Bondholders v. Powell

• Decision Date: 28 January 1952
• Docket Number: No. 413,413
• Citation: 96 L.Ed. 688,72 S.Ct. 319,342 U.S. 921
• Parties: BONDHOLDERS, Inc., Petitioner, v. Leigh R. POWELL, Jr., and Henry W. Anderson, as Receivers of Seaboard Air Line Railway Company, and Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

342 U.S. 921

72 S.Ct. 319

96 L.Ed. 688

BONDHOLDERS, Inc., Petitioner,

v Leigh R. POWELL, Jr., and Henry W. Anderson, as Receivers of Seaboard Air Line Railway Company, and Seaboard Air Line Railroad Company.

No. 413.

Supreme Court of the United States

January 28, 1952

Rehearing Denied March 3, 1952.

See 342 U.S. 950, 72 S.Ct. 550.

Messrs. Frank B. Gary, Jr., and Aubrey R. Bowles, Jr., for petitioner.

Messrs. James B. McDonough, Jr., Harold J. Gallagher, Leonard D. Adkins, and W. R. C. Cocke, for respondents.

Opinion of Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER in connection with the denial of the petition for writ of certiorari.

On more than one occasion I have indicated the inherent bars to stating, however briefly, the reasons for denying petitions for certiorari. See, e.g., State of Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, 338 U.S. 912, 917—918, 70 S.Ct. 252, 254, 94 L.Ed. 562. The practical administration of justice, not any interest of secrecy, precludes. Since the denials of petitions for certiorari cannot be accompanied with explanations, a public recording of a dissent from such a denial cannot without more fairly disclose to what such dissent is directed. The ambiguous and unrevealing information afforded by noting such dissent is rendered still more dubious if dissent is not noted systematically, but only in selected cases. For these and reinforcing reasons it has been my unbroken practice not to note when I have dissented from the denial of petitions by the Court.

It has also been my view, however, that it becomes appropriate from time to time to set forth some of the issues that may be involved in a case in which a petition for review here is denied. This is such an instance.

In December 1930 the Seaboard Air Line Railway Company, operator of railway lines in the southeastern States, defaulted on its debts as they fell due. It applied to the Federal District Court in Virginia for a moratorium. This was granted and the control and management of the road were thereupon transferred to the Dis- trict Court, functioning through receivers. In December 1943 the District Court announced its readiness to give up control upon terms drawn from doctrines of this Court. See Ecker v. Western Pacific R. Corp., 318 U.S. 448, 63 S.Ct. 692, 87 L.Ed. 892; Group of Institutional Investors v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 318 U.S. 523, 63 S.Ct. 727, 87 L.Ed. 959.

The District Court required drastic changes in the ownership of the property and in the respective rights of the beneficial owners as between themselves. Only some of the Seaboard securities were to be permitted to share in the ownership of the railroad; others were to be eliminated. The removal of the junior securities from the Seaboard scene and the delivery of the entire property to the senior securities deprived the junior securities, of nothing so it was assumed. The District Court concluded that the dispossessed securities, both bonds and stock, were worthless on the forecast that the Seaboard would never earn enough to yield an income on these junior securities. The District Court assumed, as did this Court in 1943, that the future earnings of a railroad could be estimated with substantial accuracy. Any error in such computation was deemed to be insubstantial, so that the amount of the destroyed junior securities that might have been saved had error been avoided would likewise be negligible.

The elimination of the junior securities was naturally reflected in an alteration of the financial structure of the Seaboard. This was deemed desirable in any event in order to simplify that structure. It became impossible to preserve intact the respective positions of the holdings that survived the reorganization plan, that is, the rights as between themselves fixed in the terms of the old securities. But it was thought that substantially fair substitutes for those older securities and those rights would be afforded by the new financial structure. Thus, in the case of senior securities which had a senior claim on the income of specified portions of the Seaboard property, the amount of the future income of each of these portions could be computed in advance by the District Court and the new securties offered in exchange for the old would be based on such computation. Such a view obviously assumed the practicability of computing with substantial accuracy the future earnings of different portions of the Seaboard system, just as the doctrine justifying the abolition of junior...