These are direct appeals by the United States and the Interstate Commerce Commission from final decrees of a specially constituted three-judge district court, which sustained appellees' separate petitions to annul, set aside and enjoin an order of the Commission entered July 1, 1940, denying appellees' separate applications under the so-called 'grandfather clause' of Section 209(a) of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 543, 552, 49 U.S.C. § 309(a), 49 U.S.C.A. § 309(a), for a permit authorizing operations as a contract carrier by motor vehicle.
The evidentiary facts are not seriously disputed. Prior to the critical date, July 1, 1935, and until February 1936, appellees and their predecessors in interest hauled only for common carriers by motor vehicle, and in each case principally for a single common carrier, between St. Louis and Chicago for which they were paid a lump sum on dock to dock movements. Appellees protected their equipment by carrying fire, theft and collision insurance in their own names. They also paid the operating and maintenance costs. Cargo, public-liability, property-damage, and similar types of insurance for the protection of the general and the shipping public were taken out by the common carriers and in some instances charged to the appellees. They occasionly paid small cargo damage claims not covered by insurance. The drivers of appellees' trucks were their employees. The specificity with which the common carriers directed the routes to be followed is in some doubt but the drivers were requested to 'sign in' at certain registration stations enroute.
The greater portion of the traffic of the common carriers which appellees served was carried in the carriers' own vehicles. Appellees' equipment was secured on oral arrangements to handle overflow freight. The freight so handled was always solicited by the common carrier, accumulated at its terminal, loaded and unloaded by its employees, and moved from consignor to consignee on that carrier's way bills. The record is silent as to whether appellees' trucks bore the name of the common carrier on whose behalf they were operated.
After February 1936 appellees ceased hauling for common carriers by motor vehicle and began hauling for individual shippers in their own right.
The Commission found that appellees' equipment prior to February 1936 'was operated solely under the direction and control of the common carriers and under the latter's responsibility to the general public and the shippers' and concluded that 'as to such operations applicants (appellees) do not qualify as carriers by motor vehicle within the meaning of the Act and are consequently not entitled to a certificate or a permit under the 'grandfather' clause of Section 206(a) or 209(a) thereof.'
The court below set aside the Commission's order, concluding that appellees were in 'bona fide operation as (a) contract carrier(s) in interstate commerce on July 1, 1935' and 'in so operating assumed control, management and responsibility for the hauling of cargo' and that 'there is no substantial evidence in the record to support the order entered'.
The point of divergence between the Commission and the court below seems to have been whether the evidentiary facts supported the Commission's ultimate conclusion that appellees operated solely under the control of the common carriers. Because of our views as to the proper construction of the Act, we need not determine whether substantial evidence supports that conclusion of the Commission. In any event the evidence clearly shows that on the critical date, and from then until February 1936, appellees helped the common carriers move their overflow freight and, as to each job, were an integral part of a single common carrier service offered to the public by the common carrier for whom they hauled.