Court Opinion

ID: 9633799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:00:41.049534+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:20.598722
License: Public Domain

JOHNSEN, Cireuit Judge (dissenting).
The effect of the majority opinion is to hold that, where the Commission has defined the scope of public convenience and necessity existing in a particular situation, by a finding such as the statute requires, but it has in some manner is*910sued a certificate in excess of or contrary to the limits of the public convenience and necessity so found, it can not call in the certificate or engage in any correction or reissuance thereof, in order to make the certificate conform to its finding, unless it grants the holder a hearing.
I respectfully dissent from this view, for the reasons (1) that I do not believe that there is any statutory prescription for a hearing as to such an unauthorized, purported certificate-grant, and (2) that I am unable to see how it legally can be claimed that any substance or any color of rights exists, to whatever operations the certificate may purport to cover which plainly are beyond or contradictory of the scope or limits of the public convenience and necessity found, as a basis or foundation for any contention of requirement or need for a hearing generally.
What is there that the holder could possibly contend or argue in such a situation, as a matter of hearing accorded, that would at all enable the language of a certificate legally to override and nullify the scope of the public convenience and necessity fixed by the finding, which the statute makes requisite to the very issuance of the certificate ?
Under 49 U.S.C.A. § 307, the Commission has power or authority to issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity for motor carrier operation (except as to grandfather rights under § 306(a)), only “if it is found * * * that the proposed service, to the extent to be authorized by the certificate, is or will be required by the present or future public convenience and necessity * * (Emphasis mine.)
The plain effect of this statutory requirement seems to me to be that any purported certificate or part of a certificate, which has been issued without such a finding as a basis for it, is legally void, as not being capable of constituting an exercise of Commission authority or a grant of operator rights under the statute.
In the situation before us, the finding of public convenience and necessity made as to operations by Watson Bros, to and from the four ordnance plants that are involved was as to the hauling “of dangerous explosives.” There was no finding of public convenience and necessity as to the hauling of any other commodities, as a basis for granting any additional hauling rights. Watson Bros, acceded to the limits of the convenience and necessity found, by not taking any exceptions to or making other legal attack upon the finding, and the Commission in regular course directed the issuance of a certificate in effectuation of its finding.
The certificate, as drawn, however, recited that “Service is authorized to and from the site of (each of the four ordnance plants involved) as off route points in connection with said carrier’s authorized regular and irregular route operations.” The words, “of dangerous explosives,” were in some way not included in the recitation of the certificate, and Watson Bros., without any inquiry of the Commission as to the obvious discrepancy between the finding and the certificate, and perhaps with no desire to make any such inquiry, began to engage in the operation of transporting general commodities, and not just dangerous explosives, to and from the ordnance plants.
What then, as a matter of fair and necessary administrative reach, was the Commission entitled to do, when it discovered what had occurred in relation to the issuance and the use of its certificate ? If I am correct in my view that a certificate or any part of a certificate that purports to grant operation rights, for which there exists no finding of public convenience and necessity, is legally void, then there can not possibly be any basis for a carrier to object to, argue legal prejudice from, or seek to prevent, any attempt by the Commission, in eliminating shadows for enforcement purposes, to call in such a certificate for correction or reissuance, or to make a declaration of nullity, or to enter an order against the carrier, or to take any other *911incidental administrative step, the sole purpose and the only effect of which action are a conforming of the language of the certificate to the actual scope of the existing finding, on which alone, as I have stated, the right of the Commission to issue the certificate rested.
