United States v. J. B. Montgomery, Inc./Concurrence Harlan

by John Marshall Harlan II

United States Supreme Court

376 U.S. 389

United States  v.  J. B. Montgomery, Inc.

 Argued: Jan. 8, 1964. --- Decided: March 23, 1964

Mr. Justice HARLAN, concurring.

I agree with what I understand to be the basic premise of the Court's holding-that the Commission may, under § 212(c), carry over 'Keystone' restrictions in converting a contract carrier's permit into a common carrier certificate, but may not impose any new limitations on the scope of the carrier's operations.

Appellee contends that the language of § 212(c), comments by members of Congress, and the traditional notion that a common carrier serves the 'public' suggest a congressional intent to preclude the continuance of Keystone restrictions in the certificates of converted carriers. Although this argument is not without force, it leads to the conclusion that the Commission is powerless to prevent ven the widest expansion of the previous activities of a converted carrier, resulting from the replacement of its contract carrier permit by a common carrier certificate. Absent what I regard as compelling evidence that Congress intended so to cripple the supervisory power of the Commission, I am constrained to read § 212(c) as consistent with other statutory provisions dealing with national transportation and to conclude that the Commission may limit the entry of the converted carriers into types of carriage previously proscribed to them.

Nonetheless, there appears to be no persuasive support in the language of § 212(c), legislative history, or policy for permitting the Commission to inhibit activities open to the carrier before conversion. Congress evinced an intent not to impose any new limitations on carriers subject to conversion, and, in view of the greater obligations owed by common carriers and the more extensive regulation to which they are subject, it is difficult to argue that the maintenance of existing carriage privileges will advantage the converted carriers to the possible prejudice of other common carriers. The Commission, therefore, may not include in the common carrier certificate a Keystone restriction that renders impermissible operations allowed under the contract carrier permit.

The determinative consideration in fixing the limit to the Commission's power is, according to these principles, the authorization conferred by the contract carrier permit; absent dormancy or abandonment, the extent of appellee's actual prior operations should be irrelevant. Since in the proceedings before the Commission appellee contended that § 212(c) is inconsistent with any Keystone restriction and the Commission's position was that it is fettered in imposing such restrictions only by the concept of 'substantial parity,' the questions of dormancy or abandonment were not dealt with in the Commission proceedings, but the Commission should be free to consider any such issue on remand.

On these bases I concur in the judgment of the Court.

Notes