Schwabacher v. United States/Dissent Frankfurter

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

The railroads of this country are operated by not less than 693 corporations. These exist by virtue of charters granted by the several States, the laws of which govern their internal affairs, and, more particularly, the rights and liabilities of their stockholders. The Chesapeake & Ohio is chartered by Virginia, the Pere Marquette by Michigan. The laws of Virginia and Michigan respectively determine the conditions under which each may combine with other corporations. The votes of sufficient stockholders of these two corporations to satisfy the laws of their respective States were in favor of a voluntary agreement for the absorption of the Pere Marquette by the Chesapeake & Ohio. To consummate this agreement, however, required the authorization of the Interstate Commerce Commission under the terms of § 5(2) of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended by the Transportation Act of 1940. The agreement provided, in short, that the total outstanding securities of the Pere Marquette, amounting to 450,460 shares of common, 124,290 of cumulative preferred, and 112,000 of prior preference, were to be exchanged for 211,429.4 shares of Chesapeake & Ohio common and 312,272.2 preferred. All but 9% of the security holders of h e Pere Marquette cumulative preferred assented to this arrangement. The appellants, holding less than 2% of that class of stock, stood on their rights under Michigan law, claiming that they were entitled to the dividends unpaid since 1931, amounting to $72.50 per share.

The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the proposed merger but refused to pass on the legal claims thus asserted under Michigan law by the appellants. The Commission ruled that it was not called upon to pass upon individual rights against a merged road when the potential recognition of such rights, under appropriate State law, could not affect the public interest which it is requisite for the Commission to safeguard before authorizing a merger. For the Commission held that, even if the appellants' claims were sustained by Michigan law, the amount involved would in nowise affect either the security structure or the cash position of the Chesapeake & Ohio.

The Chesapeake & Ohio is capitalized at $191,433,919. An additional $28,949,745 of stock is to be issued, under the merger plan, for Pere Marquette shareholders, making a total capitalization for the Chesapeake & Ohio, after merger, of $220,383,595. The appellants own 2,100 shares of Pere Marquette cumulative preferred. The merger agreement offered them securities found by the Commission to be worth $111.60 per share, or $234,360. If their claim for full book value of $172.50 per share were honored, it would amount to $362,250. This contingent liability of $127,890, the Commission concluded, did not affect its finding as to the soundness, from the point of view of the 'public interest,' of the financial structure devised and approved for this merger. The Commission further pointed out that even if 2% of each class of Pere Marquette stock-the maximum number contemplated by the agreement-were to refuse to participate, the difference between the value of the Chesapeake & Ohio shares offered to them and the book value of their Pere Marquette shares could, if required, readily be absorbed by a soundly based quarter-billion-dollar carrier.

Both the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Interstate Commerce Commission here urge this view of the law. The Court, however, reads the Commission's duty under the Act quite differently, although in reaching its conclusion the Commission applied its settled administrative practice.

I think that the Commission was right in the view it took of its powers and duties. Even if the matter were doubtful, the Court does not seem to me to give to the Commission's construction of the Act the weight to be accorded its experienced judgment, which we held in United States v. American Trucking Ass'ns, 310 U.S. 534, 549, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 1067, 84 L.Ed. 1345, to be required. Since the Commission disclaims rather than asserts a power, there is all the more reason to feel assured of its disinterestedness and to resolve ambiguity in favor of its choice of construction.

Until the Transportation Act of 1920, carriers, while subject to the Sherman law, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq., could combine without leave of the Interstate Commerce Commission. See Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 24 S.Ct. 436, 48 L.Ed. 679. The Transportation Act of 1920 required the authorization of the Commission for acquisition by one carrier of the control over another, to the extent defined by § 5 of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended. By the Transportation Act of 1940, the voluntary merger of the properties of two or more carriers into one corporation was sanctioned, subject, however, to the scrutiny of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the due protection of the 'public interest.' Congress defined wt h particularity the factors that constituted the 'public interest' put into the Commission's keeping.

