United States ex rel. City of Los Angeles v. Interstate Commerce Commission

34 F.2d 228, 59 App. D.C. 98, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 3219
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedFebruary 25, 1929
DocketNo. 4863
StatusPublished

This text of 34 F.2d 228 (United States ex rel. City of Los Angeles v. Interstate Commerce Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States ex rel. City of Los Angeles v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 34 F.2d 228, 59 App. D.C. 98, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 3219 (D.C. Cir. 1929).

Opinion

VAN ORSDEL, Associate Justice.

The city of Los Angeles, Cal., a municipal corporation, filed a petition for mandamus in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to compel defendant, the Interstate Commerce Commission, to make an order requiring the Southern Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, and the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad Companies to construct, maintain, and operate, a union passenger station in the city of'Los Angeles, at a point near what is known as the Plaza.

It appears that in 1921 the Railroad Commission of California, in a proceeding before it, ordered the carriers named to file plans for the erection of a union station at the point above designated in the city of. Los Angeles, and in a subsequent order required the carriers to secure sufficient land for the construction of the station and terminal, to submit plans therefor, and, upon approval by the commission, to proceed with the construction. The carriers appealed from the decision to the Supreme Court of California. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 190 Cal. 214, 211 P. 460. The court reversed the order on the ground that the Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456, had vested full authority over union depot facilities of interstate carriers by railroads in the Interstate Commerce Commission, divesting the state commission of jurisdiction in the premises. From this decision the state commission carried the ease to the Supreme Court of the United States.

While the ease was there pending, the city of Los Angeles filed a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission praying the Commission to require the defendant carriers to construct and operate the union passenger station in question. During the pend-ency of this ease before the Commission, the Supreme Court rendered its opinion in Railroad Com. of Cal. v. Southern Pac. Co., 264 U. S. 331, 44 S. Ct. 376, 68 L. Ed. 713, hereafter for convenience referred to as the Los Angeles Case, in which the judgment of the Supreme Court of California (190 Cal. [229]*229214, 211 P. 460) was affirmed, the court holding, in substance, however, that defendant carriers could not be required to provide a union station and extend their terminal tracks until the Interstate Commerce Commission had acted under paragraphs 18 to 21 of section 402 of the Transportation Act (49 USCA § 1 (18-21). •

The Commission then issued its report in the proceeding instituted by the City of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles & S. L. R. Co., 100 I. C. C. 421, holding that it was powerless “to require carriers to construct union passenger stations under conditions such as are here present.” It, however, made findings in accordance with its interpret tation of the decision of the Supreme Court, to the effect that public convenience and necessity required such extensions and abandonments of lines and service and joint use of terminal tracks as would be necessary in the establishment and operation of a union passenger station at the point designated, and that the expense would not-impair the ability of the roads to perform their respective duties to the public. The Commission, however, refused to issue certificates as provided in the Transportation Act, but retained jurisdiction of the case, reserving the right to alter its findings in event that the plan evolved by the carriers or the state commission for the establishment of a union station might be materially different from that “here considered to be in the public interest.”

The state commission reopened the ease, and on further hearing rendered a decision, with findings substantially identical with those made by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and in addition found that public convenience and necessity required the defendant carriers to construct a union passenger station at the point designated, with the terminal facilities incidental thereto, which in its opinion could be done at a cost of $10,-000,000. The state commission thereupon made an order requiring defendant carriers to carry out its findings when the Interstate Commerce Commission should promulgate an order authorizing the construction, extensions, and abandonments, as directed by the state commission.

The city of Los Angeles and the state commission thereupon filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission petitions asking the Commission to issue certificates in accordance with the findings theretofore made by it, and to order said carriers to construct and thereafter operate the union passenger station in compliance with the plan announced by the state commission. The carriers filed answers opposing the relief sought. Evidence was taken, and the Interstate Commerce Commission, on May 8, 1928, rendered its report and order affirming the findings made in its earlier report with the finding that the report of the state commission is sufficiently supported in the record, and it accordingly issued certificates in conformity, with said findings. Los Angeles Passenger Terminal Case, 142 I. C. C. 489’. The -Commission, however, adhered to the decision reached in the earlier ease to the effect that it was not empowered to require the construction of a union passenger station, and denied the application in this particular.

It was this decision which brought about the present suit, and, from the decision of the court below dismissing the petition, this' appeal is prosecuted.

We think the Interstate Commerce Commission was in error in holding that it is without power under the Transportation Act to require the carriers in question to construct a union station. The purpose in the mind of Congress in vesting in the Commission the extensive control over interstate railways, set forth in the Transportation Act, is expressed in Dayton-Goose Creek Railway Co. v. United States, 263 U. S. 456, 478, 44 S. Ct. 169, 172 (68 L. Ed. 388, 33 A. L. R. 472), where the court said: “The new Act seeks affirmatively to build up a system of railways prepared to handie promptly all the interstate traffic of the country. It aims to give the owners of the railways an opportunity to earn enough to maintain their properties and equipment in such a state of efficiency that they can carry well this burden. To achieve this great purpose, it puts the railroad systems of the country more completely than.' ever under the fostering guardianship and' control of the Commission, which is to supervise their issue of securities, their car supply and distribution, their joint use of terminals, their construction of new lines', their abandonment of old lines, and by a proper division of joint rates, and by fixing adequate rates for interstate commerce, and in case of discrimination, for intrastate commerce, to secure a fair return upon the properties of the carriers engaged.”

-This broad supervisory power, it is urged; does not extend to the requirement that an interstate carrier or system of carriers may be required by the Commission to install an interstate union station; but running throughout the act are provisions which authorize the Commission to impose most drastic limitations on a carrier’s control and use of its property in order to secure the convenience [230]*230and welfare of the shipping and traveling public in interstate commerce.

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Bluebook (online)
34 F.2d 228, 59 App. D.C. 98, 1929 U.S. App. LEXIS 3219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-ex-rel-city-of-los-angeles-v-interstate-commerce-commission-cadc-1929.