, dissenting:
I think that the Commission misconceived its authority under the merger and consolidation provisions of the Act. I agree that the Commission is not to measure motor vehicle consolidations by the standards of the anti-trust acts. Such a construction would make largely meaningless, as the opinion of the Court demonstrates, the power of the Commission under § 5 (11) to relieve participants in mergers or consolidations from the requirements of those acts. But I think a proper construction of the Act requires the Commission to give greater weight to the principles of competition than it apparently has done here.
I agree that the standard of the “public interest” which governs mergers and consolidations under § 5 embraces the national transportation policy contained in the Act. That declared policy calls, among other things, for the recognition and preservation of “the inherent advantages” of motor vehicle transportation; the promotion of “safe, adequate, economical, and efficient service” and the fostering of “sound economic conditions in transportation and among the several carriers”; the establishment and maintenance of reasonable charges “without unjust discriminations, undue preference or advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices”—to the end of “developing, coordinating, and preserving a national transportation system” which is “adequate to meet” the national needs. 54 Stat. 899. Those standards are specifically re*93ferred to in § 5 (2) (c) where an itemization of some of the factors to which the Commission shall give weight is made. And the preamble itself states that “All of the provisions of this Act shall be administered and enforced with a view to carrying out the above declaration of policy.”
But I am of the opinion that the concept of the “public interest” as used in § 5 also embraces the anti-trust laws. Those laws extend to carriers as well as to other enterprises. But for the approval of the Commission the present consolidation would run afoul of the Sherman Act. United States v. Southern Pacific Co., 259 U. S. 214. And the Clayton Act (which makes specific references to common carriers) by § 11 expressly entrusts the Commission with the authority of enforcement of its provisions “where applicable to common carriers.” 38 Stat. 734, 15 U. S. C. § 21. Those laws still stand. We thus have a long standing policy of Congress to subject these common carriers to the anti-trust laws. And we should remember that, so far as motor vehicles are concerned, we are dealing with transportation units whose rights of way—the highways of the country—have been furnished by the public. These considerations indicate to me that while the power of Congress to authorize the Commission to lift the ban of the anti-trust laws in favor of common carriers is clear (New York Central Securities Corp. v. United States, 287 U. S. 12, 25-26), administrative authority to replace the competitive system with a cartel should be strictly construed. I would read § 5 of the Transportation Act so as to make for the greatest possible accommodation between the principles of competition and the national transportation policy. The occasions for the exercise of the administrative authority to grant exemptions from the anti-trust laws should be closely confined to those where the transportation need is clear.
*94If it were the opinion of the Commission that the policy of the Transportation Act would be thwarted unless a particular type of merger or consolidation were permitted, I have no doubt that it would be authorized to lift the ban of the anti-trust laws. But unless such necessity or need were shown I do not think the anti-trust laws should be made to give way. Congress did not give the Commission carte blanche authority to substitute a cartel for a competitive system. It may so act only when that step “will be consistent with the public interest.” § 5 (2) (b). But since the “public interest” includes the principles of free enterprise, which have long distinguished our economy, I can hardly believe that Congress intended them to be swept aside unless they were in fact obstacles to the realization of the national transportation policy. But so far as we know from the present record that policy may be as readily achieved on a competitive basis as through the present type of consolidation. At least such a powerful combination of competitors as is presently projected is not shown to be necessary for that purpose. In this case the hand of the promoter seems more apparent than a transportation need.
For these reasons I would resolve the ambiguities of the Act in favor of the maintenance of free enterprise. If that is too niggardly an interpretation of the Act, Congress can rectify it. But if the Commission is allowed to take the other view,1 a pattern of consolidation will have been approved which will allow the cartel rather than the competitive system to dominate this field. His*95tory shows that it is next to impossible to turn back the clock once such a trend gets under way.
But there is another phase of the case which in my view requires a reversal of the judgment below. The Commission has allowed the investment banker of railroad companies to be represented on the board of the motor vehicle company. It did so after a finding that it was not “reasonable to believe that the affairs of applicant would be managed in the interest of any railroad” and therefore that the motor vehicle company would not be affiliated with any railroad within the meaning of the Act. § 5 (5) (a), (6). But though we assume there was no such affiliation, I agree with Commissioner Patterson that that is not the end of the matter. The question still remains whether it is “consistent with the public interest” to allow such a banker’s nexus between the two competitors. I cannot believe that Congress intended the Commission to treat such a matter as inconsequential. The whole history of finance urges caution when one investment banker stakes out his claim to two competing companies. Experience shows that when one gains a seat at his competitor’s table, it is the beginning of the end of competition. A new zone of influence has been created. Its efficacy turns not on the amount of stock ownership but on a host of subtle and imponderable considerations. Such an intertwined relationship has been “the root of many evils” (Brandéis, Other People’s Money, p. 51) and so demonstrably inimical to the “public interest” in the past as not to be disregarded today.
I agree that if § 5 were read as the Court reads it, the order of the Commission should be affirmed. But since the Commission took a view of the law which in my opinion was erroneous, I would reverse the judgment below so that the case might be returned to the Commission for reconsideration of the application under the proper construction of § 5.

 The position here taken is substantially the view which originally obtained in the Commission. Northland-Greyhound Lines, Inc., 5 M. C. C. 123; Richmond-Greyhound Lines, Inc., 35 M. C. C. 555. But that view did not long obtain. See Northland-Greyhound Lines, Inc., 25 M. C. C. 109; Richmond-Greyhound Lines, Inc., 36 M. C. C. 747. And see MeCk & Bogue, Federal Regulation of Motor Carrier Unification, 50 Yale L. Journ. 1376, 1393-1397.