The Court now holds that State law governing the relations between State-chartered carriers and their stockholders is impliedly supplanted as to those who have refused to assent to a merger, even when the Commission finds that to leave the adjudication of those rights to the law that created them in nowise touches the 'public interest' that is the sole condition to carrying out a wholly voluntary arrangement, and even though such a voluntary arrangement by itself could not affect the rights of dissenters. I have no doubt that Congress could compel the unification of railroad properties theretofore in separate ownership and in so doing override State-created legal rights of stockholders of the constituent carriers. In the case of financially embarrassed carriers, Congress, in the exercise of its bankruptcy powers, has empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission to formulate plans of reorganization, the terms of which, if fair and equitable, may override State-created legal rights of stockholders who do not assent. In the interests of a more efficient national railroad system, Congress may accomplish like results under the Commerce Clause. But that is precisely what Congress has refused to do. It was besought to eliminate the waste and inefficiencies due to the congeries of corporate instrumentalities through which the railroads of the United States operate, by providing for compulsory consolidations. It was also besought to do away with the complexities and confusion resulting from State corporations conducting the country's interstate railroad business, by requiring federal incorporation. Congress rejected both demands. See H.R.Rep. No. 650, 66th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 63-64. It left mergers of separate railroad properties into larger units to the will of their private owners, merely lodging a veto power in the Commission if such voluntary mergers run counter to the defined public interest. And Congress explicitly negatived the possibility of construing such supervision by the Commission as the creation, 'directly or indirectly, of a federal corporation.'

The Commission was charged with seeing to it that the very limited requirements of § 5(2) were observed, and to that end was given 'exclusive and plenary' authority. § 5(11). The purpose was to authorize a voluntary arrangement, to sanction an agreement, not to formulate a plan and to coerce its adoption, as is true of § 77. The law specifically enumerates the requirements that constitute the 'public interest' which the voluntary agreement must satisfy to secure the Commission's approval. These are: the effect of the proposal on the public transportation service; the effect of including or failing to include other railroads in the plan; the resulting fixed charges; and the interest of the carrier employees affected. These factors have no bearing on whether the appellants' claim should be allowed. The great difference between these requirements and the detailed and comprehensive provisions of § 77, 11 U.S.C. § 205, 11 U.S.C.A. § 205, carries a sharp legal contrast between the authorization which Congress required for voluntary mergers and the coercion of an imposed plan of reorganization in the case of insolvent roads.

Appropriate accommodation between federal and State interests in the construction of the Interstate Commerce Act is needlessly sacrificed by adding, to the detailed provisions whereby the Commission is merely authorized to approve voluntary mergers, an implied abrogation of State law in no respect inconsistent with such limited power of authorization, since the Commission found that survival of a claim under State law would not impinge upon 'the public interest.' It ignores the salutary principle of construction, so strikingly illustrated by the Los Angeles Terminal cases from which it was drawn, 'that the Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy a limited field, andt hat the intention to supersede the exercise by the state of its authority as to matters not covered by the federal legislation is not to be implied unless the Act of Congress fairly interpreted is in conflict with the law of the State.' Atchison, T. & S.F.R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 283 U.S. 380, 392, 393, 51 S.Ct. 553, 556, 557, 75 L.Ed. 1128. See also Palmer v. Massachusetts, 308 U.S. 79, 60 S.Ct. 34, 84 L.Ed. 93.

