Dunkley Refrigerated Transport, Inc. v. United States

253 F. Supp. 891
CourtDistrict Court, D. Utah
DecidedMay 9, 1966
DocketCiv. A. No. C-125-65
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 253 F. Supp. 891 (Dunkley Refrigerated Transport, Inc. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Utah primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dunkley Refrigerated Transport, Inc. v. United States, 253 F. Supp. 891 (D. Utah 1966).

Opinion

KERR, District Judge.

This is an action to review a report and order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Division 1, decided April 14, 1964,1 granting Ralph F. Dunkley authority to transport in interstate or foreign commerce as a common carrier by motor vehicle, over irregular routes, frozen fruits, frozen berries, frozen vegetables, frozen potato products, and potato products. Plaintiff seeks to have that order set aside in part, and to have reinstated the commodity authorization of frozen foods and potato products, not frozen, as recommended by the hearing examiner. The jurisdictional requirements of 28 U.S.C. Sections 1336(a) as amended, 1398(a) as amended, 2284, and 2321-2325, and of 49 U.S.C. Section 305(g) are satisfied.

The question to be determined by this court is whether the Commission made adequate findings based on substantial evidence to support its finding that the public convenience and necessity requires the operation by plaintiff in interstate or foreign commerce, as a common carrier by motor vehicle, over irregular routes, of frozen fruits, frozen berries, frozen vegetables, and potato products, rather than of frozen foods and potato products, not frozen, as recommended by the hearing examiner. The geographical author[893]*893ity ordered by the Commission is not challenged.

Plaintiff operates a refrigerated trucking business over irregular routes in ten western states under and by virtue of authorities issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission. His principal place of business and terminal are located in Salt Lake City, Utah.

On November 30, 1961, in Docket No. MC-117823 (Sub-No. 4), plaintiff filed an application under Section 207 of the interstate Commerce Act (49 U.S.C. § 307), for a certificate of public convenience and necessity authorizing operation as a common carrier by motor vehicle, in interstate commerce, over irregular routes in transporting frozen foods and potato products not frozen from (1) points in Idaho south of the southern boundary of Idaho County and from Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Provo, Utah, to points in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, and Denver, Colorado; and (2) from points in Oregon to points in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. On January 22, 1962 plaintiff filed his application in Docket No. MC-117823 (Sub-No. 6), seeking identical operating authority from points in Washington to points in Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, and Denver, Colorado. Plaintiff’s applications and eighteen similar applications were combined for hearing under the lead docket No. MC-263 (Sub-No. 134) Garrett Freightlines, Inc., Extension-Frozen Foods. Hearings in the consolidated proceedings were conducted by the Examiner of the Commission in February and March 1962, in Boise, Idaho, and Denver, Colorado.

The hearing Examiner’s Report and Recommended Order of January 8, 1963, prescribed that plaintiff’s requested authority to transport frozen foods and potato products, not frozen, be granted, except between points in Utah in Sub-No. 4. The recommended order imposed a restriction against joinder with prevlously ^ranted operating rights for the Purpose of performing through transPortation from points in Washington and Oregon to points in California, and was made subject to the condition that, to _extent the recommended authority duplicated any other authority held by plaintiff, it was not to be construed as. conferring more than a single opera^ng right.

On April 14, 1964, the Commission, Division 1, issued its Report and Order granting the territorial authority sought by plaintiff as recommended by the Examiner except the Commission omitted Arizona as a destination state. The Commission also limited plaintiff’s cornmodity authority to frozen fruits, frozen berries, frozen vegetables, frozen potato products and potato products, not frozen.2 By order of September 2, 1964, the Commission, Division 1, acting as an Appellate Division, denied plaintiff’s petition for reconsideration of the cornmodity description in the Commission’s findings of the report and order. On October 29, 1964, the Commission also denied plaintiff’s petition for a determination that an issue of general transportation importance was involved.

[894]*894We have limited ourselves to the scope of review authorized in actions of tes nature:

“The function of the reviewing court is to ascertaining whether there is warrant in the law and the facts for what the Commission has done. Unless in some specific respect there has been prejudicial departure from requirements of the law or abuse of the Commission’s discretion, the reviewing court is without authority to intervene. It cannot substitute its own view concerning what should be done, whether with reference to competitive considerations or others, for the Commission’s judgment upon matters committed to its determination, if that has support in the record and the applicable law.” United States et al. v. Pierce Auto Freight Lines, Inc. et al., 327 U.S. 515, 536, 66 S.Ct. 687, 698, 90 L.Ed. 821 (1946).

Thus restrained, we have probed the record only to ascertain whether there is a “rational basis for the conclusions” of the Commission with respect to the commodity authority granted to the plaintiff. Mississippi Valley Barge Line Co. v. United States, 292 U.S. 282, 54 S.Ct. 692, 78 L.Ed. 1260 (1934). We have found none.

The Commission adopted the statement of facts contained in the Examiner’s report as being correct in all material aspects. It tacitly approved the Examiner’s detailed discussion of the activities and transportation requirements of the supporting shippers, which the Commission merely summarized giving particular^ attention to certain shippers whom it considered typical.

With exceptions not here material, each application in this consolidated record sought authority to transport frozen foods and potato products, not frozen, The record is replete with evidence concerning the need for a broad commodity authority. The Examiner found that it is a common occurrence for vehicles making pickups to he loaded with a mixture of different frozen foods; that distribution patterns have changed in recent years and substantial volumes of frozen ^ods are presently moved directly to re-tail stores and other customers which buy in smaU quantities; and that car-riers and shippers alike will benefit if partial deliveries of a wide range of frozen food products can be made at various and numerous points throughout a large destination area,

The Examiner also discussed the com-plicated situation involving the grandfather rights of certain shippers and the indecision in construing the term “agncultural commodities”, “frozen vegetables”, and “frozen fruits”. He concluded that the problems of the applicants would not be solved by the final determination 0f the Status case 3 or any of the “grand-father” proceedings now on appeal.

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253 F. Supp. 891, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dunkley-refrigerated-transport-inc-v-united-states-utd-1966.