Court Opinion

ID: 9419255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:48:05.356931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:16.834359
License: Public Domain

*429Mb. Justice Fbankfuetee,
dissenting:
The criteria governing judicial review of “orders” under the Urgent Deficiencies Act were defined by a unanimous Court in United States v. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co., 273 U. S. 299, 309-10: “The so-called order here complained of is one which does not command the carrier to do, or to refrain from doing, any thing; which does not grant or withhold any authority, privilege or license; which does not extend or abridge any power or facility; which does not subject the carrier to any liability, civil or criminal; which does not change the carrier’s existing or future status or condition; which does not determine any right or obligation.” If “broadcasting company” were substituted for “carrier,” this analysis of the legal consequences of the action of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Los Angeles case would fit perfectly the legal consequences of the action of the Federal Communications Commission in making public the challenged regulations.
The fact that an action of an administrative agency occasions even irreparable loss does not in itself afford sufficient grounds for judicial review. Even if the Commission committed a wrong, the question of judicial reviewability still remains that put in the Los Angeles case, 273 U. S. at 313, to wit, is it “a wrong for which Congress provides a remedy under the Urgent Deficiencies Act” of October 22,1913,38 Stat. 208,219, as incorporated in § 402 (a) of the Communications Act of 1934?
For Congress has not authorized resort to the federal courts merely because someone feels aggrieved, howevei deeply, by an action of the Federal Communications Commission. A District Court of the United States can take a case only when Congress has authorized that type of case to be taken. Congress did not leave opportunity for reviewing damaging action by the Federal Communica*430tions Commission to the general equity powers of the district courts. It circumscribed the power of the courts in relation to the Commission in the most detailed way. Its incorporation by reference, in the Communications Act of 1934, of the scope of review allowed in reviewing an “order” of the Interstate Commerce Commission gave all the precise, definite, and technical boundaries which the concept of a reviewable “order” had acquired through the decisions of this Court prior to the enactment of the Communications Act. The precise requirements of an “order” of the Commission for purposes of judicial review are therefore as inflexible as though they were written into the Act itself.
Our problem, then, is this: Does the issuance of the chain broadcasting regulations constitute an “order” reviewable in a proceeding brought under § 402(a) of the Communications Act, in the light of the settled rules for determining what such an “order” is when a determination of the Interstate Commerce Commission is made the basis of judicial review. It is therefore necessary to put out of mind what this case is not. It is not the invocation of equity jurisdiction in order to avoid threatened irreparable harm resulting from the criminal enforcement of an unconstitutional statute, as in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. Nor do we have here a resort to equity because it is essential for the protection of asserted rights that criminal prosecutions unauthorized by law be restrained, as in Shields v. Utah Idaho R. Co., 305 U. S. 177, 183.
In promulgating these regulations the Communications Commission merely announced its conception of one aspect of the public interest, namely, the relationship of certain provisions in network-affiliation contracts to the obligation of a station licensee to render the most effective service to the listening public. The regulations themselves *431determine no rights. They alter the status of neither the networks nor licensees. As such they require nobody— neither the networks, the licensees, nor the Commission— to do anything. They are merely an announcement to the public of what the Commission intends to do in passing upon future applications for station licenses. No action of the stations or the networks can violate the regulations, for there is nothing the regulations require them to do or refrain from doing.
Announcements of general policies intended to be followed by administrative agencies customarily take any one of various forms. Sometimes they are noted in the agency’s annual report to Congress, sometimes in a public announcement or press release, and sometimes, as was the case here, they are published as “rules” or “regulations.” See Final Report of the Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure (1941), pp. 26-27. But whatever form such announcements may take, their nature and effect is the same. The reason why the Commission formulated its chain broadcasting policy in the form of a “regulation” is given in its report: “We believe that the announcement of the principles we intend to apply in exercising our licensing power will expedite business and further the ends of justice. . . . Good administrative practice would seem to demand that such a statement of policy or rules and regulations be promulgated wherever sufficient information is available upon which they may be based.” Report on Chain Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, Order No. 37, Docket No. 5060, p. 85.
