Northwest Agricultural Cooperative Association, Inc., a Corporation v. Interstate Commerce Commission

The Northwest Agricultural Cooperative Association seeks review of an injunction prohibiting it from engaging in certain trucking operations without authorization by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The following facts were established by stipulation and by the unchallenged affidavit of Northwest’s president. Northwest was organized to transport its members’ farm products to market at lower cost. The volume of farm supplies brought back from the market areas for members does not equal the volume of farm products shipped to those areas. Consequently, Northwest back-hauls non-farm commodities. This is the traffic enjoined. In a four-month period this traffic produced $41,000 in revenues out of a total of $230,375. If Northwest is denied this income, its cost of transporting farm products to market will exceed the cost of available common carriage, and Northwest will be forced to discontinue its trucking operation.

Northwest contends that its trucking operation is exempted from Commission economic regulation by section 203(b) (5) of the Interstate Commerce Act ( 49 U.S.C.A. § 303 (b) (5)), which excludes from such regulation “motor vehicles controlled and operated by a…