Pan American World Airways v. United States, 371 U.S. 296 (1963)

1. . See T.I.M.E. Inc. v. United States, 359 U.S. 464, and cases cited therein. At least one Federal Court of Appeals has held that the CAB’s lack of power to award money reparations leaves open a court action for damages sounding in tort. Fitzgerald v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 229 F.2d 499 (C.A.2d Cir., 1956).

2. See United States v. Pacific & Arctic Ry. & Nav. Co., 228 U.S. 87, 105; Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. 439; Keogh v. Chicago & N.W. R. Co., 260 U.S. 156, 161-162; Central Transfer Co. v. Terminal Railroad Assn., 288 U.S. 469, 475; Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 297 U.S. 500, 513-515. The Court’s handling of Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, seems to me particularly disingenuous. The Court concedes that a conspiracy to secure CAB approval of illicit agreements might form the predicate of an antitrust suit, yet nowhere explains why the use of negative control to further a scheme of monopolization by preventing CAB approval of a route extension for Panagra cannot form such a predicate. Furthermore, it is not the case that the ICC was helpless to grant the relief sought in Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co. The Court conceded that the Commission had "authority to remove discriminatory rates of the character alleged to exist here." 324 U.S. at 459. To be sure, the Commission did not have authority to regulate rate-fixing combinations as such. But neither has the CAB authority to prohibit violations of the antitrust laws as such; it is limited by its mandate, so the Court holds, to facilitating "competition to the extent necessary."

3. See, e.g., United States v. Pacific & Arctic Ry. & Nav. Co., 228 U.S. 87, Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 297 U.S. 500, 515.

4. On December 16, 1941, Grace filed a petition with the CAB requesting modification of Panagra’s certificate so as to provide for a terminal in the continental United States; on April 29, 1942, Grace requested the Board to proceed under § 411 to order Pan American to divest itself of its holdings in Panagra. See W. R. Grace & Co. v. CAB, 154 F.2d 271, 274 (C.A.2d Cir., 1946), cert. dismissed for mootness sub nom. Pan American Airways Corp. v. W. R. Grace & Co., 332 U.S. 827.

5. See Panagra Terminal Investigation, 4 C.A.B. 670, 678 (1944); Additional Service to Latin America, 6 C.A.B. 857, 913-914 (1946); Pan American-Panagra Agreement, 8 C.A.B. 50, 61 (1947); New York-Balboa Through Service Proceeding, Reopened, 18 C.A.B. 501, 504-506 (1954); Reopened New York-Balboa Through Service Proceeding, 20 C.A.B. 493, 516-517 (1954). Cf. New York-Mexico City Nonstop Service Case, 25 C.A.B. 323 (1957).

6. For example:

It shall be unlawful unless approved by order of the Board as provided in this section --

* * * *

(2) For any air carrier, any person controlling an air carrier, any other common carrier, or any person engaged in any other phase of aeronautics, to purchase, lease, or contract to operate the properties . . . of any air carrier. . . .

49 U.S.C. § 1378(a)(2).

7. Also, although the CAB has express authority to enforce the Clayton Act, see 15 U.S.C. § 21, I have found no instance of its ever having attempted to do so.

8. Since the Court disposed of the case at bar on jurisdictional grounds, and did not reach the merits of the antitrust issues, I deem it inappropriate for me to intimate any view of those merits.