With respect to its jurisdiction over matters relating to radio broadcasting, the Communications Commission is essentially a licensing agency. Its regulatory power over the industry is derived, for the most part, from its authority to grant and withhold station licenses. Under § 309 *432of the Communications Act of 1934 the Commission is required to examine each application for a station license and to determine in each case whether a grant would serve public interest, convenience, or necessity. As was noted in Federal Communications Commission v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 138, the Act “expresses a desire on the part of Congress to maintain, through appropriate administrative control, a grip on the dynamic aspects of radio transmission.” To that end, Congress established an administrative procedure under which the Commission must make a specific determination in each case whether the public interest would be served by granting the particular application before it. No announcement of general licensing policy can relieve the Commission of its statutory obligation to examine each application for a license and determine whether a grant or denial is required by the public interest.
The Commission recognized this fact in issuing these regulations. It explicitly stated that a determination of the requirements of the public interest will, in spite of the regulations, still have to be made in passing upon particular applications: “Announcements of policy may take the form of regulations or of general public statements. In either case, the applicant’s right to a hearing on the question whether he does in fact propose to operate in the public interest is fully preserved. The regulations we are adopting are nothing more than the expression of the general policy we will follow in exercising our licensing power. The formulation of a regulation in general terms is an important aid to consistency and predictability and does not prejudice any rights of the applicant.” Report on Chain Broadcasting, supra, p. 85.
Subsequent to the promulgation of the regulations, the Commission found that substantial modifications were necessary. In its supplemental report on these amend-*433merits, the Commission gave further evidence of the flexible nature of the regulations: “The Commission stands ready at all times to amend and modify its regulations upon the petition of any network, national or regional, or any station or group of stations if it can be shown that those regulations prevent profitable network operations, or unduly disturb any aspect of broadcasting, or that because of special or changed circumstances the chain broadcasting regulations should not be applicable to any particular situation.” Moreover, in its Minute of October 31, 1941, designed primarily to protect the interests of station licensees who contest the validity of the regulations, the Commission again made it abundantly clear that the regulations were not final: “If a station wishes to contest the validity of the Chain Broadcasting Regulations . . ., or the reasonableness of their application to the particular station, its license will be set for hearing.”
The regulations do not, therefore, commit the Commission to any definitive course of action in passing upon applications for licenses. Consistently with the regulations (and, parenthetically, consistently with the authority of the Commission to depart from general regulations where such departure is in the public interest, see Radio Commission v. Nelson Bros. Co., 289 U. S. 266, 285), the Commission is free to dilute them with amendments and exceptions. The construction of the regulations and their application to particular situations is still in the hands of the Commission. Administrative adjudication is still open. Before its completion it is not ripe for judicial review.
The characteristics of the administrative determinations in all the cases on which the Court’s opinion relies were wholly different. In each one the force of the law, either through criminal prosecution or injunction or fine or some other judicial remedy, could immediately be brought to *434bear to enforce the command of the administrative agency. In none of the cases was an administrative action held reviewable which in itself entailed no immediate legal consequences.
Thus, in the Assigned Car Cases, 274 U. S. 564, suit was brought under the Urgent Deficiencies Act to annul an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission prescribing for all railroads within its jurisdiction a rule governing distribution of cars for the transportation of bituminous coal. Under § 402 of the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456, 476, 49 U. S. C. § 1 (12) (14), the carriers were required “to make just and reasonable distribution of cars,” and the Commission was authorized to “establish reasonable rules, regulations, and practices with respect to car service by carriers by railroad.” Failure of a carrier to comply with such regulations issued by the Commission was declared unlawful, subjecting the carrier to a fine of $100 for each offense. Since the order of the Commission commanded carriers to take specified actions, and since the failure to comply with the order would bring immediate legal sanctions, the order was held reviewable.
Similarly, in United States v. B. & O. R. Co., 293 U. S. 454, the Interstate Commerce Commission required railroads subject to its jurisdiction to equip locomotives with a suitable type of power-operated reverse gear. The Boiler Inspection Act, 36 Stat. 913, 916, expressly provided that violation by a carrier of any rule or regulation issued by the Commission under the Act was punishable by a fine recoverable in a civil action. A suit under the Urgent Deficiencies Act to set aside the Commission’s order was therefore entertained.
A. T. & T. Co. v. United States, 299 U. S. 232, was a suit under § 402 (a) of the Communications Act of 1934, the same provision upon which jurisdiction of the present litigation is based, to set aside an order of the Federal Communications Commission prescribing a uniform system of *435accounts for telephone companies within the Act. Section 220 (a) authorized the Commission to prescribe such forms of accounts, and § 220 (d) made the failure or refusal of a company to keep accounts in the manner prescribed by the Commission unlawful, punishable by a $500 forfeiture for each day of the continuance of the offense. Because of the legal sanctions immediately attaching upon its violation, the order was held reviewable.
In Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Goodrich Transit Co., 224 U. S. 194, the Commission, under the authority vested in it by § 20 of the Interstate Commerce Act, issued orders prescribing forms of accounts, records, and memoranda and calling for annual reports of carriers by water. Section 20 (7) made it unlawful for such carriers to keep any accounts other than those prescribed by the Commission. A suit to set aside the orders was therefore entertained. Similarly, in Kansas City So. Ry. v. United States, 231 U. S. 423, suit was brought to annul regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission prescribing a uniform bookkeeping and accounting system for interstate railway carriers. Since carriers who failed to keep accounts as ordered by the regulations were subject to penalties under § 20 (7) of the Act, jurisdiction was taken. And in Chicago, R.I.& P. Ry. Co. v. United States, 284 U. S. 80, the Interstate Commerce Commission prescribed car-hire settlement rules governing use by common carriers of each other’s cars. Violation of such rules by carriers was declared unlawful and subject to fines. Consequently, a suit to set aside the rules was entertained.
Of course, the mere fact that an administrative order determines a status does not mean that it is not reviewable. If an administrative determination of status has the effect of subjecting a person to legal obligations, whether embodied in statute or previously formulated administrative commands, or otherwise affecting legal rights, such a determination possesses the elements of a *436reviewable order. Thus, in Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. 125, the Federal Communications Commission had issued orders requiring all telephone carriers subject to the Communications Act of 1934 to file schedules of their charges, copies of contracts with other carriers, etc. Section 203 (e) of the Act provides that a carrier which fails or refuses to comply with such rules of the Commission shall forfeit $500 for each offense, and $25 for each day of its continuance. After investigation and hearing, the Commission determined that the Rochester Telephone Corporation was a telephone carrier subject to the Act and therefore subject to the previously promulgated general orders directed to carriers within the Commission’s jurisdiction. “The order of the Communications Commission in this case was therefore reviewable. It was not a mere abstract declaration regarding the status of the Rochester under the Communications Act, nor was it a stage in an incomplete process of administrative adjudication. The contested order determining the status of the Rochester necessarily and immediately carried direction of obedience to previously formulated mandatory orders addressed generally to all carriers amenable to the Commission’s authority. Into this class of carriers the order under dispute covered the Rochester, and by that fact, in conjunction with the other orders, made determination of the status of the Rochester a reviewable order of the Commission.” Rochester Telephone Corp. v. United States, 307 U. S. at 143-44. Compare A. F. of L. v. Labor Board, 308 U. S. 401, 408. Unlike the action taken by the Federal Communications Commission in the Rochester case, its action here carried no directions of obedience of any kind to anyone.
It is said that the regulations derive legal effect through § 312 (a) giving the Commission authority to revoke licenses, and that “by virtue of the regulations alone,” the networks and their affiliates are now subjected to legal *437detriment. But this is merely another way of phrasing the main contention that the regulations at once and without further action by the Commission release legal sanctions. But the regulations have no such effect. To be sure, the Commission can revoke a station license “because of conditions revealed by such statements of fact as may be required from time to time which would warrant the Commission in refusing to grant a license on an original application.” But the Commission may never require a licensee to file a statement of fact under § 312 (a); its provisions may therefore never come into operation. In any event, the regulations as such do not subject licensees to any sanctions. A license can be revoked under § 312 (a) because of the licensee’s failure to operate its station in the public interest, as required by the statute. The regulations adopted by the Commission cannot operate to revoke any licenses. It is only after a proceeding has been started (in which the licensee is entitled to a hearing during which the revocation order is suspended) and adversely concluded against a party that legal sanctions come into play—the Commission can bring proceedings to enforce its order of revocation and, correspondingly, the licensee can bring suit under § 402 (a) challenging the validity of the Commission’s termination of the license.
