Tennessee Electric Power Company v. Tennessee Valley Authority/Opinion of the Court

[Argument of Counsel from pages 127-134 intentionally omitted]

The Tennessee Valley Authority Act erects a corporation, an instrumentality of the United States, to develop by a series of dams on the Tennessee River and its tributaries a system of navigation and flood control and to sell the power created by the dams. Eighteen corporations which generate and distribute electricity in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and one which transmits electricity in Tennessee and Alabama, filed a bill in equity, in the Chancery Court of Knox County, Tennessee, against the Authority and its three executive officers and directors. The prayers were that the defendants be restrained from generating electricity out of water power created, or to be created, pursuant to the Act and the Authority's plan of construction and operation; from transmitting, distributing, supplying or selling electricity so generated, or to be generated, in competition with any of the complainants; from constructing, or financing the construction of, steam or hydro-electric generating stations, transmission lines or means of distribution, which will duplicate or compete with any of their services; from regulating their retail rates through any contract, scheme or device; and from substituting federal regulation for state regulation of local rates for electric service, more especially by incorporating in contracts for the sale of electricity terms fixing retail rates. The defendants removed the cause to the United States District Court for Eastern Tennessee and there answered the bill. As required by the Act of August 24, 1937, a court of three judges was convened which, after a trial, dismissed the bill.

Fourteen of the complainants are here as appellants. They contend that water power cannot constitutionally be created in conformity to the terms of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the United States will, therefore, acquire no title to it, because it will not be produced as an incident of the exercise of the federal power to improve navigation and control floods in the navigable waters of the nation. They affirm that the statutory plan is a plain attempt, in the guise of exerting granted powers, to exercise a power not granted to the United States, namely, the generation and sale of electric energy; that the execution of the plan contravenes the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution, U.S.C.A., since the sale of electricity on the scale proposed will deprive the appellants of their property without due process of law, will result in federal regulation of the internal affairs of the states, and will deprive the people of the states of their guaranteed liberty to earn a livelihood and to acquire and use property subject only to state regulation. The appellees contest these contentions. For reasons about to be stated we do not consider or decide the issues thus mooted.

The Authority's acts, which the appellants claim give rise to a cause of action, comprise (1) the sale of electric energy at wholesale to municipalities empowered by state law to maintain and operate their own distribution systems; (2) the sale of such energy at wholesale to membership corporations organized under state law to purchase and distribute electricity to their members without profit; (3) the sale of firm and secondary power at wholesale to industrial plants.

The appellants are incorporated for the purpose and with the authority to conduct business as public utilities. Several do so only within the states of their incorporation; those chartered elsewhere have qualified as foreign corporations under the laws of the states in which they manufacture, transmit, or distribute electricity. Most of them have local franchises, licenses, or easements granted by municipalities or governmental subdivisions but it is admitted that none of these franchises confers an exclusive privilege.

While the Authority has not built or authorized any transmission line, has not sold or authorized the sale of electricity, or contracted for, or authorized any contract for, the sale of electricity by others, in territory served by nine of the appellants, it has done some or all of these things in areas served or susceptible of service by five of the companies; and it plans to enter in the same way the territory of other appellants. It is, clear, therefore, that its acts have resulted and will result in the establishment of municipal and cooperative distribution systems competing with those of some or all the appellants in territory which they now serve, or reasonably expect to serve by extension of their existing systems, and in direct competition with the appellants' enterprises through the sale of power to industries in areas now served by them or which they can serve by expansion of their facilities. The appellants assert that this competition will inflict substantial damage upon them. The appellees admit that such damage will result, but contend that it is not the basis of a cause of action since it is damnum absque injuria,-a damage not consequent upon the violation of any right recognized by law.

The appellants invoke the doctrine that one threatened with direct and special injury by the act of an agent of the government which, but for statutory authority for its performance, would be a violation of his legal rights, may challenge the validity of the statute in a suit against the agent. The principle is without application unless the right invaded is a legal right,-one of property, one arising out of contract, one protected against tortious invasion, or one founded on a statute which confers a privilege. The appellants urge that the Tennessee Valley Authority, by competing with them in the sale of electric energy, is destroying their property and rights without warrant, since the claimed authorization of its transactions is an unconstitutional statute. The pith of the complaint is the Authority's competition. But the appellants realize that competition between natural persons is lawful. They seek to stigmatize the Authority's present and proposed competition as 'illegal' by reliance on their franchises which they say are property protected from injury or destruction by competition. They classify the franchises in question as of two sorts,-those involved in the state's grant of incorporation or of domestication and those arising from the grant by the state or its subdivisions of the privilege to use and occupy public property and public places for the service of the public.

