Potomac Passengers Ass'n v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 05 January 1973
• Docket Number: No. 71-1321,71-1546.,71-1321
• Citation: 475 F.2d 325
• Parties: POTOMAC PASSENGERS ASSOCIATION, Appellant, v. CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RAILROAD PASSENGERS, Appellant, v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RAILWAY COMPANY, Southern Railway Company and National Railroad Passenger Corporation.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

475 F.2d 325 (1973)

POTOMAC PASSENGERS ASSOCIATION, Appellant, v. CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RAILROAD PASSENGERS, Appellant, v. CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RAILWAY COMPANY, Southern Railway Company and National Railroad Passenger Corporation.

Nos. 71-1321, 71-1546.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued September 8, 1972.

Decided January 5, 1973.

Certiorari Granted May 14, 1973.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Messrs. Pierre E. Dostert and Gordon P. MacDougall, Washington, D. C., for appellants.

Mr. Charles A. Horsky, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. William D. Iverson, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellees Central of Georgia Ry. Co. and Southern Ry. Co.

Mr. William O. Bittman, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Curtis E. von Kann, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellee National R. Passenger Corporation.

Mr. Robert O. Smith, Jr., Baltimore, Md., was on the brief for appellees Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. and Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. Messrs. Francis M. Shea and Richard T. Conway, Washington, D. C., also entered appearances for appellees in No. 71-1321.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and WRIGHT and WILKEY, Circuit Judges.

Certiorari Granted May 14, 1973. See 93 S.Ct. 2273.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge:

This consolidated appeal consists of two separate cases, each concerning interpretation of the recently enacted Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, 45 U.S.C. § 501 et seq. (1970) (hereinafter referred to as the Amtrak Act). These cases were initially consolidated because it appeared that they presented the same or closely related legal issues, namely (1) whether parties other than the Attorney General, employees and employee representatives have standing to sue the National Rail Passenger Service Corporation (hereinafter Amtrak) or individual railroads for violations of the Amtrak Act; (2) whether federal district courts have jurisdiction over suits brought by litigants other than the Attorney General, employees and employee representatives to enjoin Amtrak or individual railroads from violating the Amtrak Act; and (3) whether the Amtrak Act creates a private right of action in favor of parties injured by violations of the Act.

It now appears, however, that the appeal in No. 71-1321 involves a question much different from those listed above, namely: Does a federal district court have jurisdiction to determine whether a specific train provides "intercity rail passenger service" or "commuter and other short-haul service" within the meaning of the Amtrak Act? If the train provides "intercity rail passenger service" it may properly be discontinued under the authority of the Amtrak Act without any review by the regulatory commissions of the states through which it passes or by the Interstate Commerce Commission. If it provides "commuter and other short-haul service," on the other hand, its discontinuance is neither authorized nor prohibited by the Amtrak Act, but rather is subject to the pre-existing jurisdiction of state regulatory commissions or the ICC. To avoid any further confusion between the issues involved in these two cases, our opinion will treat each case separately.

No. 71-1546

This case requires us to decide whether injured and aggrieved parties have standing to seek injunctions against violations of the Amtrak Act, or whether Section 307 of the Act, 45 U.S. C. § 547, bars suits by all parties other than the Attorney General of the United States, employees and employee representatives. Since the case is here on an appeal from a dismissal for lack of standing to sue and the District Court never reached the merits, we may accept plaintiff's-appellant's version of the facts. Appellee Central of Georgia Railway Company (Central) filed a notice of discontinuance¹ for its "Nancy Hanks" passenger train which operates between Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia, and for two other trains operating between Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. Appellant National Association of Railroad Passengers, a national organization of railroad patrons, sought to enjoin the discontinuances on the ground that they violated Sections 404(a) and 802 of the Amtrak Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 564(a) and 642.

