Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission v. United States

812 F.2d 8, 258 U.S. App. D.C. 404
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit·Decided February 24, 1987·No. No. 85-1544·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Opinion for the Court filed by District Judge OBERDORFER.

OBERDORFER, District Judge:

This is an appeal from a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission (“ICC”) granting the petition of Air Couriers International, Inc. (“ACI”) for a declaratory order. The Commission found that the movement of transient airline flight crews between an airport in one state and temporary hotel accommodations in the same state is interstate in nature and exempt from the Commission’s jurisdiction under the provisions of 49 U.S.C. § 10526(a)(8)(A).1 Because we find that the Commission did not abuse its discretion in granting the petition, we affirm.

ACI provides ground transportation services to and from airports. In the summer of 1983, ACI contracted with United Airlines (“United”) to transport its employees from Baltimore Washington Airport to a hotel in Columbia, Maryland and back again.2 After this contract was made, ACI was advised by the Maryland Public Service Commission (“MPSC”) that the proposed service was intrastate in nature and subject to state regulation. On July 15, 1983, ACI filed an application for authorization from the MPSC to operate this service. This application was opposed by an existing certified carrier and was denied. ACI did not request a formal hearing before the MPSC and took no further action on its application. Instead, on December 2, 1983, ACI filed a petition for a declaratory order with the Interstate Commerce Commission under 5 U.S.C. § 554(e). This petition requested a determination that this service was interstate in nature and exempt from the ICC’s jurisdiction under the “incidental to air” exception. 49 U.S.C. §10526(a)(8)(A). The Commission published a notice of the petition in the ICC Register and the Federal Register and invited written comment. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (“PPUC”), among others, filed comments opposing the petition. On July 1, 1985, the ICC issued its decision holding, first, that the prearranged transportation of aircrew members from airports to hotel accommodations w^s exempt from the ICC’s jurisdiction as “transportation of passengers by motor vehicle incidental to transportation by aircraft” under 49 U.S.C. § 10526(a)(8)(A), and second, that the transportation was interstate in charac[406]*406ter because it was provided pursuant to a “common arrangement” between the air carrier and the motor carrier.3 The PPUC has petitioned this Court for review of the ICC's decision. This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2342(5).

Petitioner argues here that the ICC’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). More specifically, the PPUC maintains that previous court and ICC decisions required the Commission to hold that motor transportation of passengers between an airport in one state and points in the same state is not interstate in nature unless it is pursuant to a contract for continuous interstate travel by a fare paying passenger. We have considered the Commission’s decision in light of the precedents cited by the petitioner and we hold that the ICC did not abuse its discretion in determining that the transportation at issue here was interstate.

The question whether transportation that occurs entirely within one state but that is part of a continuous interstate journey is part of interstate commerce has been previously considered by courts in the context of the Sherman Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. These precedents have been consulted by the ICC in determining the scope of its interstate jurisdiction. See Motor Transportation of Passengers Incidental to Transportation by Aircraft, 95 M.C.C. 526, 536-37 (1964). We have examined these cases and we find that they do not require the result urged by the petitioner but rather are consistent with the ICC’s determination.

In United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, 67 S.Ct. 1560, 91 L.Ed. 2010 (1947), the Supreme Court considered whether taxi cab service in Chicago fell under the provisions of the Sherman Act. The Court first examined an exclusive contract between a cab company and two railroad terminals for the transportation of interstate passengers between the two stations. The passengers received this service as part of their contract with the railroads. The Court held that such transportation was in interstate commerce, reasoning that

[w]hen persons or goods move from a point of origin in one state to a point of destination in another, the fact that a part of that journey consists of transportation by an independent agency solely within the boundaries of one state does not make that portion of the trip any less interstate in character. That portion must be viewed in its relation to the entire journey rather than in isolation. So viewed, it is an integral step in the interstate movement.

Id. at 228-29, 67 S.Ct. at 1565-66 (citations omitted). By contrast, the Court held that general taxicab business in the city of Chicago was “too unrelated to interstate commerce to constitute a part thereof within the meaning of the Sherman Act.” Id. at 230, 67 S.Ct. at 1566. The decision relied on a number of factors including the fact that none of the general cab companies served only railroad passengers, that many of the trips were purely local in character, that these local cab companies did not have a contractual arrangement with the railroad and that they did not have their fares collected as part of the railroad fares. Id. at 230-32, 67 S.Ct. at 1566-67. For these reasons, the Court found that the local cab companies’ relationship to interstate travel was “only casual and incidental.” Id. at 231, 67 S.Ct. at 1567.

Petitioner argues that the Yellow Cab case and its progeny preclude the ICC from finding that local transportation is interstate unless it involves a “contract ... in the nature of a through-ticket for continuous passage of a fare paying passenger.” Petitioner’s Brief at 14. We do not agree. While the Yellow Cab Court did note that the Chicago taxi cabs did not have “their fares paid or collected as part of the railroad fares,” id. at 231, 67 S.Ct. at 1567, [407]*407this was merely one of a number of factors the Court considered in making the determination that this service’s relationship to interstate commerce was “only casual and incidental.” The Court also noted that the cabs did not serve only railroad passengers and did not have a contractual arrangement with the railroads. Id. at 231, 67 S.Ct. at 1567. The Yellow Cab case therefore suggests that a variety of the factors bearing on the character of the transportation should be considered in determining whether it is sufficiently related to the stream of commerce to be considered interstate.

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Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission v. United States, 812 F.2d 8, 258 U.S. App. D.C. 404 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

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