The charters of the companies which operate in the states of their incorporation give them legal existence and power to function as public utilities. The like existence and powers of those chartered in other states have been recognized by the laws of the states in which they do business permitting the domestication of foreign corporations. The appellants say that the franchise to be a public utility corporation and to function as such, with incidental powers, is a species of property which is directly taken or injured by the Authority's competition. They further urge that, though nonexclusive, the local franchises or easements, which grant them the privilege to serve within given municipal subdivisions, and to occupy streets and public places, are also property which the Authority is destroying by its competition. Since what is being done is justified by reference to the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, they say they have standing to challenge its constitutionality.

The vice of the position is that neither their charters nor their local franchises involve the grant of a monopoly or render competition illegal. The franchise to exist as a corporation, and to function as a public utility, in the absence of a specific charter contract on the subject, creates no right to be free of competition, and affords the corporation no legal cause of complaint by reason of the state's subsequently authorizing another to enter and operate in the same field. The local franchises, while having elements of property, confer no contractual or property right to be free of competition either from individuals, other public utility corporations, or the state or municipality granting the franchise. The grantor may preclude itself by contract from initiating or permitting such competition, but no such contractual obligation is here asserted.

The appellants further argue that even if invasion of their franchise rights does not give them standing, they may, by suit, challenge the constitutionality of the statutory grant of power the exercise of which results in competition. This is but to say that if the commodity used by a competitor was not lawfully obtained by it the corporation with which it competes may render it liable in damages or enjoin it from further competition because of the illegal derivation of that which it sells. If the thesis were sound, appellants could enjoin a competing corporation or agency on the ground that its injurious competition is ultra vires, that there is a defect in the grant of powers to it, or that the means of competition were acquired by some violation of the Constitution. The contention is foreclosed by prior decisions that the damage consequent on competition, otherwise lawful, is in such circumstances damnum absque injuria, and will not support a cause of action or a right to sue.

Certain provisions of state statutes regulating public utilities are claimed to confer on the appellants the right to be free of competition. Each of the states in which any of them operates, save Mississippi, has established a commission to supervise and regulate public utilities. While the statutes differ in their provisions, all but that of Virginia require a public utility to obtain a certificate of convenience and necessity as a condition of doing business. The appellants commenced business in the various states prior to the adoption of the requirement of such certificates and, so far as appears, they have none covering their entire operations. They have, however, obtained certificates for extensions made since the passage of the statutes; and they claim that, in any event, these laws afford them protection from the Authority's competition since any utility now seeking to serve in their territory must obtain a certificate, and hence they have standing to maintain this suit against the Authority which has none. The position cannot be maintained. Whether competition between utilities shall be prohibited, regulated or forbidden is a matter of state policy. That policy is subject to alteration at the will of the legislature. The declaration of a specific policy creates no vested right to its maintenance in utilities then engaged in the business or thereafter embarking in it.

Moreover, the states in which the Authority is now functioning have declared their policy in respect of its activities. Alabama has enacted that federal agencies, instrumentalities, or corporations shall not be under the jurisdiction of its Public Service Commission; that municipalities and improvement authorities may own and operate electric generating and distributing systems and may contract with a federal agency such as the Authority for the purchase of energy, and stipulate as to the use of the energy, including rates of resale; that nonprofit membership corporations may be formed for the distribution among their members of electricity with like power to contract with the Authority for the required energy. Tennessee has amended Section 5448 of its Code, which defines public utilities, so as to exclude federal corporations such as the Authority from the jurisdiction of the State Utilities Commission; has authorized municipalities to own and operate electric generating transmission and distribution systems and to contract for power with the Authority on terms deemed appropriate, including the fixing of resale prices; has authorized the formation of nonprofit membership electric corporations with like powers to contract. Kentucky has authorized municipalities to establish and maintain light, heat, and power plants; and has provided for the organization of nonprofit cooperative electric corporations which may contract with the Authority for purchase of energy and stipulate as to resale prices. Mississippi, which has no state law for regulation of utilities, has empowered municipal and county governments to establish and maintain electric distribution systems which may buy power from the Authority and contract as to resale prices; has created a rural electrical authority and authorized the formation of power districts and nonprofit competitives, all competent to purchase energy from the Authority and distribute it and to contract with the Authority as to resale rates to consumers. The Authority's action in these states is consonant with state law, but, as has been shown, if the fact were otherwise, the appellants would have no standing to restrain its continuance.

As the Authority has not acted in any way in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia or West Virginia, the appellants' contention that its proposed entry into some or all of them confers a right to sue for an injunction against injury thereby threatened has even less support.

The appellants may not raise any question of discrimination forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, Const.U.S.C.A., involved in state exemption of the Authority from commission regulation. For this reason Frost v. Corporation Commission, 278 U.S. 515, 49 S.Ct. 235, 73 L.Ed. 483, on which they rely, is inapplicable. Manifestly there can be no challenge of the validity of state action in this suit.

