Court Opinion

ID: 9462946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:53:57.34952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:51.505195
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion on Petition for Rehearing
ORDER
On consideration of appellants’ petition for rehearing, it is
ORDERED by the court that the aforesaid petition for rehearing is denied, for the reasons stated in the following supplemental opinion filed this date.
Per Curiam :
In connection with the petition for rehearing, we have considered the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Nader v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., - U.S. -, 96 S.Ct. 1978, 48 L.Ed.2d 643 (1976), but find it distinguishable from the instant case. Nader involved a common law tort action for damages — for alleged fraudulent misrepresentation through failure to notify passengers of deliberate overbooking practices. The Supreme Court found this type of suit preserved by the saving clause of the Federal Aviation Act, and contemplated by the agency as an alternative to its “denied boarding compensation” regulation. In petitioner’s case, by contrast, the damages action against Delta and Value Engineering Co. proceeds below, and has not been disturbed by our ruling. We have merely affirmed the dismissal of the action for injunctive relief against Delta, because this was an attempt to compel the court to fashion a regulation through an injunction when there is an ongoing rulemaking proceeding on the subject before the agency and petitioner has made no appearance therein. In Nader the Supreme Court held that the damages action for fraudulent misrepresentation was “within the conventional competence of the courts” with “the judgment of a technically expert body not likely to be helpful in the application of the standards to the facts.” At-, 96 S.Ct. 1988. In the case at bar we think it critical that the action is for injunctive relief, not damages, and in our view it does bring into play considerations of uniformity and agency expertise.1

Petition for rehearing denied.

. Because of the Supreme Court’s reversal of this court in Nader, the reference to our Nader opinion, 167 U.S.App.D.C. 350, 512 F.2d 527 (1975), which originally appeared following note 7 of-our Kappelmann opinion, has been stricken today by a separate unpublished order. Since our Nader opinion was mentioned in Kappelmann solely as an example of a case where a court had asked an agency to initially decide a question of “fact or policy within a particular factual context,” supra at 169, 539 F.2d at 165, it is no longer appropriately cited following the Supreme Court’s action.