Canada Packers Limited v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

385 U.S. 182

Canada Packers Limited  v.  Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company

 Argued: Nov. 8 and 9, 1966. --- Decided: Dec 5, 1966

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, dissenting.

An Act of Congress gives the Interstate Commerce Commission jurisdiction over transportation from or to any place in the United States to or from a foreign country 'but only insofar as such transportation * * * takes place within the United States.' 24 Stat. 379, as amended, 49 U.S.C. § 1(1). How that can be read, 'Whether or not such transportation * * * takes place within the United States' remains a mystery. News Syndicate Co. v. New York Central R. Co., 275 U.S. 179, 48 S.Ct. 39, 72 L.Ed. 225, and Lewis-Simas-Jones Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 283 U.S. 654, 51 S.Ct. 592, 75 L.Ed. 1333, actually decided something less.

In News Syndicate there was a through rate from a point in Canada to New York City; but the carrier had failed to establish a rate from the international boundary to New York City. The Court refused to let the jurisdiction of the Commission be defeated in that way and allowed it to determine the reasonableness of the through rate. 275 U.S., at 187, 48 S.Ct., at 40. In the Lewis-Simas-Jones case the Court also emphasized that no tariff applicable 'to the American part of the transportation of an international shipment on a through bill of lading' had been established 'as required by the Act.' 283 U.S., at 663, 51 S.Ct., at 596. Those cases were explained in Great Northern R. Co. v. Sullivan, 294 U.S. 458, 462, 55 S.Ct. 472, 474, 79 L.Ed. 992.

'In each, shipments moved from an adjacent country into the United States on through rates made by joint action of the participating foreign and American carriers. The American carrier, having violated the Act by failure to file any tariff to cover its part of the transportation, collected freight charges found to be excessive and, as one of two or more joint tortfeasors, was held liable to the extent that the charges it exacted were in excess of what the commission ascertained to be just and reasonable. But here the charges collected were not excessive, and confessedly the same amounts lawfully might have been collected without injury or damage to plaintiff if only the connecting carriers had imposed the charges by means of 'joint' instead of the 'combination' through rates that they did establish.'

In the present case rates from Carlsbad and Loving, New Mexico, to the Canadian border points had been established. 300 I.C.C. 87. The issues presented in News Syndicate and Lewis-Simas-Jones are therefore not offered here. Stare decisis is an important principle in dealing with statutory law, ^[1] though even so we have not always placed 'on the shoulders of Congress the burden of the Court's own error.' Girouard v. United States, 328 U.S. 61, 70, 66 S.Ct. 826, 830, 90 L.Ed. 1084. ^[2] As we said in Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U.S. 118, 140-141, 62 S.Ct. 139, 147, 86 L.Ed. 100:

'There is no occasion here to regard the silence of Congress as more commanding than its own plainly and unmistakably spoken words. This is not a situation where Congress has failed to act after having been requested to act or where the circumstances are such that Congress would ordinarily be expected to act. * * * To find significance in Congressional non-action under these circumstances is to find significance where there is none.'

And see Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 119-122, 60 S.Ct. 444, 451-453, 84 L.Ed. 604. Compare Mabee v. White Plains Publishing Co., 327 U.S. 178, 185, 66 S.Ct. 511, 514, 90 L.Ed. 607. Nor do we have here a precedent 'around which, by the accretion of time and the response of affairs, substantial interests have established themselves.' Helvering v. Hallock, supra, 309 U.S. at 119, 60 S.Ct., at 451.

Moreover, we need not be slaves to a precedent by treating it as standing for more than it actually decided nor by subtly eroding it in sophisticated ways. See Radin, The Trail of the Calf, 32 Cornell L.Q. 137, 143 (1946). It is enough that we do not approve 'of the doctrinal generalization which the previous court used' (ibid.) and confine the precedent to what it actually decided. Certainly we should not extend the range of a precedent beyond its generating reason especially when another policy, here the plain words of an Act of Congress, will be impaired by doing so.

I would affirm this judgment.

Notes

1. 'The House of Lords no longer regards the reasoning in previous cases as sacrosanct. Witness its striking departure in Public Trustee v. Inland Revenue Commissioners ((1960) A.C. 398) and Midland Silicones Ltd. v. Scruttons Ltd. ((1962) A.C. 446). Those cases show that the House will not treat as absolutely binding any line of reasoning in a previous case which was not necessary to the decision: but will regard itself as at liberty to depart from it if convinced that it was wrong.' Penn-Texas Corp. v. Murat Anstalt (1964) 2 Q.B. 647, 661.
2. We have not been reluctant to reverse our own erroneous interpretation of an Act of Congress. See, e.g., Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 60 S.Ct. 444, 84 L.Ed. 604; Nye v. United States, 313 U.S. 33, 61 S.Ct. 810, 85 L.Ed. 1172; Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U.S. 118, 62 S.Ct. 139, 86 L.Ed. 100; Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate of Church, 335 U.S. 632, 69 S.Ct. 322, 93 L.Ed. 288; James v. United States, 366 U.S. 213, 81 S.Ct. 1052, 6 L.Ed.2d 246; Smith v. Evening News Assn., 371 U.S. 195, 83 S.Ct. 267, 9 L.Ed.2d 246; Local No. 438, Construction & General Laborers' Union v. Curry, 371 U.S. 542, 552, 83 S.Ct. 531, 538, 9 L.Ed.2d 514; Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 435, 83 S.Ct. 822, 847, 9 L.Ed.2d 837.