1. Power to compel interstate railway carriers to abandon their
existing passenger stations and terminals in a large city and erect
in lieu a new union station at a new site is not conferred upon the
Interstate Commerce Commission by paragraphs 18-21 of § 1 of the
amended Interstate Commerce Act, giving the Commission authority
over abandonments and extensions of lines, or by paragraphs 3 and 4
of § 3, requiring carriers to afford all reasonable, proper, and
equal facilities for interchange of traffic and authorizing the
Commission in certain circumstances to require that terminal
facilities of one carrier may be used by another.
Railroad
Commission v. Southern Pacific Co., 264 U.
S. 331, distinguished. P.
280 U. S.
67.
Page 280 U. S. 53
2. Whether power exists to control the Interstate Commerce
Commission by mandamus need not be decided in the absence of a
meritorious case. P.
280 U. S.
71.
4 F.2d 228 reversed.
Certiorari, 279 U.S. 830, to review a judgment of the court of
appeals of the District of Columbia, which reversed a judgment of
the Supreme Court of the District dismissing a petition for a writ
of mandamus.
Page 280 U. S. 60
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.
By petition filed July 12, 1928, respondent sought from the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia a writ of mandamus
compelling petitioner, the Interstate Commerce Commission, to
consider the evidence introduced in the proceeding before it known
as Los Angeles Passenger Terminal Cases, 100 I.C.C. 421, I.C.C.
489, for the purpose of determining whether the Commission shall
order the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, the
Southern Pacific Company, and the Los Angeles & Salt Lake
Railroad Company to build and use an interstate union passenger
station in the City of Los Angeles, California, and after
consideration of the evidence, to make such order therein as the
facts may require. The Supreme Court of the District dismissed the
petition. The court of appeals reversed its judgment and remanded
the cause for further proceedings. 34 F.2d 228. This Court granted
a writ of certiorari.
The Railroad Commission of that state had, in 1921 (19 Opinion
of the R. Co. Com. of Cal. pp. 740, 937) ordered the carriers to
file plans, etc., and to acquire sufficient land within what is
known as the Plaza area in that city for a union
Page 280 U. S. 61
passenger station and terminal, to submit plans therefor, and,
upon their approval of them by that Commission, to proceed with the
construction of the station. The carriers carried these orders by
writs of certiorari to the supreme court of the state, and that
court, in
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v.
Railroad Commission of California, 190 Cal. 214, held that, by
the Transportation Act of 1920, Congress had taken exclusive
authority over the matter of a union interstate terminal depot, and
the court therefore denied the State Railroad Commission the
jurisdiction which it had sought to exercise. The State Railroad
Commission petitioned this Court for writs of certiorari, and at
the same time instituted proceedings before the Interstate Commerce
Commission which resulted in the orders above referred to.
This Court granted a writ of certiorari and on April 7, 1924,
rendered its decision in
Railroad Commission of California v.
Southern Pacific Co. et al., 264 U. S. 331,
wherein, in affirming the judgment of the state court, we held that
the relocation of tracks, which were incidental to the proposed
union passenger station, required a certificate of approval by the
Interstate Commerce Commission under paragraphs 18 to 21 of § 1,
Interstate Commerce Act as amended by § 402, Transportation Act of
1920 (41 Stat. 476-478), as a condition precedent to the validity
of any action by the carriers or of any order by the State Railroad
Commission, and that, until the Interstate Commerce Commission had
acted under those paragraphs, the carriers could not be required to
provide a new union station or to extend their main tracks thereto
as ordered by the State Railroad Commission.
Pending the hearing of the causes in
264 U.
S. 331, the direct proceeding, referred to above, was
instituted before the Interstate Commerce Commission by the City of
Los Angeles, asking for an order by the Commission requiring the
three railroads to build a new union station at the
Page 280 U. S. 62
Plaza site. With it were consolidated an application by the
Southern Pacific Company for authority to abandon certain main line
tracks and the operation of passenger and freight train service on
Alameda street, and an application by the Southern Pacific and the
Salt Lake for authority to construct new, and to extend existing,
lines.
The Commission held, 100 I.C.C. 421, that it was without
authority to require the construction of the new union station. It
said in the report at 430:
"We conclude that we are not empowered to require the
construction of a union passenger station as sought in No. 14778.
To make the record clear, we repeat that no question of
discrimination or preference is presented here, and that, under the
issue framed in the complaint in No. 14778, we will give no
consideration to matters shown of record for the purpose of
determining whether we should issue an order requiring the
construction and use of a union station by any of the
defendants."
