Federal Radio Commission v. General Electric Co 17 20, 1930
| Decision Date | 19 May 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 122,122 |
| Citation | 281 U.S. 464,50 S.Ct. 389,74 L.Ed. 969 |
| Parties | FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. et al. Argued Jan. 17-20, 1930 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Bethuel M. Webster, Jr., of New York City (Mr. Paul M. Segal, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for Federal Radio Commission.
Court declined to hear further argument.
A review is sought here of a decision of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia given on an appeal from an order of the Radio Commission.
The General Electric Company owned and was operating a broadcasting station at Schenectady, N. Y., when the Radio Act of 1927 went into effect. Thereafter it sought and obtained from the commission successive licenses under that act for the further operation of the station. The last license was issued November 1, 1927, for that calendar month and was prolonged until November 11, 1928, by successive short extensions.
January 14, 1928, the company made application for a renewal of that license. The application was not acted upon until October 12, 1928, and then the commission ordered that a license be not issued with terms like those of the existing license, but that one be issued with other terms much less advantageous to the company and the communities which it was serving; the chief change being a pronounced reduction in the admissible hours of service. The company regarded this order as a refusal of its application for a renewal of the existing license and prosecuted an appeal, under section 16 of the act of 1927 (47 USCA § 96), to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. After a hearing that court found from the record returned by the commission that public convenience, interest, and necessity would be served by renewing the existing license without change in its terms, and on that basis held that such a renewal should be granted and that the proceeding should be remanded to the commission with a direction to carry the court's decision into effect. Costs were assessed against the commission. 58 App. D. C. 386, 31 F.(2d) 630. On the petition of the commission certiorari was then granted by this court 280 U. S. 537, 50 S. Ct. 20, 74 L. Ed. —.
Our jurisdiction to review the decision of the Court of Appeals is challenged.
The act of 1927, c. 169, 44 Stat. pt. 2, p. 1162 (47 USCA §§ 81-119), was enacted as a regulation of interstate and foreign radio communication; and it is in such activities that the company's broadcasting station is used. The act, as amended in 1928, c. 263, 45 Stat. 373, and 1929, c. 701, 45 Stat. 1559, directs that no broadcasting station be used in such communication except in accordance with the act and under a license granted for the purpose; authorizes the Radio Commission to grant station licenses and renewals thereof, both for periods not exceeding three months, and otherwise gives it wide powers in administering the act; restricts the granting of station licenses and renewals to instances 'where public convenience, interest or necessity will be served thereby'; authorized the commission to determine the question of public convenience, interest, or necessity; declares that decisions of the commission in all matters over which it has jurisdiction 'shall be final, subject to the right of appeal' therein given; provides (section 16) that any applicant for a station license or the renewal of such a license, whose application is refused by the commission, may appeal from such decision to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia; directs that the grounds of the appeal be stated and the revision be confined to them; requires the commission, where an appeal is taken, to transmit to the court the originals or certified copies of all papers and evidence presented upon the application refused, together with a copy of the commission's decision and a statement of the facts and grounds of the decision; authorizes the court to take additional evidence upon such terms and conditions as it may deem proper; and provides that the court 'shall hear, review and determine the appeal upon said record and evidence, and may alter or revise the decision appealed from and enter such judgment as to it may seem just.'
We think it plain from this re sume of the pertinent parts of the act that the powers confided to the commission respecting the granting and renewal of station licenses are purely administrative, and that the provision for appeals to the Court of Appeals does no more than make that court a superior and revising agency in the same field. The court's province under that provision is essentially the same as its province under the legislation which up to a recent date permitted appeals to it from administrative decisions of the Commissioner of Patents.1 Indeed, the provision in the act of 1927 is patterned largely after that legislation. And while a few differences are found, there is none that is material here.
Referring to the provisions for patent appeals this court said in Butterworth v. U. S., 112 U. S. 50, 60, 5 S. Ct. 25, 28 L. Ed. 656, that the function of the court thereunder was not that of exercising ordinary jurisdiction at law or in equity, but of taking a step in the statutory proceeding under the patent laws in aid of the Patent Office. And in Postum Cereal Company v. California Fig Nut Company, 272 U. S. 693, 698, 47 S. Ct. 284, 285, 71 L. Ed. 478, which related to a provision for a like appeal in a trade-mark proceeding, this court held: ...
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