Law Commons^™

The Surprising Origins Of The Interstate Commerce Commission, Jack M. Beermann

Shorter Faculty Works

Many law review articles fail to live up to the promise of their titles or abstracts, leaving disappointed readers in their wake. Others have titles that hide the ball. Behind the wordy and somewhat bland title of Jed Shugerman’s 2015 article—The Dependent Origins of Independent Agencies: The Interstate Commerce Commission, the Tenure of Office Act, and the Rise of Modern Campaign Finance—lies a fascinating new take on the origins of independent agencies.

The identification of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) as the first modern independent regulatory agency is familiar to scholars of American administrative law. The ICC, created …

Debunking Humphrey's Executor, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The Supreme Court’s 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision paved the way for the modern administrative state by holding that Congress could constitutionally limit the President’s powers to remove heads of regulatory agencies. The Court articulated a quartet of features of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) statutory design that ostensibly justified the Commission’s constitutional independence. It was to be nonpartisan and apolitical, uniquely expert, and performing quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial, rather than executive, functions. In recent years, the staying power of Humphrey’s Executor has been called into question as a matter of constitutional design. This Essay reconsiders Humphrey’s Executor from a different angle. …

The Dependent Origins Of Independent Agencies: The Interstate Commerce Commission, The Tenure Of Office Act, And The Rise Of Modern Campaign Finance, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

Independent regulatory agencies are some of the most powerful institutions in the United States, and we think of them today as designed to be insulated from political control. This Article shows that their origins were the opposite: this model first emerged in the late nineteenth century because it offered more political control.

The modern executive's design of unitary presidential control over most offices, alongside "independent" regulatory agencies, took shape in the winter of 1886-1887. Congress repealed the Tenure of Office Act, giving the President the unchecked power to dismiss principal officers and ending the Senate's power to protect those officers. …

International Trade - Canada-United States - Motor Carriers - Reciprocity, Bernard Snell

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Of Trucks, Trains, & Ships: Relative Liability In Multimodal Shipping, Amir H. Khoury

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.

Regulation - The Balance Point , W. D. Brewer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nihilism With A Happy Ending? The Interstate Commerce Commission And The Emergence Of The Post-Enlightenment Paradigm, Mark F. Kightlinger

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article examines early Supreme Court opinions about the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)—the first federal administrative agency—in an effort to identify the intellectual roots of the modern administrative state. The Article argues that the Court's effort to explain and justify the function of the newborn ICC shows the traces of a post-Enlightenment crisis in the field of moral philosophy—i.e., the growing conviction that it is no longer possible for reasonable people to agree on what constitutes a true, objective, universally valid standard of reasonable or just conduct. From this essentially nihilistic starting point, the Court helped to fashion a new …

Campaign Finance: The Impact On The Legislative And Regulatory Process, John B. Anderson

Faculty Scholarship

During a Senate campaign more than four decades ago, revelations of a $5,000 contribution offer to Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota precipitated a Senate investigation. At that time, Congress was considering legislation dealing with the regulation of natural gas. The discovery of the contribution offer ignited such a furor that it prompted President Eisenhower to declare he would veto any bill relating to natural gas regulation enacted under a cloud of suspicion. He carried out his threat, and it was another decade before Congress finally enacted legislation deregulating natural gas at the wellhead. Since that time, as the costs …

On Considering The Public Interest In Bankruptcy: Looking To The Railroads For Answers, Julie A. Veach

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Motor Freight Brokers: A Tale Of Federal Regulatory Pandemonium, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Motor freight brokers are the connecting link between shippers and carriers, uniting shippers who have cargo to deliver with carriers who have available motor transportation. Acting as traffic managers for shippers and sales agents for carriers, brokers arrange thousands of transactions each day, many of which either start or end up in the international stream of commerce. If used effectively, brokers can lower the transportation costs of domestic and international shippers and increase the revenue of carriers, which ultimately will stimulate interstate and overseas trade. International shippers must often rely on freight brokers to arrange motor transportation for their freight …

The Revolution That Wasn't: On The Business As Usual Aspects Of Employment At Will, Sid L. Moller

University of Richmond Law Review

With a pronouncement that has become quite familiar to those who follow employment law, a nineteenth century state court captured the employment at will rule in its pristine form: "An employer can fire an employee for good reason, bad reason or for a reason morally wrong, without incurring any liability."

