Court Opinion

ID: 9447585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:38:19.822964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:06.145083
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In presenting this case by brief and oral argument the Government urged the Court to consider the factual situation from the standpoint of the shipper and to determine whether or not an I.C. C. violation had occurred by an examination of the net result obtained by the shipper through utilization of the combined services of the appellants. My brothers have apparently considered the approach sound and, since it is clear that a shipper may, by contracting with both Truck Leasing and Drivers Service, obtain much the same service as is usually available only through an I.C.C. authorized contract carrier, the court concludes that the shipper’s benefits must be stopped by injunctive relief against all those whose businesses make the result possible. I cannot agree for often a business result may be obtained lawfully by one means and yet prohibited by another. Such, indeed, is the basic difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. And such, in my view, is the difference between the situations considered in the instant case and that presented and held to be unlawful in Lamb v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 10 Cir., 259 F. 2d 358.
In Lamb the suspect activities were pure sham, found by the tidal court to be so and the judgment sustained by this court upon such a premise. But in the instant case the activities of appellants do not carry the taint of sham and, quite to the contrary, the I.C.C. readily admits that Truck Leasing and Drivers Service are each and both lawfully operating independent businesses not vio-lative of the Interstate Commerce Act until their separate services are rendered to a mutual customer. In other words, it is admitted that Truck Leasing may lawfully lease its trucks, and does so to many customers, and Drivers Service may lawfully furnish manpower, and does so to many customers, and that the businesses are bona fide in all regards until a Drivers Service driver operates a truck owned by Truck Leasing. The majority opinion holds the operation to be then unlawful because the result, even though neither appellant may actually know of the result, benefits a shipper. I cannot agree that the Interstate Commerce Act should be so broadly construed.
The difficulty of the majority opinion seems highlighted by the recognition that the injunctive relief granted by the trial court cannot be sustained in the general terms contained and that appellants are entitled to know “with reasonable detail the nature of the integrated or linked together activities * * * which are enjoined * * * .” I fail to see what activities an injunction can properly enjoin. Certainly the parties cannot be enjoined from having a mutual customer for that event may occur by pure chance. Nor can American businesses be enjoined from cooperating one with the other to obtain mutual advantage for themselves or for their customers.
I would reverse with directions to dismiss the action.