Section 502 of the Communications Act provides that the violation of “any rule, regulation, restriction, or condition made or imposed by the Commission under authority of this Act” shall be a criminal offense. Would the renewal by a licensee of its network-affiliation contract subject it to the criminal penalties imposed by § 502? Obviously not, for the regulations do not forbid a licensee from taking that or any other action. And, for the same reason, a license could not be revoked under the provision of § 312 (a) which authorizes revocation “for violation *438of or failure to observe . . . any regulation of the Commission authorized by this Act. . . .” If the Commission had issued regulations which ordered licensees to do or refrain from doing something, the problem would be entirely different. Violation by a licensee of such a regulation would be grounds for revocation of its license, under §312 (a), and for the imposition of criminal penalties, under § 502. And, the other requisites being present, such a regulation could be reviewed as a final administrative determination.
This leaves only the suggestion that since the action taken by the Commission, although not the completion of its adjudicatory process, nevertheless drastically affects substantial business interests, it is proper for the courts to intercede at this stage. Even if this argument were to be considered as if it had never before been made to and rejected by this Court, its infirmities are obvious. As a practical matter, the impact upon the business operations of the networks and their affiliated stations would probably be as disturbing as if the policies formulated in the regulations had been expressed through a press release, or if only the report, which is not only the foundation of the regulations but also embodies them, had been published without the regulations which are only the summary of the report, or if Congress itself had incorporated these regulations into the text of the Communications Act. It will hardly be argued that any of these steps could be the subject of judicial review before the Commission acted upon particular applications. But assume that the greater formality given to the announcement of the Commission’s statement of policy through the regulations intensified the practical business consequences. Congress has not conferred upon the district courts jurisdiction over “practical business consequences.” They can review action of administrative *439agencies only when there is an “order,” and when Congress in § 402 (a) made only an “order” of the Communications Commission reviewable, it incorporated the settled doctrine established by an unbroken series of decisions in this Court that the courts could review only a final determination by an agency whereby its administrative process has been concluded.
This is not the first time that the federal courts .have been urged to sit in judgment upon “practical business consequences” where the action to be reviewed did not represent the final stage of administrative adjudication. The arguments made in this case have been made in the past but heretofore have always been rejected by this Court. The classic formulation and application of the doctrine of finality as to orders under the Urgent Deficiencies Act was contained in United States v. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co., 273 U. S. 299. In view of the thoroughness of the argument at the bar, and the weightiness of the opinion, that case has ever since been regarded as furnishing the guideposts in this field of law. It should govern here.
Suit was brought there to annul and enjoin an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission determining the final valuation for rate-making purposes of the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad Company, which operated a thousand miles of railroad lines. The valuation fixed by the Commission was $45,200,000; the carrier claimed that, if the Commission had employed proper standards of valuation, the figure would be $70,000,000, a difference of $24,800,000. At the time suit was brought, approximately 250,000 miles of railroad lines throughout the country were undergoing valuation. The validity of the criteria employed by the Commission in the case of the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad Company was therefore of enormous national significance. In the words of *440Commissioner Eastman, “This case deals with an issue of greater moment to the country than any that we have ever determined.” 75 I. C. C. 523. These issues, involving practically every phase of valuation law, were canvassed in an adversary proceeding before the Commission lasting nearly a year and a half, resulting in a report of one hundred and forty pages, and expressed in a formal “order” of ten pages. Counsel for the railroad company there, as do counsel for the broadcasting company here, relied upon the practical finality of the order as a basis for review: “As a practical matter, the Commission in any and all proceedings in which it has occasion to use this valuation will give it not prima facie but conclusive effect. In the valuation proceeding before the Commission which resulted in this order petitioner introduced its evidence of the value of the properties and the proceeding resulted in a valuation greatly at variance with the evidence and contentions of petitioner. No greater effect will be given to evidence which petitioner may introduce in some future proceeding before the Commission in an attempt to overcome the prima facie effect accorded by the Act to this valuation order. Therefore, unless and until set aside and annulled, this valuation will stand as a continuing menace against petitioner, and may be repeatedly used to petitioner’s prejudice in rate, division, consolidation, security-issue and recapture proceedings.” Brief for Appellee, pp. 64-65.