Section 802 provides that "no railroad may discontinue any intercity rail passenger service whatsoever other than in accordance with the provisions of this chapter * * *." Section 404(a) bars a railroad from discontinuing any of its intercity passenger trains prior to January 1, 1975, unless that railroad has entered into a contract with Amtrak pursuant to Section 401(a)(1) of the Act, 45 U.S.C. § 561(a)(1). The latter provision authorizes Amtrak to contract with a railroad "to relieve the railroad * * * of its entire responsibility for the provision of intercity rail passenger service." Although Central has entered into a contract with appellee Amtrak to relieve Central of its entire responsibility for intercity rail passenger service, appellant contends that Central and Amtrak have not complied with Section 401 (a)(1) because Central is but a subsidiary of appellee Southern Railway Company (Southern) which has not entered into a contract with Amtrak. In appellant's view, then, the Act requires that Amtrak either enter into a contract to relieve Southern of its entire responsibility for intercity rail passenger service or enter into no contract at all. After oral argument on appellant's motion for a temporary restraining order, the District Court dismissed the action on the ground that appellant did not have standing to maintain this action under Section 307 of the Act. We reverse and remand.

I

The parties have suggested several characterizations of the issue presented. Appellant accepts the "standing" characterization employed by the District Court. Central and Southern suggest that this is incorrect and that the real issue is whether a private right of action exists to restrain an alleged violation of the Amtrak Act. Amtrak suggests that the issues are, first, whether the District Court has jurisdiction to entertain this action at the instance of this plaintiff and, second, whether the action of Amtrak and the railroads is reviewable at the behest of this plaintiff.

The fine distinctions among the doctrines of standing, jurisdiction, reviewability, and causes of action often pose thorny problems for the law. Compare Data Processing Service v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970), with Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159, 167, 90 S.Ct. 832, 25 L.Ed. 2d 192 (1970) (Mr. Justice Brennan, concurring in the result and dissenting). Compare Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 679, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946) (majority opinion), with id. at 685, 66 S.Ct. 773 (Mr. Chief Justice Stone, dissenting). Fortunately, however, we need not resolve these problems here, for in this case analysis of all these doctrines leads to the same conclusion—allowing adjudication of the merits. Our opinion focuses on standing, but we will also demonstrate that analyzing the case under the doctrines of jurisdiction, reviewability, and private causes of action achieves an identical result.

II

At the outset, we reject the position that the doctrine of standing is wholly inapplicable to this case. It is argued that the standing doctrine has developed solely in the context of determining what persons or groups may challenge the action of a government official or agency, a matter not involved in this case since the Amtrak Act specifically provides that Amtrak is not an agency or instrumentality of the federal government. See 45 U.S.C. § 541. Most applications of the doctrine of standing, it is true, involve review of administrative agencies. See, e. g., Data Processing Service v. Camp, supra; Barlow v. Collins, supra; Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). However, the doctrine is by no means limited to such situations. The question of standing arises in determining who is a proper plaintiff to adjudicate the constitutionality of statutes and ordinances. See Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968); Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204-208, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962); City of Chicago v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. Co., 357 U.S. 77, 78 S.Ct. 1063, 2 L.Ed.2d 1174 (1958). More relevant to our own case, standing has been recognized as an issue in determining who is a proper plaintiff to assert that a corporation created by the Government is violating its statutory authority. See Hardin v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 390 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 651, 19 L. Ed.2d 787 (1968).

A. The applicable standard.

Recent Supreme Court cases have announced a three-part test to determine whether a plaintiff has standing to seek judicial review of administrative action. As set forth in Data Processing those tests are: (1) whether the plaintiff has alleged that he suffered injury in fact, economic or otherwise, 397 U.S. at 152, 90 S.Ct. 827; (2) whether the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee in question, 397 U.S. at 155-156, 90 S.Ct. 827; and (3) whether judicial review has been precluded by the legislature, 397 U.S. at 156, 90 S.Ct. 827. See also Barlow v. Collins, supra, 397 U.S. at 164-165, 90 S.Ct. 832. It appears from Data Processing, a case involving review of administrative action, that this tripartite test represents both a formulation of Article III's "case" or "controversy" requirement² and an interpretation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701 (a)(1) and 702 (1970). See Data Processing Service v. Camp, supra, 397 U.S. at 153, 156, 90 S.Ct. 827. See also Barlow v. Collins, supra, 397 U.S. at 169-170, 173-175, 90 S.Ct. 832 (Mr. Justice Brennan, concurring in the result and dissenting). The question arises, then, whether the same tripartite test should govern standing to sue a...