Since it is needless, it is undesirable to draw in implication so destructive of State law from the Congressional scheme for allowing voluntary mergers. In fact, Congress has manifested not an intention to abrogate State law where the Commission finds no collision with the public interest; it has manifested an intention not to abrogate State law unless it interferes with carrying out an approved merger. Thus, it made the necessary proportion of assenting stockholders dependent on State law. It hardly seems congruous to provide that State law should determine when the opposition of stockholder may prevent a voluntary merger, but should have no effect on the rights which such dissenters have under State law, even where the Interstate Commerce Commission finds no national interest involved in determining and enforcing such rights. Again, while § 5(11) relieves parties to an approved merger from the restraints of other laws, 'Federal, State, or municipal,' it does so only 'insofar as may be necessary to enable them to carry into effect the transaction so approved or provided for in accordance with the terms and conditions, if any, imposed by the Commission * *  * .' This paragraph further contains an expressed disclaimer of authorization of federal incorporation. The prohibition of federal incorporation surely implied a desire to retain to the fullest possible extent the ties between the States and their chartered corporations. One of the vital consequences of incorporation in a given State is the subjection of the relationship between stockholders and their corporation to the law of that State except insofar as federal law unmistakably overrides it.

The considerations relevant to voluntary railroad mergers sharply differ from those that control liquidations and reorganizations under § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act (See also Railroad Reorganization Act of 1948 Pub.L.No. 478, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., April 9, 1948, 11 U.S.C.A. § 208, 49 U.S.C.A. § 20b.) A railroad in reorganization is administered by a bankruptcy court which has control of all its assets. The power of dealing with all claims is inevitably concentrated in that court. In merger proceedings, however, there is no obstacle to the practice pursued by the Commission of deciding what is 'just and reasonable' and in 'the public interest' as to each class of securities, while at the same time permitting any dissenter to stand on the terms of the particular stock issue, leaving to State law to determine what those terms are, provided only that the function of the new corporation, as part of an economic and efficient national railroad system, would not be affected by allowance of such claims. The Commission has here ruled that the appellants assert an unliquidated claim against the Pere Marquette sufficiently negligible not to affect the financial position of its successor, even if it be ultimately allowed in full. I fail to see that the effect on the Chesapeake & Ohio will be any different than that of negligence claims for the same amount. Every operating railroad is likely to have such claims outstanding against it at all times. Their existence does not interfere with the consummation of a voluntary merger. A reasonable amount of contingent obligations may easily be allowed for. In any event, the determination whether or not eventual liability for contingent claims of dissenting stockholders are such as to affect 'the public interest' required to be protected by authorization of a proposed merger is precisely the function of the Interstate Commerce Commission and should appropriately bel eft to the exercise of its informed discretion.

The Commission has control, under § 20a, over securities, which of course it does not have over a contingent demand for compensation for loss resulting from negligence. But differences in the foundation of contingent claims do not determine their relevance to the Commission's authority in approving a merger and in leaving the determination of such claims to State law. While the rights asserted by the appellants arise out of their holding of securities, they may be paid off in cash, if their claims turn out to be well founded, and need not be satisfied out of the securities of the successor corporation.

Neither what Congress has written, nor what it has implied by the purpose underlying what it has written, persuades me that a power which the Commission itself has vigorously disclaimed it must now exercise. The Commission has consistently declined to adjudicate as a matter of State law-or what is now found to be federal law-contested claims not deemed relevant to its determination of 'the public interest.' E.g., Sullivan-Purchase-Service Freight Line, Inc., 38 M.C.C. 621; Jessup-Control-Safeway Trails, Inc., 39 M.C.C. 233, 241; Lee-Control; Carolina M. Exp. Lines, Inc.-Lease and Purchase-Reed, 40 M.C.C. 405, 407. See also New York Central Securities Corporation v. United States, 287 U.S. 12, 26, 27, 53 S.Ct. 45, 48, 49, 77 L.Ed. 138; Cleveland, C., C. & St. L.R. Co. v. United States, 275 U.S. 404, 414, 48 S.Ct. 189, 193, 72 L.Ed. 338.

The Court is holding, in essence, that while State law governs the rights of railroad stockholders before and after voluntary merger proceedings it is supplanted during such proceedings. In thus thrusting upon the Commission a jurisdiction which it itself has rejected, the Court is depriving the States of a measure of control over their own corporations when this is not required by a fair reading of the Transportation Act, and although the survival of such State law does not interfere with the national interest as found by the agency selected by Congress for determining that interest.

I would affirm the judgment.

The CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice BURTON join in this dissent.