The Court specifically referred to this argument of counsel: “One [argument in support of jurisdiction] is that since the Commission has by reason of errors of law and of judgment grossly undervalued the property, its report will, unless suppressed, injure the credit of the carrier with the public.” Finding, however, that the order did not finally determine any legal rights, the Court refused review: “Its [the Commission’s] conclusions, if erroneous in law, may *441be disregarded. But neither its utterances, nor its processes of reasoning, as distinguished from its acts, are a subject for injunction.” 273 U. S. at 314-15.1
To argue that irreparable injury implies reviewability is, in effect, to contend that there must be a remedy because the plaintiff claims serious damage. But in these situations—in reviewing “orders” under the Urgent Deficiencies Act—federal courts can give a remedy only to enforce a legal right, and a legal right cannot be derived merely by concluding that a particular claim of hardship should afford a remedy. While formally we may appear to be dealing with technicalities, behind these considerations lie deep issues of policy in the division of authority as between administrative agencies and courts in carrying out the constitutional will of Congress. The source of the misconception underlying the claim for equitable relief in this case is the assumption that this is merely an ordinary invocation of equity, as though it were a controversy between two litigants of which only the courts are or can be seized. What we are here concerned with is due regard for the proper distribution made by Congress of legal authority as between two law-enforcing agencies of government, the administrative and the judicial. See United States v. Morgan, 307 U. S. 183, 190-91; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134.
*442This case illustrates anew the influence of a particular instance of felt hardship in derailing legal principles from customary tracks. But this is not an isolated case. If threatened damage through general pronouncement of policy for future administrative action, even if cast in the formal language of a regulation, is to give rise to equitable review apart from the rule that judicial review is premature because of want of administrative finality, the same basis of irreparable harm which is here equated to jurisdiction will bear rich litigious fruit in the case of “regulations” issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission which are damaging in their immediate repercussions to stock exchange and holding companies, or regulations announced by the Treasury for the guidance of taxpayers but which adversely affect business interests, or regulations by the Federal Power Commission, etc. Suppose, for example, that the Commissioner of Internal Revenue issues a ruling that profits derived by radio stations from their network operations are subject to a tax deemed by them onerous and illegal. Could a network successfully bring a suit in equity prior to the imposition of such taxes to invalidate the ruling on the ground that its practical consequence was the cancellation of or refusal to renew network affiliations? One had supposed that the answer was clearly no. But surely in principle the problem is essentially that of the cases before us.
A final consideration remains. We are not dealing with the reviewability of administrative orders in. vacuo. The reviewability of an order of the Federal Communications Commission depends upon the statutory scheme of judicial review embodied in § 402 of the Communications Act of 1934. Therefore, even if the regulations could be deemed to possess the essential attributes of a reviewable order, it would not inevitably follow that the order is reviewable in the manner provided for by § 402 (a) of the Act. The scope and historical background of the provisions for judi*443cial review contained in the Communications Act of 1934 have too recently been canvassed, see Scripps-Howard Radio v. Federal Communications Comm’n, ante, p. 4; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 311 U. S. 132; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, to require detailed consideration here. Briefly, the Act created two avenues by which orders of the Federal Communications Commission were open to review by the federal courts. Under § 402 (a), incorporating the provisions of the Urgent Deficiencies Act of October 22, 1913, 38 Stat. 208, 219, relating to judicial review of orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission, a suit to enforce, set aside, annul, or suspend an order of the Federal Communications Commission may be brought in a specially constituted district court, with a right of direct appeal to this Court, only if the order does not fall within the exceptions enumerated by § 402 (b), namely, orders granting or denying applications for station licenses or construction permits and for renewal or modification of licenses. Review of the orders comprehended within § 402 (b) is available only through an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, with no right of direct appeal to this Court.
If the regulations do constitute an order, what kind of an order can it be? It must be in the nature of a blanket denial, operating in futuro, to be sure, of applications for renewal of station licenses. But the Act expressly precludes judicial review of orders denying renewal applications of licensees in any manner other than that prescribed by § 402 (b), to wit, by an appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As the court below held, the effect of taking jurisdiction in these cases is to substitute a different court and a different procedure for those specified by Congress. This Court has not in the past displayed such an indifference to the particularities *444of legislation defining the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts. On the contrary, only last Term did the Court insist upon strict compliance with the statutory scheme for judicial review established by the Communications Act of 1934. See Federal Communications Comm’n v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 311 U. S. 132.
Even if we were free to disregard the scheme for judicial review which Congress has established, I could not agree that an appeal under § 402 (b) would not be an adequate means for testing the claims made in the present litigation. There is essentially only one issue on the merits in this proceeding, namely, whether the adoption by the Commission of the policies expressed in the regulations transgresses its statutory and constitutional authority. But this issue could be raised and fully determined in an appeal under § 402 (b) from an order denying a renewal application. Indeed, in its Minute of October 31, 1941, the Commission explicitly stated that the validity of the regulations could be put in issue in a renewal proceeding. If anything, therefore, the issues in an appeal under § 402 (b) would be broader and not narrower than the issues here. Moreover, since the reasonableness of the application of the regulations to the particular situation would also be in issue in the renewal proceeding, the reviewing court would have before it a record containing elements of concreteness and particularity not present in the record now before us.
