Cornell Steamboat Co v. United States

• Decision Date: 03 April 1944
• Docket Number: No. 384,384
• Citation: 321 U.S. 634,88 L.Ed. 978,64 S.Ct. 768
• Parties: CORNELL STEAMBOAT CO. v. UNITED STATES et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

321 U.S. 634

64 S.Ct. 768

88 L.Ed. 978

CORNELL STEAMBOAT CO.

v UNITED STATES et al.

No. 384.

Argued March 1, 2, 1944.

Decided April 3, 1944.

Mr. Robert S. Erskine, of New York City, for appellant.

Mr. Robert L. Pierce, of Washington, D.C., for appellees United States and Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. Christopher E. Heckman, of New York City, for appellee National Water Carriers Ass'n, Inc.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Cornell operates tugboats for hire on the Hudson River and in and about New York harbor. Its tugs carry no cargo but move scows, barges, and similar vessels belonging to others which themselves usually carry cargo. This towing service Cornell offers to perform for the public in general. About ninety-five per cent of the vessels which it serves are moved from points in New York to other points in the same State, but these movements generally traverse New Jersey as well as New York waters. Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act¹ provides that contract or common carriers by water in interstate commerce are subject to the Act's regulating provisions. In appropriate proceedings the Interstate Commerce Commission held Cornell's business covered. Cornell Steamboat Co. Contract Carrier Application, 250 I.C.C. 301; Id., 250 I.C.C. 577. A three judge District Court sustained the Commission's order. 53 F.Supp. 349. The case is here on direct appeal. 28 U.S.C. §§ 47a, 345, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 47a, 345.

First. Cornell argues that its towboats are not 'water carriers' within the meaning of Part III of the Act. Looking at Part III, we find that, read together, §§ 302(c), (d) and (e) define a 'water carrier' as any person who engages in the 'transportation by water * * * of * * * property * * * for compensation.' Section 302(h) defines 'transportation' as including 'all services in or in connection with transportation', as well as 'the use of any transportation facility.' Any 'vessel', which means any 'watercraft', § 302(f), is such a facility. § 302(g). Congress has thus carefully and explicitly set out the conditions which in combination describe the kinds of carriers it intended to subject to regulation. Cornell's tugboats fall squarely within the description. If further proof of this be needed, §§ 303(f) (1) and (2) expressly exempt from regulation under Part III certain types of towage service, but not that such as Cornell provides. Congress hardly would have exempted some towers, as it did in these sections, had it intended to exempt all towers.

Nevertheless, Cornell argues that the Act's language, which appears on its face plainly to include transportation by means of towers, should not be so construed. In support of this contention, it is said that towers do not have that common law or statutory liability to shippers which generally attaches to common carriers, see Sun Oil Co. v. Dalzell Towing Co., Inc., 287 U.S. 291, 53 S.Ct. 135, 77 L.Ed. 311; cf. The Murrell, D.C., 200 F. 826; and that a 'carrier' has been judicially defined as one who undertakes to transport the goods of another, a definition not inclusive of Cornell, since it does not make contracts to carry goods but only to move vessels which have goods on them. See Sacramento Nav. Co. v. Salz, 273 U.S. 326, 328, 47 S.Ct. 368, 369, 71 L.Ed. 663; The Propeller Niagara, etc., v. Cordes, 62 U.S 7, 22, 16 L.Ed. 41. But the authorities relied upon by Cornell are of little or no assistance here. The case at bar does not require that we determine at large the legal obligations of a tower or define the usual characteristics of a carrier. We are called upon only to interpret a single Act of Congress. With unquestioned power to regulate Cornell's business, Congress in this Act has given its own definition to Cornell's activities in words literally inclusive of those activities, and which operate to subject to the Act interstate activities in the business of towing, which at common law was a common calling. Sproul v. Hemmingway, 14 Pick., Mass., 1, 6, 25 Am.Dec. 350. The Act in which Congress has included this definition is designed, not to determine the legal status of vessels for all purposes,² but to provide for regulation of the rates and services of competing interstate water carriers as part of a broad plan of regulation for all types of competing interstate transportation facilities. Cornell is in active competition with other types of interstate water carriers as well as with trucks and railroads. Therefore, if Cornell's particular method of providing water transportation facilities for others is not subject to regulation under the Act, it would appear to present an anomalous exception to the Congressional plan for regulation of competing transportation activities. We conclude that the language of the Act brings Cornell's business within its coverage, and that to construe the Act otherwise would frustrate the purpose of Congress.

