Service Trucking Company v. United States

• Decision Date: 02 April 1965
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 15249.
• Citation: 239 F. Supp. 519
• Parties: SERVICE TRUCKING COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES of America and Interstate Commerce Commission, Defendants, and Kent Freight Lines, Inc., Preston Trucking Company, Inc. and Victor Lynn Lines, Inc., Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

239 F. Supp. 519

SERVICE TRUCKING COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES of America and Interstate Commerce Commission, Defendants, and Kent Freight Lines, Inc., Preston Trucking Company, Inc. and Victor Lynn Lines, Inc., Intervenors.

Civ. A. No. 15249.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

April 2, 1965.

Francis W. McInerny, Washington, D. C. (Robert G. Miller, Washington, D. C., Joseph M. Roulhac, Baltimore, Md., Macdonald & McInerny, Washington, D. C., and Smith, Somerville & Case, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for plaintiff.

H. Neil Garson, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Interstate Commerce Commission (William H. Orrick, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., John H. D. Wigger, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Thomas J. Kenney, U. S. Atty., and Robert W. Ginnance, Gen. Counsel, Interstate Commerce Commission, on brief), for defendants.

William J. Little, Baltimore, Md. (John R. Norris, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for intervenors, Kent Freight Lines, Inc., Preston Trucking Company, Inc., and Victor Lynn Lines, Inc., intervening defendants.

Before SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge, and THOMSEN and WINTER, District Judges.

WINTER, District Judge:

Service Trucking Company, Inc. (Service) sought a declaratory order, under the provisions of § 5(d) of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C.A. § 1004 (d), or, alternatively, an order interpreting its certificate of public convenience and necessity theretofore issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission. It sought to have decided that operations by it between Baltimore and points in Maryland east of the Chesapeake Bay, when conducted through another state under the circumstances hereafter outlined, are operations in interstate commerce, and authorized by its certificate.¹

The Commission found against Service, and admonished Service to discontinue such operations, Service Trucking Company, Inc. Petition for Declaratory Order, 94 M.C.C. 222 (1963). Service then sued pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1336, and the matter has been submitted to the Court, convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2325, on the record made before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the oral arguments and briefs of Service, defendants, and certain interested motor carriers who were permitted to intervene.²

The findings of the Commission are not controverted; nor is there any claim that they are not supported by substantial evidence. Except for minor supplementation, they were as recommended by the examiner and in essential respects follow:

"Petitioner, for many years, has been transporting freight between points in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia on the Delmarva Peninsula and points in the other areas it is authorized to serve. It maintains terminals as here pertinent at Baltimore and Federalsburg, and all shipments from the Baltimore area, and from points south and west thereof, move to points on the Delmarva Peninsula through its Baltimore and Federalsburg terminals. Initially, petitioner was primarily a carrier of freight, in truckloads, or volume quantities, for which no operating franchise was required in Maryland on intrastate traffic, but beginning sometime after 1955, petitioner increased the handling of less-than-truckload shipments, and a large portion of its activity is now in this phase of transportation. Some of this traffic consists of shipments from one Maryland point to another, principally from the Baltimore area to points on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and such shipments are combined at the Baltimore terminal with less-than-truckload shipments from points beyond Maryland. The consolidated shipments are then transported in motor vehicles over routes in Maryland to the Delaware-Maryland boundary line, thence over Delaware Highway 404 to Bridgeville, thence over Delaware and Maryland State highways to Federalsburg, hereinafter called the Bridgeville route. There the individual shipments are distributed by "peddle operations" to their ultimate destinations on the Delmarva Peninsula. On shipments from points on the peninsula the procedure is reversed. Use of the Bridgeville route results in a circuitous between-terminals operation of approximately 12 miles when compared with the direct Maryland routes between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Federalsburg. Petitioner asserts that it traverses the circuitous route through Delaware solely for the purpose of complying with its interstate certificate, but, admittedly, it utilizes the direct all-Maryland routes for nonregulated Maryland intrastate traffic and for shipments to points in Maryland already in the stream of interstate commerce. Petitioner's evidence presented by the Preston Company shows that the latter carrier also routes certain less-than-truckload traffic having both origin and destination in Maryland over routes of some circuity through Delaware. Such routing, however, is for purposes of operating efficiency and economies necessitated in the handling of less-than-truckload traffic through terminals in Delaware, and no showing is made that any unlawful operations have arisen therefrom." (emphasis supplied)

Based upon these findings, the Commission concluded that "* * * petitioner by engaging in the considered transportation is attempting in bad faith to convert to interstate movements traffic which, but for its routing, is actually in intrastate commerce subject to the laws of Maryland."

As we have stated, Service makes no claim that the findings of fact made by the Commission are not supported by substantial evidence, and Service can make no claim that the Commission lacked jurisdiction to interpret the certificates of public convenience and necessity which it had theretofore issued, Service Storage & Tranfer...