Transborder - Road Transportation., H.N. Cunningham Iii

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article is intended to serve as a primer for attorneys representing clients engaged in shipping, receiving, and transporting merchandise between points in the United States of Mexico (Mexico) and the United States of America. A “crazy quilt” of laws and regulations govern the rights, duties, and obligations of persons engaged in these activities. These laws include not only the constitutions and statutes of two independent nations, but also the laws and regulations of their various political subdivisions as well. Due to the breadth of this material, this Article’s treatment of the subject is general, providing an overview of the …

Regulatory Reform In The Intercity Bus Industry, Cornish F. Hitchcock

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article will analyze the economic structure of the intercity bus industry and the type of service received by the public under the present regulatory scheme. It will then discuss what regulatory reforms could improve service, how these issues are addressed in the recent House-passed bill, and what further legislative reforms should be made.

Motor Carrier Act Of 1980: Toward Compensating Trucking Companies For The Loss Of The Monopolistic Value Of Their Operating Rights, Mary H. Leech

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note examines the historical background and nature of the operating rights acquired by the trucking companies, with emphasis on those rights issued to a common carrier by the ICC and represented by a certificate of public convenience and necessity(certificate). The Note then examines and analyzes the tax law and the judicial response to attempts by taxpayers to deduct from gross income the loss of a monopolistic right. Finally, the Note explores alternate theories for compensating trucking companies for their losses and concludes with a recommendation of the most equitable method of compensation.

Judicial Consideration Of The Delegation Of Legislative Power To Regulatory Agencies In The Progressive Era, John H. Garvey

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mr. Justice Powell's Standing, Gary C. Leedes

University of Richmond Law Review

Some may lament the results of Mr. Justice Powell's attempts to clarify the law of standing. Indeed, public interest lawyers who advocate granting standing on a surrogate basis to individuals who are members of a large unorganized class of diffuse interests have cause to complain about a return to a more orthodox conception of standing. However, Mr. Justice Powell has a different outlook, viz., in a democratic society, a federal court is not necessarily an appropriate or the most effective institution to redress the grievances of people upset by alleged lawless government action.

Newsletter - 1974-04-25, E. De La Garza

Kika de la Garza Congressional Papers - Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Administrative Agencies And The Energy Problem (Symposium Introduction), Ralph F. Fuchs

Indiana Law Journal

Administrative Law and the Environment: National Fuels Policy, Symposium

Recent Trends In Transport Rate Regulation, Leonard S. Goodman

Michigan Law Review

The object of this Article is to describe the trends in the Commission's work during the 1960's in some of the areas of rate regulation that could not be settled by mere reference to costs, and in other areas of changing rate policy. This was a prolific period for the Commission, one that involved many rate innovations and a sense of new direction in certain aspects of rate regulation. The present discussion of the Commission's rate work is in no sense complete; and there is no intention to make it so. By emphasizing the decisions of the recent decade, I …

Written Evidence In Administrative Proceedings: A Plea For Less Talk, Roger J. Corber

University of Richmond Law Review

The notion that talk is the absence of thought is more poetry than analysis. Nevertheless, lawyers know that all talk is not thought and that there is at least a grain of truth in the poet's logic. Some of the same logic may mercifully be applied to the proceedings of ad- ministrative agencies to test whether all the talk in such proceedings is necessary to a rational result and sound implementation of public policy.

Regulation Of Intermodal Rate Competition In Transportation, Joseph R. Rose

Michigan Law Review

The controversy over intermodal rate competition comprehends both legal and economic issues. Clarity requires that each be explicitly stated and separately treated. The legal issues center on the meaning of section 15a(3) of the Interstate Commerce Act and the declaration of the National Transportation Policy that precedes the Act, which are the sources of the Commission's authority. The economic issues involve the effect on resource allocation of rate-making proposals devised to carry out these provisions of the Act.

Icc Jurisdiction Of Great Lakes Rail-Water Competition, Arthur E. Miller

Cleveland State Law Review

The regulatory framework surrounding the transportation industry is complex and the absence of any easy resolution of contemporary problems fostered by competitive abuse can be appreciated only by viewing the development and application of administrative powers initiated by the Act to Regulate Commerce.Although the Interstate Commerce Commission has supervised the competitive arena , the age and condition of the Great Lakes fleet manifests water carrier inability to overcome railroad economic power. The viability and future existence of the Great Lakes water carrier could well be determined by a Commission decision in a in a current coal case which represents the …

Administrative Law-Primary Jurisdiction-Availability Of Common-Law Reparations Remedy Following Commission Finding Of Unreasonable Practice Under The Motor Carrier Act, James D. Zirin