Second. Cornell argues that even if it is covered by Part III of the Act, there was error in holding it to be a 'common' rather than a 'contract' carrier. Section 302 (d) defines a 'common carrier' as one 'which holds itself out to the general public to engage in the transportation by water * * * of * * * property * * * for compensation.' The Commission found from evidence offered that Cornell did so hold itself out to the general public. Upon review the District Court held the Commission's finding was supported by substantial evidence. The opinions of the Commission and the District Court showed the evidence relied on and it is unnecessary to repeat it here. Sufficient it is to say that we agree with the District Court's conclusion.

Third. The five per cent of Cornell's business which consists of moving vessels between New York and New Jersey ports is unquestionably covered by the Act, because § 302(i)(1) specifically includes transportation 'wholly by water from a place in a State to a place in any other State.'³ But about ninety-five per cent of the vessels towed by Cornell are picked up at New York ports and pulled to other ports in the same State. Cornell contends that none of these movements come within the Commission's jurisdiction. We accept findings of the Commission and the District Court that at least a substantial proportion of these latter movements regularly and ordinarily pass over New Jersey territorial waters. While moving on New Jersey waters, Cornell's vessels are not at that time at 'a place' in New York. Certain of its towing activities therefore actually move vessels from places in New York to places in New Jersey and thence back to places in New York. Such movements, if made on land by rail carriers, would be classified as interstate for regulatory purposes under previous decisions of this Court;⁴ and, as the Commission's opinion points out, these decisions have cast grave doubts upon the power of a single state to regulate such movements in whole or in part. Water transportation between two ports of a single state may touch many other states, and pass through hundreds of miles of other states' waters, far removed from the state in which the terminal ports of the voyage are located. Power of the Commission to regulate such movements appears to come well within the broad purposes declared by Congress in passing legislation designed comprehensively to coordinate a national system of all types of transportation. We are unpersuaded that Congress has inadvertently left such a gap in its plan as acceptance of Cornell's argument would create.

The pertinent language Congress used in defining what should be interstate commerce in Part III of the Act reg- ulating water carriers is to all practical intents and purposes the same as it used in Part I regulating rail carriers. ⁵ Part III of the Act, including this definition, first was drafted in the House Committee on Interstate Commerce as part of a general revision of an omnibus transportation bill (S. 2009) proposed by the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. See H.R. No. 1217, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. In reporting on the provisions of Part III, the House Committee, a body well acquainted with transportation legislation, made the statement that, 'Most of the regulatory provisions included in the new part III were modeled on provisions of part I dealing with the same subject.' Id., p. 18. At the time to this reports, the definition of interstate commerce in Part I upon which that in Part III was modeled had long before been interpreted both by the Commission and the courts as broad enough to cover railroad movements which pass through the territory of two states, even though the freight be carried from a place in one state to another place in the same state. Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Stroud, 267 U.S. 404, 45 S.Ct. 243, 69 L.Ed. 683.⁶

Parts I, II, and IV of the Interstate Commerce Act, relating respectively to regulation of rail carriers, motor carriers, and freight forwarders, explicitly or by judicial interpretation cover all shipments which pass through the territory of two or more states even though both terminal points are in the same state.⁷ And so if railroads or truck- ers should use tugs for the same purposes and over the same route as Cornell the movements would be interstate under the Act and subject to regulation by the Commission; and apparently the same is true of freight forwarders. From the language of Part III of the Act, its history, and its general purpose, we conclude that the Commission and District Court correctly decided Cornell's transportation through New York and New Jersey waters also is subject to regulation by the Commission.⁸

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting in part.

When in 1940 Congress provided for the regulation of water carriers in interstate and foreign commerce, it defined 'transportation in interstate * * * commerce' for the purpose of such regulation to mean 'transportation of persons or property—(1) wholly by water from a place in a State to a place in any other...