The Commission, in order to facilitate dispatch in the
disposition of the case, although it held that it had no power to
require the building of an interstate commerce passenger station,
made hypothetical certificates which could be summarized as
follows: (1) That the public convenience and necessity require the
extensions of lines that may be necessary to reach and serve any
union passenger station within the plaza which may be constructed
in accordance with a lawful order of the state Commission and that
may be necessary to provide for the incidental rearrangement of
passenger and freight routes, and that the expense involved will
not impair the carriers' ability to perform their duties to the
public. (2) That public convenience and necessity permit the
abandonment of train service on Alameda street and such other
abandonments of lines as would be necessary in connection with the
establishment of any such station, so lawfully ordered by the state
Commission.
Page 280 U. S. 63
The report further found that such joint use of track or other
terminal facilities as may be incidental and necessary to the
proper operation of any such union station is in the public
interest and is practicable, without substantially impairing the
owning carriers' ability to handle own business. As to the
application by the Southern Pacific and Salt Lake to extend their
lines to permit the joint use of the Southern Pacific's existing
station, the Commission's findings were unfavorable, and its order
denied the application. The Commission's then report was not
accompanied by certificates carrying out its findings, and it
reserved jurisdiction to alter its findings in the event that the
plan of the state Commission, as finally evolved, should be
materially different from that "as here considered to be in the
public interest."
After a further hearing in the direct proceeding instituted by
Los Angeles for an order directing the erection of a union station,
the prayer of Los Angeles was denied. 142 I.C.C. 489. Thereafter,
the city filed the petition above referred to in the Supreme Court
of the District of Columbia for a writ of mandamus. This was in the
present proceeding.
Attached to the petition as exhibits were the pertinent parts of
the record in the previous cases. There were filed an answer of the
Commission, and a demurrer to the answer. The Commission still
adhered to its original report. The Supreme Court of the District
entered a judgment overruling the demurrer and, the city electing
to stand upon the petition, dismissed the petition. On an appeal,
the judgment was reversed by the court of appeals of the District,
which held, in substance, that the Commission was vested with
supervisory control over the three carriers and that they were
subject to an order requiring the construction of the union station
and the necessary connecting tracks prayed for.
Page 280 U. S. 64
The sole question for decision is whether the Interstate
Commerce Commission has jurisdiction to order the construction of
the union station. This issue arises on provisions of the
Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. 379, as amended by the
Transportation Act of 1920, 41 Stat. 456. These are paragraphs 18
to 22 added to § 1 of the original Act, and paragraphs 3 and 4 of §
3.
These paragraphs and sections of the Transportation Act of 1920
may be shortly stated as follows:
Paragraph 18 forbids the construction of a new line of railroad,
or the acquisition or operation of any line of railroad or
extension thereof in interstate commerce, unless there shall have
been obtained from the Commission a certificate that the present
and future convenience and necessity require or will require the
construction or operation of additional or extended line of
railroad and forbids any interstate carrier to abandon all or any
portion of its line, unless there shall have been obtained from the
Interstate Commerce Commission a certificate of public convenience
and necessity.
Paragraph 19 requires notice and hearings in any proceeding to
secure such certificate.
Section 20 gives the Commission discretionary power to issue
such certificates and provides for an injunction at the suit of the
United States for any construction, operation, or abandonment of
such line of railroad or extension thereof without a certificate,
and punishes a violation.
Section 21 provides that, after a hearing in such proceeding
upon complaint, or upon its own initiative without complaint, the
Commission may authorize of require by order any carrier by
railroad subject to the Act to provide itself with safe and
adequate facilities for performing as a common carrier its car
service, as that term is used in the Act, and to extend its line or
lines, if the Commission finds that it is reasonably required in
the interest of public
Page 280 U. S. 65
convenience and necessity, and will not impair the ability of
the carrier to perform its duty to the public.
Section 3, embracing paragraphs 3 and 4, provides, in paragraph
3, that carriers shall afford all reasonable, proper, and equal
facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective
lines and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of
passengers of property to and from their several lines and those
connecting therewith and forbids discrimination.
Paragraph 4 provides that, if the Commission finds that to do so
will not substantially impair the ability of a carrier owning and
entitled to the enjoyment of terminal facilities to handle its own
business, it may require the use of any such terminal facilities of
any carrier, including main-line track or tracks for a reasonable
distance outside of such terminal, by another carrier or other
carriers, on such terms and for such compensation as the carriers
affected may agree upon, or, in the event of a failure to agree, as
the Commission may deem just and reasonable for the use so
required, as if in condemnation proceedings.
