United States v. Baltimore Co

• Decision Date: 07 January 1935
• Docket Number: No. 221,221
• Parties: UNITED STATES et al. v. BALTIMORE & O.R. CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

293 U.S. 454

55 S.Ct. 268

79 L.Ed. 587

UNITED STATES et al.

v BALTIMORE & O.R. CO. et al.

No. 221.

Argued Dec. 12, 13, 1934.

Decided Jan. 7, 1935.

On

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio.

The Attorney General and Mr. Daniel W. Knowlton, of Washington, D.C., for the United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. Harold N. McLaughlin, of Cleveland, Ohio, for appellants Johnston and others.

Messrs. Jacob Aronson, of New York City, and Nye F. Morehouse, of Chicago, Ill., for appellees.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a direct appeal from the decree of the federal court for Northern Ohio, setting aside an order, under the Boiler Inspection Act, entered by the Interstate Commerce Commission on January 5, 1933.

At the date of the order there were in use in the United States about 31,597 steam locomotives equipped with hand reverse gear and 28,925 equipped with power reverse gear.¹ Prior to the order, Rule 157, which prescribes the reverse gear on locomotives, left it optional with railroads to equip them with either hand operated or power operated reverse gear.² The order amended that rule so as to require the railroads to equip 'with a suitable type of power operated reverse gear' all steam locomotives built on or after April 1, 1933; and similarly to equip, 'the first time they are given repairs defined by the United States Railroad Administration as Class 3, or heavier,' all steam locomotives then in road service 'which weigh on driving wheels 150,000 pounds or more,' and all then used in switching service 'which weigh on driving wheels 130,000 pounds or more.' The order required that, in any event, all such steam locomotives be so equipped before January 1, 1937; and that 'air operated reverse gear (including thus power gear already installed) shall have a suitable steam connection' so arranged 'that in case of air failure steam may be quickly used to operate the re- verse gear.' A. Johnston v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R., 190 I.C.C. 351.

The order of the Commission was entered on a complaint of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. The complaint alleged, in substance, that, while power reverse gear is a suitable, safe, and practical device, manually operated reverse gear is inherently unsafe and unsuitable in principle and design, that it subjects employees and the traveling public to unnecessary peril, and that the use of locomotives equipped with hand reverse gears violates the Boiler Inspection Act. The complaint prayed that the Commission prescribe rules requiring that all steam locomotives be equipped 'with power reverse gear, or other devices adequate to protect the employees upon said locomotives from unnecessary peril to life or limb, as provided in section 2' of the act.

Practically all the railroads of the United States were made respondents. They challenged in their answers the jurisdiction of the Commission on the grounds that the procedure was unauthorized and that a power reverse gear was not a safety device or appliance within the meaning of section 2 of the Boiler Inspection Act, as amended (45 USCA § 23); denied the essential allegations of the complaint; and, as additional reason for refusing its prayer, set up the impaired financial condition of the carriers. These issues were referred for hearing to an examiner. Fifty-five days were devoted to the taking of testimony. The witnesses numbered 337. Their testimony covered 6,491 pages. There were introduced, in addition, 109 exhibits, many of them voluminous. The proposed report of the examiner occupies 40 pages of the printed record in this Court, and the railroads' exceptions to it 60 pages. The exceptions were heard by a Division of the Commission consisting of three members; and reargument before the whole Commission was denied.