The Commission’s Minute enables a licensee to contest the validity of the regulations, or the reasonableness of applying them to the particular case, without fear of losing its license. “In order to insure that the station may remain on the air and be in no way injured by any such Commission proceeding [contesting the validity of the regulations] and appeal to court from a decision in such proceeding, the Commission will grant such licensee a *445temporary extension of its license, with renewals from time to time until there has been a final determination of the issues raised at such hearing. In the event of such litigation, and if the validity of the application of the Chain Broadcasting Regulations to such licensee is sustained by the courts, the Commission will nevertheless grant a regular license to the licensee, otherwise entitled thereto, who has unsuccessfully litigated that issue, if the licensee thereupon conforms to the decision.”
Plainly, therefore, a licensee is under no compulsion to cancel or modify its affiliation contract. Licensees who regard the regulations as invalid are free to continue their existing contracts and at the same time challenge the regulations in the orderly manner provided by the Act—and without any danger of losing their right to continue broadcasting. Similarly, the interests of the networks may be protected through intervention in renewal proceedings. Under the Commission’s procedure, Rule 1.102 of the Rules of Practice and Procedure, where a renewal application is designated for hearing because of the licensee’s contractual arrangements with others, the latter are customarily permitted to intervene. See, for example, Application of E. J. Regan and E. Arthur Bostwick, Docket No. 5788; Application of John H. Stenger, Jr., Docket No. 5430.
We need go no farther than this litigation to perceive the unfortunate effects of premature judicial review. The chain broadcasting regulations were issued on May 2, 1941, more than a year ago. They were adopted by the Commission as a consequence of its finding, after an investigation lasting more than three years, that certain features of network-affiliation contracts prevented licensees from effectively discharging their obligation to render the fullest service to the listening public. The policy formulated by the Commission may or may not be wise—that is not our concern. But we cannot blink the fact that this litigation has for more than a year pre*446vented the Commission from testing by experience the practical wisdom of a policy found by it to be required by the public interest. The commencement of a proceeding under § 402 (b) would not have presented the jurisdictional problems present in this proceeding. Surely those desirous of a speedy adjudication of the issue of the validity of the regulations were aware that the commencement of a proceeding under § 402 (a) would not produce a prompt adjudication on the merits, but that it would instead result in postponing for a considerable period the effective date of the regulations, with all the contingent advantages afforded by such postponement.
Hardship there may well come through action of an administrative agency. But to slide from recognition of a hardship to assertion of jurisdiction is once more to assume that only the courts are the guardians of the rights and liberties of the people. In denying that it had power to review the action of the Federal Communications Commission because that body had not yet determined a legal right, the court below, as Judge Learned Hand’s opinion abundantly proves, was not respecting a rule of etiquette. On the contrary, it merely recognized that the federal courts are entrusted with the correction of administrative errors or wrong-doing only to the extent of Congressional authorization. To say that the courts should reject the doctrine of administrative finality and take jurisdiction whenever action of an administrative agency may seriously affect substantial business interests, regardless of how intermediate or incomplete the action may be, is, in effect, to imply that the protection of legal interests is entrusted solely to the courts. The unbroken current of this Court’s decisions in construing the scope of judicial review under the Urgent Deficiencies Act, and which is the only warrant for jurisdiction in this case, repels such a contention. The decision should therefore be affirmed.
Me. Justice Reed and Me. Justice Douglas join in this dissent.

 To the same effect is United States v. Illinois Central R. Co., 244 U. S. 82. There the Interstate Commerce Commission issued an order fixing the time and place for hearing complaints made by various coal companies seeking damages against railroads for failing to supply a sufficient number of coal cars for their shipping needs. The railroads brought suit under the Urgent Deficiencies Act to annul this order, alleging that unless the hearing were restrained, the railroads would be put to enormous expense and inconvenience. The Court held that the notice of hearing “had no characteristic of an order, affirmative or negative,” and since it “was a mere incident in the proceeding,” the suit could not be entertained. 244 U. S. at 89.