JACKSONVILLE MARITIME ASSOCIATION, INC. v. City of Jacksonville

• Decision Date: 10 December 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-571-Civ-J-B.,82-571-Civ-J-B.
• Citation: 551 F. Supp. 1130
• Parties: JACKSONVILLE MARITIME ASSOCIATION, INC., Amoco Transport Company, and Madden Marine Panama, S.A., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

551 F. Supp. 1130

JACKSONVILLE MARITIME ASSOCIATION, INC., Amoco Transport Company, and Madden Marine Panama, S.A., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF JACKSONVILLE, Defendant.

No. 82-571-Civ-J-B.

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

December 10, 1982.

Gary A. Bubb, Jacksonville, Fla., for plaintiffs.

William L. Allen, Jacksonville, Fla., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

SUSAN H. BLACK, District Judge.

Plaintiffs initiated this suit on June 4, 1982, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, challenging the validity of a local ordinance. After conducting a hearing, the Court, on June 21, 1982, denied plaintiffs' request for preliminary injunctive relief.¹ The case was subsequently set for trial on an expedited basis. The matter was tried before the Court, sitting without a jury, beginning in the afternoon of November 3, 1982, and ending the following morning.

Ordinance 82-419-162,² enacted on May 11, 1982, by the Jacksonville City Council and approved on May 19, 1982, by the city's mayor, imposes a purported user fee upon certain vessels anchored in the Port of Jacksonville. The ordinance seeks to recover fifty cents per foot, up to a maximum of two hundred fifty dollars, per day from "every ship which is anchored in storage on the St. John's River for a period exceeding forty-eight (48) hours." The ordinance applies to the navigable portion of the St. John's River and its tributaries within the territorial limits of the City of Jacksonville, Florida. Presently, five ships are being subjected to the user fee.

Plaintiffs, the local maritime association and two shipowners being assessed the user fee, offer several grounds, predominantly constitutional, in support of their contention that the ordinance is invalid. Specifically, plaintiffs maintain that the ordinance violates the commerce clause, the due process clause, the equal protection clause, and the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution. In addition to their constitutional challenges, plaintiffs assert that the ordinance is unenforceable because defendant acted in violation of the Constitution of the State of Florida in passing the ordinance and because defendant failed to file the ordinance with the Federal Maritime Commission in a timely fashion. The Court begins with plaintiffs' last argument.

Simply stated, plaintiffs contend that the ordinance comes within the scope of the Shipping Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 801, et seq., that the Act required defendant to file the ordinance with the Federal Maritime Commission on or before its effective date, and that defendant failed to file the ordinance in a timely manner. Therefore, plaintiffs conclude, the ordinance must be considered void and unenforceable, thereby disposing of this entire controversy.

The Court disagrees. While plaintiffs point both to sections 814 and 816³ as imposing filing requirements in this case, it is clear that section 814 has no application here. That section applies only to multi-party "agreements" made between parties subject to the Shipping Act. See City of Galveston v. Kerr Steamship Co., Inc., 362 F.Supp. 289, 292-93 (S.D.Tex.1973), aff'd, 503 F.2d 1401 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 975, 95 S.Ct. 1399, 43 L.Ed.2d 655 (1975). The ordinance in question here, however, is a schedule of rates unilaterally issued by defendant. As such, the ordinance appears to fall more nearly within the purview of section 816, which applies to certain unilaterally fixed rates, rules and regulations.

The various rates, rules and regulations within the ambit of section 816 are required by 46 C.F.R. § 533.3 to be filed with the Federal Maritime Commission.⁴ The time limitation for filing with the Maritime Commission is set forth in 46 C.F.R. § 533.4,⁵ which indicates that "every tariff or tariff change shall be filed on or before its effective date." Here, defendant failed to file the ordinance with the Federal Maritime Commission until over a month after its effective date. Thus, plaintiffs argue that the ordinance is unenforceable.