This suit to set aside the order was brought by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and other carriers, suing on behalf of themselves and substantially all the other railroads. The original defendant was the United States. The Commission, Grand Chief Johnson of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and President Robertson of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen are defendants by intervention. The case was heard by the District Court, three judges sitting, on a transcript of the record before the Commission. The railroads again contended that the Commission lacked authority to entertain the complaint. They insisted also that the order was void for lack of essential findings of fact. These objections were overruled. But the court, citing among others, the Chicago Junction Case, 264 U.S. 258, 44 S.Ct. 317, 68 L.Ed. 667, and United States v. Abilene & Southern Ry. Co., 265 U.S. 274, 44 S.Ct. 565, 68 L.Ed. 1016, set the order aside, on the ground that the Commission had acted arbitrarily, in failing to give consideration and legal effect to pertinent uncontradicted facts having a controlling bearing upon the issues, and in disregarding undisputed evidence. (D.C.) 5 F.Supp. 929. An appeal to this Court by all the defendants was allowed. The appellants contended that the action of the District Court constituted substitution of its judgment for that of the Commission. The argument here was devoted, in large part, to the consideration of the findings of the lower court charging disregard by the Commission of the evidence before it. For reasons which will be stated later, we have no occasion to enter upon that inquiry.

First. The Commission clearly has authority, in an appropriate proceeding, to forbid the use of a locomotive equipped with a manually operated reverse gear if, by reason thereof, the engine is rendered unsafe or subjects employees of the railroad or others to 'unnecessary peril to life or limb.' The substitution of power operated reverse gear for manually operated reverse gear might conceivably be found necessary to promote safety, even if it did so only indirectly by preventing the impairment of the health of engineers through excessive exertion or fatigue. To require the installation of power operated reverse gear is, in its nature, within the scope of the authority delegated to the Commission. For 'the power delegated to the Commission by the Boiler Inspection Act as amended is a general one.³ It extends to the design, the construction, and the material of every part of the locomotive and tender and of all appurtenances.' Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line, 272 U.S. 605, 611, 47 S.Ct. 207, 209, 71 L.Ed. 432.

Second. The railroads contend that, in the proceeding under review, the Commission lacks authority to make any change of the existing rule concerning reverse gears; that authority to initiate changes in existing rules was denied to it; that the rules governing boilers and their appurtenances approved June 2, 1911, and the additional ones governing locomotives, tenders, and appurtenances, approved October 11, 1915, cannot be changed except upon application of the carriers or with their consent. The argument is that the Boiler Inspection Act is an independent and complete piece of legislation, and thus the Commission is denied in respect to locomotives those general powers which it exercises in other connections; that by the original act of 1911 the right to initiate rules was by section 5 (45 USCA § 28) conferred not upon the Commission, but upon the several railroads and, only to the extent that one or more of the carriers failed to act within three months, upon the chief inspector; that the Commission's power of requiring modifications was limited to the rules originally filed; that, in respect to subsequent changes therein its sole function is that of approval or disapproval of the carriers' proposals; and that the Commission's only other authority in respect to locomotives is that, conferred by section 6 (45 USCA § 29), of reviewing the action of the chief inspector in declaring individual locomotives unfit for service.

To hold that the authority of the Commission is thus limited would defeat, in large measure, the purpose of the legislation, and would be inconsistent with long-established practice. Congress imposed the strictly administrative duties, in the main, upon the chief inspector. But it specifically directed, in section 6, that the 'first duty (of the district inspectors) shall be to see that the carriers make inspections in accordance with the rules and regulations established or approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission.' Upon the Commission, were conferred, besides some strictly administrative powers, both quasi legislative and quasi judicial functions. The latter it was authorized to exercise only in the appellate capacity of reviewing, under section 6, orders of the chief inspector declaring an individual locomotive unserviceable. Its legislative power was to be exercised in the making of rules. Section 5 of the original act (36 Stat. 914) provided that 'each carrier subject to this Act shall file its rules and instructions for the inspection of locomotive boilers with the chief inspector within three months after the approval of this Act, and after hearing and approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission, such rules and instructions, with such modifications as the commission requires, shall become obligatory upon such carrier.' When this act was passed, in 1911, there were doubtless already in force on each railroad some rules established by the carrier. And likewise, in 1915 and in 1924, when the scope of the act was extended, there were doubtless in force on each railroad rules established by the carrier governing parts, appurtenances, or engines, not falling within the field covered by the previously existing legislation. Naturally those carrier rules would be the starting point in the Commission's rule making; and naturally it would be much influenced, as well as instructed, by the chief inspector's...