The district court is without jurisdiction over an order of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, negative in substance and form, in
which the Commission declined to exercise its authority under the
"Panama Canal Act" of August 24, 1912, c. 390, § 11, 37 Stat. 60,
566, to extend the period fixed in the act for the divorcement of
railroad and water carriers.
Procter & Gamble Co. v. United
States, 225 U. S. 282.
234 F. 682 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a bill to prevent the enforcement of an order of the
Interstate Commerce Commission. On December 2, 1913, the Commission
issued a circular calling attention
Page 243 U. S. 413
to the fact that the Act of August 24, 1912, c. 390, § 11, 37
Stat. 560, 566, known as the Panama Canal Act, prohibited, after
July 1, 1914, any ownership by a railroad in any common carrier by
water when the railroad might compete for traffic with the water
carrier, and that the Commission was authorized to determine
questions of fact as to such competition, and to extend the time
beyond July 1, 1914, if the extension would not exclude or reduce
competition on the water route. Notice was given that applications
for extension of time should be filed by March 1, 1914. Thereupon,
in January, 1914, the appellant filed a petition praying for a
hearing as to whether the services of a steamboat line owned by it
would be in violation of the above section and for an extension of
time. It is the order issued upon this petition against which
relief is sought.
The facts other than the question whether they warrant the
conclusion that the railroad and the steamboat line do or may
compete are not disputed. The railroad extends from Jersey City to
Buffalo, and there connects with the line of the Lehigh Valley
Transportation Company, which runs vessels between Buffalo and
Chicago and Milwaukee. The railroad company owns all the stock of
the Transportation Company, but, with the exception of the
interchange port of Buffalo, serves no point in common with the
boats of the latter. It is, however, a party to certain
fast-freightline arrangements and all-rail routes and joint rates
to the ports served by its vessels. The effect of these connections
and of the railroad's membership of the Lake Lines Association was
held by the Commission to put the railroad in a position inimical
to the best interests of the boat line, to deprive the latter of
its initial ratemaking power, and to determine by outside authority
whether freight shall move by all rail or by lake and rail routes,
and if by the latter, by which lake line. It was held that, by
virtue of these arrangements, the railroad
Page 243 U. S. 414
did or might compete with its boat line, and upon that decision,
the petition of the appellant was dismissed. 33 I.C.C. 699, 706,
716; 37 I.C.C. 77.
Three judges sitting in the district court denied the injunction
asked and dismissed the bill. 234 F. 682. Although they proceeded
to discuss the merits of the case, they intimated at the outset a
strong doubt whether, in any event, an injunction could be granted.
If this doubt was well founded, there is nothing more to be said,
since the ground of jurisdiction is gone. We assume that the
question whether the facts found by the Commission present a case
of real or possible competition within the meaning of the statute
is a question of law that could not be conclusively answered by the
Commission; but still there is nothing for a court of equity to
enjoin if all that the Commission has done is to decline to extend
the time during which the railroad can keep its boat line without
risk.
The order of the Commission was negative in substance as well as
in form.
Procter & Gamble Co. v. United States,
225 U. S. 282,
225 U. S.
292-293. The risk to which the railroad was left subject
did not come from the order, but from the above-mentioned section
of the Panama Canal Act (amending § 5 of the Act to Regulate
Commerce), making each day of violation a separate offense, and the
provision of the latter act, § 10, which imposes a possibly large
fine. This risk is the same that it was before the order, or that
it would have been if appellant had not applied to the Commission,
except so far as the findings establish facts that we believe there
is no desire to dispute. Without going further, it appears to us
plain that the decree of the district court, dismissing the bill,
was right.
Decree affirmed.