CHICAGO — A federal judge has ruled a legal dispute between Metra and Union Pacific must roll on, as the two sides fight over whether Union Pacific must keep supplying commuter rail service in and around Chicago without a contract.
Union Pacific sued Metra — the Commuter Rail Division of the Regional Transportation Authority — looking for a declaration it is not bound by the common-carrier obligations of the 1995 Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act. In an opinion issued Aug. 27, U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso denied Metra’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
According to Alonso, the complaint focuses on three lines that run outbound from Chicago’s Ogilvie train station: the North to Kenosha, Wis., Northwest to McHenry and West to Elburn. UP owns the lines, while Metra owns the commuter trains that run on them. In 2010, the companies entered into a purchase of service agreement under which Metra would compensate UP for operating Metra’s trains on those lines.
“The services Union Pacific provides include hiring and training staff and engineers; maintaining the tracks, rights of ways, stations and platforms; selling tickets and collecting fares; and administrative services,” Alonso wrote. “In December 2015, Union Pacific and Metra extended the agreement until December 31, 2019. The parties later extended the PSA through February 29, 2020.”
Though the companies have been negotiating a new service agreement, and agree commuter service should continue, UP wants Metra to operate its own trains, according to Alonso. Metra said UP is obligated to keep operating the trains even if the existing agreement expires.
After Metra filed its motion hoping Alonso would dismiss or stay the complaint, it asked the Surface Transportation Board to declare UP’s common-carrier obligations, a response to UP’s letter announcing its intention to stop services, including legal services, as of Aug. 31.
On Aug. 5, the STB granted UP’s request to postpone the proceedings, pending the outcome of the federal lawsuit, writing: “Metra does not dispute that the federal district court has concurrent jurisdiction to resolve the common carrier question, and litigation on the same question Metra has now raised has been pending in district court for over seven months.”
Alonso said Metra wanted him to refer the question to the STB, but he wasn’t convinced the “case presents a fact-intensive issue requiring an agency’s understanding of a complex industry” or that it “involves an issue that is within the agency’s discretion.”
Metra’s complaint, Alonso said, doesn’t ask him to explore the extent of the common-carrier obligations or to interpret a regulation’s ambiguous term. Neither did Metra cite “any statutory provision under which Congress has delegated the issue in this case to the STB,” Alonso wrote, adding the complaint is well within his realm of expertise.
“This case seems to present an issue of statutory interpretation,” Alonso wrote. “Whether Union Pacific does or does not have common-carrier obligations to provide commuter passenger service under the ICCTA. Considering such legal issues is what this court and its sister courts do every day, which is why it would not be appropriate to refer such an issue to an agency.”
While allowing the possibility of briefing uncovering “an issue obviously within the primary jurisdiction of the STB,” with noting of the sort before him at present, Alonso declined to stay the case and denied Metra’s motion to dismiss.
Union Pacific is represented in the action by attorneys with the firms of Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila, of Chicago, and Shook Hardy and Bacon, with offices in Chicago and Kansas City.
Metra is represented by the firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson, of Chicago.