I am unable to agree with the contention of Watson Bros., which the majority here accepts, that the Commission has no right to undertake to make an improperly issued certificate conform to the scope of the finding of public convenience and necessity made and required to underlie the certificate, except upon the basis of 49 U.S.C.A. § 312(a). That section provides: “Certificates * * * shall be effective from the date specified therein, and shall remain in effect until suspended or terminated as herein provided. Any such certificate * * * may, upon application of the holder thereof, in the discretion of the Commission, be amended or revoked, in whole or in part, or may upon complaint, or on the Commission’s own initiative, after notice and hearing, be suspended, changed or revoked, in whole or in part, for willful failure to comply with any provision of this chapter, or with any lawful order, rule, or regulation of the Commission, promulgated thereunder, or with any term, condition, or limitation of such certificate * * * >>
It will be noted that this statutory provision gives the Commission the right to touch certificates only in relation to some willful violation of statute, of lawful orders, rules, or regulations of the Commission, or .of terms, conditions, or limitations of the certificate — all of which, as the word “willful” manifestly implies, are matters of conduct in the holder’s operations. If this provision is the measure or limit of the Commission’s right to deal with legally unauthorized certificates, then necessarily the Commission is unable at all, just as in the case of authorized certificates, to touch any such certificates or the operations being carried on under them, so long as the holder refrains from engaging in a willful violation of any statute, of any lawful order, rule, or regulation of the Commission, or of any term, condition, or limitation of his purported certificate, in the carrying on of operations under the certificate.
In other words, — and this is in fact the effect of Watson Bros.’ argument here— if an unempowered or unauthorized certificate or part of a certificate chances to be issued by the Commission, with no finding of public convenience and necessity as a basis for its issuance, the whole thing is simply too bad for everybody (except the certificate holder), including the public interest which the Act was designed to serve, because 49 U.S.C.A. § 312(a), even on a hearing, does not allow the Commission to touch any certificate, whether lawfully or unlawfully issued, unless the holder, in carrying on his carrier operations under the authority of the certificate, engages in some willful conduct of violation of statute, commission régulation, or certificate terms, as previously mentioned, in the mode of his operation.
I reject that construction of § 312(a), as being both unreasonable and unnecessary. Having regard for the possible consequences of such a construction upon the public interest in relation to unauthorized certificates, and keeping in mind that rights to operate as a motor carrier can not at all be granted or have validity under § 307, supra, except upon the basis of public convenience and necessity having been found, it seems to me that § 312(a) logically has and reasonably can have application only to certificates which the Commission has lawfully issued, and not to purported certificates or parts of certificates which the Commission possesses no power or authority under § 307 to issue. I am further persuaded to this view, because that which has no legal substance or existence, .from the lack of any power to create it, would hardly have capacity or need to be “suspended, changed, or revoked,” in a legal sense or as a question of legal effect.
With § 312(a) not being required to be regarded as having application to legally unauthorized certificates, there is no *912prescription otherwise in the statutes that requires the Commission to grant a hearing as a basis for the taking of administrative action by it to make the certificate here involved simply conform to the finding of public convenience and necessity existing in relation to it. And, as I have said, in view of § 307, it is not possible to contend that such an unauthorized certificate can give rise to any substance or color of legal rights to operate, which, apart from any statutory prescription for hearing, would entitle Watson Bros, to a hearing as a matter- of general procedural due process. Nor can Watson Bros, seek to induce relief here on the basis and scope of the unlawful operations which they have been carrying on in the past and the present existence of public convenience and necessity which those operations may perhaps be capable of' demonstrating. These are matters that are only open ta consideration on - a new • application before the Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity as to general commodities, and not as a matter of any possible legal relationship to the finding of public convenience and necessity previously made and the certificate entitled to be issued on the basis thereof.
I am accordingly unable to see any basis for the granting of an injunction allowing Watson Bros, to continue to haul general commodities to and from the ordnance plants involved. All that Watson Bros, can have or ever have had any lawful right to haul, under the finding of public convenience and necessity made by the Commission, is “dangerous explosives.”
Other contentions in relation to the Commission’s action as to the certificate have been made by Watson Bros., which the majority opinion does not reach. I shall accordingly not consider them either. They go entirely to the matter of hauling explosives and have no relationship to the question of the right of the Commission to keep Watson Bros, from continuing to haul general commodities as opposed to dangerous explosives. To me, the Commission clearly had the right to correct the certificate issued Watson Bros., to exclude general commodities from the recital of their operation rights and to leave those operation rights applicable to dangerous explosives only, in accordance with the finding of public convenience and necessity made and in relation to the power or authority of the Commission to issue a certificate only on the basis of that finding. To hold otherwise is to hamper the Commission in the performance of its busy functions, by requiring it to conduct a useless hearing in relation to something that is utterly without any possible substance or color as a basis of legal operating rights.