Plaintiffs' position in this regard is seriously undercut, however, by 46 C.F.R. § 533.2.⁶ That provision indicates that the purpose of the filing requirement is to enable the Maritime Commission to discharge its responsibilities under section 17 (46 U.S.C. § 816) of the Shipping Act by keeping informed of the rates charged at various terminals and to keep the public informed as well. While section 533.2 states that compliance with the filing requirement is mandatory, it further states that "failure to file the required tariffs may result in a civil penalty of not more than $100 for each day such violation continues." No other sanction is provided for. Thus, the question of whether the ordinance comes within the terms of section 816 need not be reached in this context. Filing with the Federal Maritime Commission was accomplished by defendant, albeit untimely. The only sanction provided for such late filing is a civil, monetary penalty — not the invalidation of the ordinance. Accordingly, plaintiffs' argument that the ordinance is void for untimely filing must fail. However, plaintiffs' assertion that defendant was required to file the ordinance with the Federal Maritime Commission does cause the Court to consider the possible application in this case of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.⁷

PRIMARY JURISDICTION

The concept of primary jurisdiction, also referred to as the deference doctrine, see Mashpee Tribe v. New Seabury Corp., 592 F.2d 575, 580 n. 1 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 866, 100 S.Ct. 138, 62 L.Ed.2d 90 (1979), serves as a means of coordinating administrative and judicial machinery. When there is a basis for judicial action, independent of agency proceedings, courts may nonetheless route the threshold decision as to certain issues to the agency charged with primary responsibility of the particular activity involved. Port of Boston Marine Terminal Association v. Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic, 400 U.S. 62, 68, 91 S.Ct. 203, 208, 27 L.Ed.2d 203 (1970).

Both the underlying rationale and the proper application of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction were extensively discussed by the Supreme Court in United States v. Western Pacific Railroad Company, 352 U.S. 59, 64-65, 77 S.Ct. 161, 165-166, 1 L.Ed.2d 126 (1956):

No fixed formula exists for applying the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. In every case the question is whether the reasons for the existence of the doctrine are present and whether the purposes it serves will be aided by its application in the particular litigation. These reasons and purposes have often been given expression by this Court. In the earlier cases emphasis was laid on the desirable uniformity which would obtain if initially a specialized agency passed on certain types of agency questions. More recently the expert and specialized knowledge of the agencies involved has been particularly stressed. The two factors are part of the same principle, "now firmly established, that in cases raising issues of fact not within the conventional experience of judges or cases requiring the exercise of administrative discretion, agencies created by Congress for regulating the subject matter should not be passed over. This is so even though facts after they have been appraised by specialized competence serve as a premise for legal consequences to be judicially defined. Uniformity and consistency in the regulation of business entrusted to a particular agency are secured, and the limited functions of review by the judiciary are more rationally exercised, by preliminary resort for ascertaining and interpreting the circumstances underlying legal issues to agencies that are better equipped than courts by specialization, by insight gained through experience, and by more flexible procedure." citations omitted.

While conceding that the Court must be guided by the discussion in Western Pacific set forth above, plaintiffs assert that the justifications for applying the doctrine of primary jurisdiction are absent in this case. Specifically, plaintiffs argue that the federal agency's expertise is not needed in this case and that the questions presented are within the conventional competence of the judiciary. In addition, plaintiffs point out that the federal agency is ill-equipped to handle constitutional claims such as those raised in this matter and that application of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction would serve no purpose other than to subject the parties to undue expense and delay. For the reasons that follow, the Court finds that the need for application of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction in this case is compelling and that plaintiffs' assertions to the contrary are without merit.

Though couched in constitutional terms, the pivotal underlying issues presented in this case are whether the fee imposed by the ordinance is reasonable and whether the fee is discriminatory in its scope. For example, the commerce and the due process questions hinge on the reasonableness of the fee, see Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority District v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U.S. 707, 92 S.Ct. 1349, 31 L.Ed.2d 620 (1972); Hess v. Department of Revenue of the State of Illinois, 386 U.S. 753, 87 S.Ct. 1389, 18 L.Ed.2d 505 (1967), while the equal protection issue involves the alleged discrimination of the scope of the ordinance. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425-26, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 1104-1105, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). The very fact that the inquiry centers around the reasonableness of the fee and discrimination by the fee provides the Court a sufficient basis to invoke the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. Danna v. Air France, 463 F.2d 407, 409 (2d Cir.1972) held that "it is beyond dispute that claims that filed tariffs are either unreasonable in amount or unduly discriminatory in effect are questions that in the first instance must be determined by the agency with which the tariffs are filed." Accord, Robinson...