In its final report, the Interstate Commerce Commission held
that it had no power to require the construction and operation of a
union station upon the site specified. The Commission's report was
in part as follows:
"Complainants have again raised the question whether we have
power to require the defendants to construct and operate a union
passenger station upon the site heretofore specified in our
findings. Their contention that we have such power was pressed with
vigor upon the original submission before us. The complainants
point to § 3, paragraph 3 and 4 of the Interstate Commerce Act as
furnishing the necessary statutory authority. As stated in the
original report at 430, we concluded that we are not empowered to
require the construction
Page 280 U. S. 66
of a union passenger station as sought in No. 14778, under the
issues framed in the complaint therein. . . . In
Alabama &
Vicksburg Ry. Co. v. Jackson & Eastern Ry. Co.,
271 U. S.
244,
271 U. S. 250, the Supreme
Court said:"
" In matters relating to the construction, equipment,
adaptation, and use of interstate railroad lines, with the
exceptions specifically set forth in paragraph 22, Congress has
vested in the Commission the authority to find the facts and
thereon to exercise the necessary judgment. The Commission's power
under paragraph (3) of Sec. 3 to require the establishment of
connections between the main lines of carriers were asserted by it
in Pittsburgh & W. v. R. Co. v. Lake Erie, A. & W. R. Co.,
81 I.C.C. 333, a case decided after the withdrawal by the Jackson
& Eastern of its application to the Commission for leave to
make the junction at Curran's Crossing, and in Chamber of Commerce
v. Wichita Falls, R. & Ft. W. R. Co., 109 I.C.C. 81. That its
jurisdiction is exclusive was held in
People ex rel. New York
C. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 233 N.Y. 113, 119-121.
Compare Lake Erie, A. & W. R. Co. v. Public Utilities
Commission, 109 Ohio St. 103."
The Commission proceeded:
"The distinction between a simple switch connection, such as was
contemplated by the cases previously referred to, and the elaborate
facilities sought to be required by us in the present case is
obvious. Reexamination of the whole subject again leads us to the
conclusion that, under existing law, we are not empowered to
require the construction of a union passenger station of the
character sought by the complaint. . . ."
"All issues of fact having been considered and concluded by our
original report and by this report on further hearing, nothing
remains for us but to deny the application of the City of Los
Angeles and the intervener, the
Page 280 U. S. 67
Railroad Commission of the State of California, for a final
order herein requiring the construction of a station as found in
the public interest. . . ."
In weighing the effect of the Transportation Act, it should be
noted that, in this important measure affecting associations
between interstate carriers of a compulsory character, there is
nowhere express authority for the establishment of union passenger
stations, compulsory or otherwise. Emphasis is put on physical
connection between the tracks of one carrier and others if
permitted by the Interstate Commerce Commission and if properly
paid for, either by agreement or condemnation, by the carrier
enjoying the use of the track of the other companies. But it is
limited in extent to connections with the terminals of other
companies within a reasonable length. This Court said: the possible
peril to interstate commerce in a physical connection between two
main tracks
"shows that the jurisdiction of the Commission over such
connections must be exclusive if the duty imposed upon it to
develop and control an adequate system of interstate rail
transportation is to be effectively performed. Moreover, the
establishment of junctions between the main lines of independent
carriers is commonly connected with the establishment of through
routes and the interchange of car services, and is often but a step
toward the joint use of tracks."
Alabama Railway v. Jackson Railway, 271 U.
S. 244.
The description in the
Alabama Railway Case,
271 U. S. 244, is
that of a physical connection between railroads engaged in
interstate commerce, but it contains no suggestion that the
junction is to include union passenger stations.
There are cases in the state courts in which, by virtue of
statutory provision, railroads are required expressly to unite in a
passenger station, if determined by commissioners
Page 280 U. S. 68
appointed by the court or by a Railroad Commission.
Mayor
and Aldermen of Worcester v. Norwich and Worcester Ry. Co.,
109 Mass. 103, 113;
Railroad Commission of Alabama v. Alabama
Northern Ry. Co., 182 Ala. 357;
Railroad Commission of
Alabama v. Alabama Great Southern Ry. Co., 185 Ala. 354, 362;
Missouri, O. & G. Ry. Co. v. State, 29 Okl. 640, 119
P. 117;
Chicago, R.I. & P. Ry. Co. v. State, 90 Okl.
173;
State v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co.
(Tex.Civ.App.), 165 S.W. 491, 199 S.W. 829, 930. But there is no
federal case in which is built up out of such words as those which
we find in the Transportation Act of 1920 authority for requiring
such a station.