A distinct ground upon which standing to maintain the suit is said to rest is that the acts of the Authority cannot be upheld without permitting federal regulation of purely local matters reserved to the states or the people by the Tenth Amendment and sanctioning destruction of the liberty said to be guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment to the people of the states to acquire property and employ it in a lawful business. The proposition can mean only that since the Authority sells electricity at rates lower than those heretofore maintained by the appellants such sale is an indirect regulation of appellants' rates. But the competition of a privately owned company authorized by the state to enter the territory served by one of the appellants would, in the same sense, constitute a regulation of rates. The contention amounts to saying that competition by an individual or a state corporation is not regulation but competition by a federal agency is. In contracting with municipalities and nonprofit corporations the Authority has stipulated respecting the price at which the energy supplied shall be resold by its vendees. That is said to be a regulation of the appellant's business. But it is nothing more than an incident of competition; it is but a method of seeking and assuring a market for the power which the Authority has for sale, and a lawful means to that end. The sale of government property in competition with others is not a violation of the Tenth Amendment. As we have seen there is no objection to the Authority's operations by the states, and, if this were not so, the appellants, absent the states or their officers, have no standing in this suit to raise any question under the amendment. These considerations also answer the argument that the appellants have a cause of action for alleged infractions of the Ninth Amendment.

Finally, it is asserted that the right to maintain this suit is sustained by certain allegations of concerted action by the officials of the Authority and the Public Works Administrator. The bill alleges that having adopted an unlawful plan the defendants have cooperated, and threaten to continue to cooperate in its execution, with Harold L. Ickes, as Administrator of the Federal Administration of Public Works, in a systematic campaign to coerce and intimidate the complainants into selling their existing systems in municipalities or territory in which the Authority desires to seize the market for electricity; that, in order to make this coercion effective, Ickes has, in cooperation with, or on request of, the Authority, announced loans and grants of federal funds to municipalities; that the Authority and Ickes have cooperated, and continue to do so, to force municipalities to purchase the Authority's power under threats that, unless they do, proposed loans and grants for municipal systems will not be made. The bill states that, though Ickes 'confederated and acted with the defendants in some of its illegal acts and is, therefore, a proper party, he is not a necessary party and is not joined as a defendant because he is beyond the jurisdiction of the court.' There is a prayer that the defendants be restrained from confederating and acting in concert with Ickes for the described ends.

The District Court finds that the Authority has not indulged in coercion, duress, fraud, or misrepresentation in procuring contracts with municipalities, cooperatives or other purchasers of power; has not acted with any malicious or malevolent motive; and has not conspired with municipalities or other purchasers of power. The record justifies these findings. It is claimed, however, that they are inconclusive since the court erroneously excluded much proffered evidence tending to sustain the charge. An examination of the record discloses that certain of the evidence offered was properly excluded, and that in other instances the rejection of that offered constituted, at most, harmless error.

Error is assigned to the trial court's refusal to permit the taking of the deposition of the Public Works Administrator. In view of the prior opportunity which the claimants had to take this deposition, the lateness of the application, and other factors, permission to take the deposition was a matter within the court's discretion and it does not appear that the discretion was abused.

The remaining assignments of error directed to the exclusion of evidence of cooperation between the two federal agencies go to the rejection of evidence consisting largely of correspondence between them and press releases or announcements by officers of one or the other. The record contains all but a few of these rejected documents, those omitted apparently not being thought of importance. Scrutiny of them compels the conclusion that if the rejected evidence had been admitted, the trial court's holding that a conspiracy had not been proved should not be overruled.

The only findings on this subject requested by the appellants were to the effect that the Public Works Administration has cooperated with and assisted the Tennessee Valley Authority in the furtherance of the latter's power program and that the former has made contracts and allotments for loans and grants to twenty-three municipalities in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, amounting to about fourteen million dollars, for the purpose of constructing municipal systems of distribute the Authority's power in competition with the appellants; that the applications for loan and grant in some instances specify that the municipal system will duplicate a privately owned system; in others that a large business will be done by the municipal plants because of the low promotional rates of the Authority; that some of the applications state they were filed to take advantage of the low rates offered by the Authority and that, with few exceptions, they state that the electricity to be distributed in the city will be purchased from the Authority. A further requested finding is that the applications of certain Alabama cities recite that they have secured written contracts from practically all consumers; that these contracts refer to lower rates to be secured, provided the rates charged by the city shall be thus prescribed by the Authority for resale at retail. The court refused to make the requested findings and error is assigned to this refusal. It is apparent that if the court had made the findings no conclusion of confederation or conspiracy, with malicious intent to harm the appellants or to destroy their business, would thereby have been required.

Cooperation by two federal officials, one acting under a statute whereby funds are provided for the erection of municipal plants, and the other under a statute authorizing the production of electricity and its sale to such plants, in competition with the appellants, does not spell conspiracy to injure their business. As the court below held, such cooperation does not involve unlawful concert, plan, or design, or cooperation to commit an unlawful act or to commit acts otherwise lawful with the intent to violate a statute.

In no aspect of the case have the appellants standing to maintain the suit and the bill was properly dismissed.

The decree is affirmed.

Mr. Justice REED took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice BUTLER dissenting.