Court Opinion

ID: 9444507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:03:03.791753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:53.824849
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
WILBUR K. MILLER, Circuit Judge.
In our opinion, handed down July 15, 1954, we held that, when the Commission has approved without a hearing the assignment of a construction permit, the licensee of an existing station shows himself to be a party in interest, entitled under § 309(c) of the Act to protest and be heard, when he alleges he will suffer economic injury from the operation of the new station. We held no more than that.
In a petition for rehearing the Commission again urges that the licensee of the existing station may not protest against its approval of the assignment unless he alleges he will be injured economically by the assignee’s operation of the new station, “as opposed to its operation by the assignor.”
The Commission’s quarrel is in reality not with our opinion but with the rele*196vant sections of the Act and with the opinion of the Supreme Court in the Sanders Brothers case,1 where the Commission’s contentions (analogous to those it makes in this case) were summarized as being
(a) “* * * that under the Communications Act economic injury to a competitor is not a ground for refusing a broadcasting license and that, since this is so, the respondent was not a person aggrieved, or whose interests were adversely affected, by the Commission’s action, within the meaning of § 402(b) of the Act, 47 U.S.C.A. § 402(b), which authorizes appeals from the Commission’s orders.” 309 U.S. at pages 472, 473, 60 S.Ct. at page 696.
(b) “* * * that as economic injury to the respondent was not a proper issue before the Commission it is impossible that § 402(b) was intended to give the respondent standing to appeal, since absence of right implies absence of remedy.” 309 U.S. at page 477, 60 S.Ct. at page 698.
These contentions were rejected by the Supreme Court. It said in 309 U.S. at pages 476, 477, 60 S.Ct. at page 698:
“We conclude that economic injury to an existing station is not a separate and independent element to be taken into consideration by the Commission in determining whether it shall grant or withhold a license.
“Second. It does not follow that because the licensee of a station cannot resist the grant of a license to another, on the ground that the resulting competition may work economic injury to him, he has no standing to appeal from an order of the Commission granting the application.
“Section 402(b) of the Act (47 U.S.C.A. § 402(b)) provides for an appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia (1) by an applicant for a license or permit, or (2) ‘by any other person aggrieved or whose interests are adversely affected by any decision of the Commission granting or refusing any such application.’
“The petitioner insists that as economic injury to the respondent was not a proper issue before the Commission it is impossible that § 402(b) was intended to give the respondent standing to appeal, since absence of right implies absence of remedy. This view would deprive subsection (2) of any substantial effect.
“Congress had some purpose in enacting section 402(b) (2). It may have been of opinion that one likely to be financially injured by the issue of a license would be the only person having a sufficient interest to bring to the attention of the appellate court errors of law in the action of the Commission in granting the license. It is within the power of Congress to confer such standing to prosecute an appeal.
“We hold, therefore, that the respondent had the requisite standing to appeal and to raise, in the court below, any relevant question of law in respect of the order of the Commission.”
Here, just as in the Sanders case, the right to protest does not depend upon whether the prótestant will be entitled to relief from the competition which will cause him to suffer economic injury. The mere fact that he will suffer such injury from the operation of the new station entitles him to demand a hearing concerning the assignment of the construction permit which has been approved without a hearing.
Petition for rehearing denied.

. Federal Communications Comm. v. Sanders Brothers Radio Station, 1940, 309 U.S. 470, 642, 60 S.Ct. 693, 84 L.Ed. 869, 1037.