Without more specific and express legislative direction than is
found in the Act, we cannot reasonably ascribe to Congress a
purpose to compel the interstate carriers here to build a union
passenger station in a city of the size and extent and the great
business requirements of Los Angeles. The Commission was created by
Congress. If it was to be clothed with the power to require
railroads to abandon their existing stations and terminal tracks in
a city and to combine for the purpose of establishing in lieu
thereof a new union station at a new site, that power we should
expect to find in congressional legislation. Such authority, if
conferred in Los Angeles, would have application to all interstate
railroad junctions, including the numerous large cities of the
county, with their residential, commercial, shopping, and municipal
centers now fixed and established with relation to existing
terminals. It would become a statute of the widest effect, and
would enter into the welfare of every part of the country. Various
interests would be vitally affected by the substitution of a union
station for the present terminals. A selection of its site from the
standpoint of a city might greatly affect property values, and
likewise local transportation systems. The exercise of such power
would compel the
Page 280 U. S. 69
carriers to abandon existing terminals, to acquire new land and
rights of way and enter upon new construction, to abandon large
tracts, and to sell territory of the same extent as no longer
necessary for the use of the carriers.
There would have to be tribunals to apportion the expenditures
and cost as between the carriers. A proper statute would seem to
require detailed directions, and we should expect the intention to
be manifested in plain terms, and not to have been left to be
implied from varied regulatory provisions of uncertain scope. It
would be a monumental work, and one requiring the most extensive
exercise of expert engineering and railroad construction. It would
make possible great changes of much importance in the plans of
every city and in the rearrangement and mutations of railroad
property and public and private business structures everywhere. We
find no statutory preparation for the organization of such
machinery.
We cannot agree with the court of appeals of the District in its
disposition to view § 3, paragraph 3, as vesting the Interstate
Commerce Commission
"with almost unlimited power in the matter of establishing
terminals and union stations for the proper interchange of traffic
between the converging interstate railroad lines."
The words "reasonable, proper and equal facilities" are, of
course, comprehensive enough to include not only trackage but
terminal facilities described as extending a reasonable distance
outside of the terminal, but hardly to give the Commission
"unlimited power" in the building of union stations.
To attribute to Congress an intention to authorize the
compulsory establishment of union passenger stations the country
over, without special mention of them as such, would be most
extraordinary. The general ousting from their usual terminal
facilities of the great interstate carriers
Page 280 U. S. 70
would work a change of title and of ownership in property of a
kind that would be most disturbing to the business interest of
every state in the country.
To recognize what is here sought as within the power of the
Commission to order to be done in each of all the great cities
throughout the United States and to sustain it as legal, without
provision for effective restraint by the carriers or other
interests, would expose the community to possible abuse, with
nothing but self-imposed restraint on bureaucratic
extravagance.
When the interest of a great city in its improvements is to be
promoted entirely at the expense of railroads that enter it,
Congress would be expected to hesitate before it would change
discretionary leave for the erection of such stations into positive
command. In such a case, the expenditure of a large amount of
capital will not bring with it corresponding increase in the
railroad revenues. If Congress had intended to give an executive
tribunal unfettered capacity for requisitioning investment of
capital of the carriers and the purchase of large quantities of
land and material in an adverse proceeding, we may well be
confident that Congress would have made its meaning far clearer and
more direct than in the present meager provisions of the
Transportation Act. The suggestion of complainants is that, out of
provisions for local union of main tracks and switching tracks, we
should use our imaginations and develop them into provisions for
giant union passenger stations. It is true that the railway systems
may be united through switches and connecting tracks in physical
connection, but this has not been held to justify great monumental
structures, extended in their complicated machinery and superficial
extent and expense. There is a difference of real substance between
such connecting tracks and switches and junctions and a passenger
metropolitan union station. The latter calls into being a new
Page 280 U. S. 71
entity naturally requiring new legislative authority. This
Court, referring to a kindred matter, said of this case:
"But there is great difference between such relocation of tracks
or local union stations and what is proposed here. The differences
are more than that of mere degree, they and their consequences are
so marked as to constitute a change in kind."
264 U. S. 264 U.S.
331,
264 U. S.
346.
But it is said that we have already foreclosed the conclusion in
this case by our opinion in
264 U. S. 264 U.S.
331. The only issue there presented to this Court was whether it
was necessary to secure from the Interstate Commerce Commission its
approval of the construction of a union station and the relocation
of the connecting tracks proposed. The point in that case was the
necessity for the acquiescence by the Interstate Commerce
Commission in respect to a union passenger station. We held such a
certificate to be necessary before a union station or connecting
lines of interstate carriers could be lawful. That is all we
held.
It is quite true that we made references in the opinion to a
case foreshadowed in the hypothetical certificates of the
Commission in the building of a union station. Such references had,
however, not the slightest significance in respect to who could or
should build the station, or whence its cost should be defrayed. It
was as far as possible from the purpose of the Court in its opinion
to indicate its views of the powers which the Commission could
exercise adversely to the carriers in compulsory proceedings. They
were not before the Court for adjudication.
In what situations, if any, action of the Interstate Commerce
Commission may be controlled or corrected by mandamus need not now
be considered, because it is apparent that there is here no
meritorious basis for exerting such power, even if found to
exist.
The judgment of the court of appeals of the District of Columbia
is reversed.