Michigan Law Review

The petitioner delivered goods to respondent, a common carrier by motor vehicle, for shipment from Buffalo, New York, to New York City, with the route of shipment left unspecified. The goods were shipped over the carrier's interstate route at a higher tariff filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission rather than over its intrastate route at the lower tariff filed with the New York Public Service Commission. Alleging causes of action under the Motor Carrier Act and at common law, the petitioner brought a postshipment action in a federal district court seeking reparation of the difference paid. The court, after a …

Administrative Law-Judicial Control-Injunctive Extension Of The Rate Suspension Period Under The Interstate Commerce Act, John Eppel

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiffs, two interstate carriers and a municipal corporation, and defendants, four railroad companies, were parties to an investigation and suspension proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Section 15(7) of the Interstate Commerce Act allows the Commission to suspend the effectiveness of rate revisions proposed by carriers for seven months while it is deciding whether to approve them. If no decision is reached by the end of the suspension period, the proposed rates automatically become effective subject to a subsequent determination of their validity by the ICC. Expiration of the order suspending defendants' rate proposals was imminent when, in an unprecedented …

Labor Law - Norris - Laguardia Act - Federal Courts Without Jurisdiction To Enjoin Strike In Support Of Demand That No Jobs Be Abolished Without Railiway Union's Consent, David G. Hill

Michigan Law Review

Respondent railroad sought authority from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to reduce the number of its station agents. Petitioner union not only contested but also demanded of the railroad that the following provision be added to the existing collective bargaining agreement: "No position in existence on December 3, 1957, will be abolished or discontinued except by agreement between the carrier and the organization." The commission thereafter found maintenance of the particular jobs to be wasteful and issued a mandatory order directing their abandonment. When the union prepared to strike in support of its demanded contract provision, the railroad sought …

Administrative Law - Powers Of Agencies - The Interstate Commerce Commission And Discontinuance Of Railroads Under The Transportation Act Of 1958, Robert A. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The Transportation Act of 1958 amended the Interstate Commerce Act by authorizing railroad discontinuance of interstate train or ferry operations by posting advance notices thereof. The Interstate Commerce Commission can investigate such discontinuances either upon complaint or its own motion, and may require continuance of service if, after hearing, it finds such operation required by public convenience and necessity and not unduly burdensome to interstate commerce. Public Law 85-625, August 12, 1958, 72 Stat. 568.

Judicial Review Of Orders Of The Interstate Commerce Commission Relating To Motor Carriers, Robert W. Ginnane, James A. Murray

Vanderbilt Law Review

When, in 1935, Congress provided for federal regulation of inter-state motor transportation by the Interstate Commerce Commission,it made applicable to the Commission's regulatory orders with respect to motor carriers the same system of judicial review which it had devised for orders relating to railroads in the Urgent Deficiencies Act of 1913.' This invoked not only the naked statutory review provisions but also, at least by analogy, the mass of judicial decisions applying the 1913 legislation to Commission orders involving railroads. The statutory provisions for review of orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission have been codified into Title 28 of the …

Antitrust Considerations In Motor Carrier Mergers, Carl H. Fulda

Michigan Law Review

Unification of separate independent business enterprises in a single organization may raise important questions of antitrust policy. The entity which emerges may have acquired, as a result of such unification, a market position of such significance that a substantial lessening of competition or even the creation of a monopoly becomes not only possible but probable. This would be apparent whenever opportunities for buyers of the products or services of the new single unit to shop freely, and to make independent decisions as to prices, channels of purchases and selection of suppliers were to be seriously curtailed, or where such curtailment …

Competition Versus Regulation: The Agricultural Exemption In The Motor Carrier Act, Carl H. Fulda

Vanderbilt Law Review

Transportation of passengers or property by motor carriers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce has been subject to federal regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission since 1935. At that time motor carriers in intrastate commerce were regulated in all the states of the Union by state commissions which controlled entry into the industry, rates, and safety of operations, but there was no comparable federal regulation. The Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935, now part II of the Interstate Commerce Act,' was intended to fill this gap by creating a federal regulatory scheme similar to that provided by the states. In …

Bankruptcy-Jurisdiction Of Bankruptcy Court To Determine Stockholders' Vote Necessary To Approve Proposed Sale Of Corporation's Assets To Debtor In Reorganization, Bernard Goldstone S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Lessee railroad, which had leased and operated property of lessor railroad for many years, entered reorganization under section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act. Under the plan of reorganization promulgated by the Interstate Commerce Commission and approved by the bankruptcy court, lessor was given the alternative of selling its property to the reorganized railroad or having the lease disaffirmed by the debtor and its property returned. This proposal was submitted for acceptance by a majority vote of lessor's stockholders. Respondents, stockholders of lessor, sought an injunction in a state court of Georgia to restrain lessor's officers from certifying the acceptance in …