Opinion of the Court. 327 U.S. in raising it, has said that it was acting in protection of the public interest and we pass therefore to consideration of the issue on its merits. The Commission did not, by the manner in which it disposed of the cause, inject as a "new issue" the question whether both applications might be granted. If the appellees actually assumed in the beginning that both applications could not be granted, their assumption was in the teeth of the applications and the permissible outcomes presented for the Commission's decision. As has been said, the two applications were separately instituted and heard. In the natural course of events each joint board was to decide whether to grant or to deny the particular application before it. The possibilities therefore were that both applications might be denied, that one might be granted and the other denied, or that both might be granted. Moreover, the record contains evidence showing that the possibility of granting both applications was in the minds of counsel and witnesses.15 15 One example is sufficient. The president of Consolidated was asked: "From your experience in watching the development of this joint service, what do you expect the effect to be of the granting of this application upon the existing carriers between San Francisco and Medford, and San Francisco and Klamath Falls?" He replied: "Treating them separately, south of Medford, we have in our operation the Oregon-Nevada-California Fast Freight and the Pacific Truck Express and the Pierce Auto Lines. "The California Fast Freight are concurrently applying for the right to extend their services north of Medford to Portland. The net result of the granting of their application and our application would be the splitting of the traffic between the two companies. We would each take part of the present business we are now jointly handling, and operate our equipment straight through. "In my opinion, this will result in both of us operating about the same number of vehicles, about the same number of miles; and if our divisions of revenues of the past have been properly arranged, And this possibility must have been apparent from the beginning, not only from the history of the prior operations and the primary cause for their impending disruption, but also from the obvious relations of the applications to each other, the equally obvious consequences to the applicants of granting one and denying the other, and the Commission's recognition of these facts by the manner in which it scheduled the hearings for substantially concurrent treatment. The parties too apparently gave similar recognition to the questioned possible outcome by their stipulation for the use of evidence in both proceedings. The issue concerning whether both applications should be granted was injected, not by the Commission's report or any other action taken by it, but by the filing of the applications in the first place. If appellees misconceived the nature of the proceedings in this respect, as we do not think was the case, they were not misled into doing so by any action of the Commission or the other appellants. We turn therefore to the objections made on the score of the Commission's findings and its treatment of the evidence. In our opinion they are equally untenable. The we continue to gross about the same amount of revenue. It should result in our both having a more profitable operation, as it will eliminate the present waste of checking, weighing, and transferring freight at an intermediate point. "The service would be improved and no doubt it would attract more volume. That is a conjecture. At the present time, both companies are maintaining terminal facilities in San Francisco so on our part it would mean very little increase in our terminal costs. "It will mean an increase in terminal costs for the Oregon-NevadaCalifornia Fast Freight, but the cost of it would be offset, in my opinion, by eliminating the cost of transferring the through freight at Medford." In its report, the Commission stated, "For reasons which are obvious [see note 14], authority should be either granted or denied to both applicants to operate over the Valley Route." (Emphasis added.) Opinion of the Court. 327 U.S. principal cause of complaint in these respects is that the Commission did not consider each case exclusively on its own record but looked to the evidence in both proceedings in forming its judgment. If this is true and if it has resulted in substantial prejudice to the appellees, as might occur, for example, if the Commission were shown prejudicially to have considered evidence bearing on one case which did not affect it and was presented in the other, and which appellees were given no opportunity to meet, the. orders, or one of them, would be improperly grounded. But no showing of this sort has been made. It is to be recalled that all of the appellees, as well as both of the applicants, were parties to both proceedings; were represented at all of the hearings, which were conducted at substantially the same times and places; and were given full opportunity to present all evidence they considered pertinent, to cross-examine witnesses and otherwise to protect their interests. Moreover, large portions of the evidence applied as much to one application as to another. This was true, for example, of the proofs relating to traffic conditions, shipper demands, the need for faster service and mechanical refrigeration, and other items. In these circumstances it is difficult to see how appellees could have sustained substantial prejudice from the Commission's consideration of the evidence upon matters as closely related as those in issue in these two proceedings. Nor indeed do they succeed in showing such prejudice. As we understand them, the most that they assert is that the Commission's report so commingles the two cases that it is impossible to determine which statements are supported by which record. But neither in the briefs, nor upon specific inquiry at the argument, were they able to point to any particular instance of prejudice. Nor in fact does the opinion of the District Court, although it asserts that the report is filled with numerous instances of this 515 Opinion of the Court. sort. The assertion, we think, is colored by the court's erroneous idea that the report first injected the question whether both applications should be granted; and to the same cause, it would seem, may be attributed the court's undue discounting of the fact that upon this issue, as on the alternative possible outcomes, much of the evidence was identical, made so by the parties' own stipulation. In any event the appellees have not pointed to any specific statement in the report which is obviously applicable to both cases or which is required as a basic finding to support the order in one, which is without support in both records or in the one which is appropriate. In the absence of any showing of specific prejudice, the claim comes down to the highly technical objection that the Commission, in the final stage of forming its judgment, could not in either case take account of what had been done in the other, notwithstanding the closely related character and objects of the applications and the prior proceedings. The contention in its farthest reach amounts to a legal version of the scriptural injunction against letting one's right hand know what one's left hand may be doing. Obviously it would be consistent neither with good sense nor, we think, with the type of hearing assured by the statute to force the Commission to put on such complete blinders. Whatever may be the limits outside which it cannot go in looking beyond the record in the particular proceeding at the stage of formulating its judgment, none certainly would go so far. And, given that the report contains all the essential findings required, cf. Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, the Commission is not compelled to annotate to each finding the evidence supporting it. It is true that ordinarily an administrative agency will act appropriately, in a proceeding of this sort, upon the Opinion of the Court. 16 327 U.S. record presented and such matters as properly may receive its attention through "official notice." It is also true that this Court, in appropriate instances, has limited the use of the latter implement in order to assure that the parties will not be deprived of a fair hearing. See United States v. Abilene & Southern R. Co., 265 U. S. 274, 286290; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 227 U. S. 88, 93-94. But in doing so it has not undertaken to make a fetish of sticking squarely within the four corners of the specific record in administrative proceedings or of pinning down such agencies, with reference to fact determinations, even more rigidly than the courts in strictly judicial proceedings. On the contrary, in the one case as in the other, the mere fact that the determining body has looked beyond the record proper does not invalidate its action unless substantial prejudice is shown to result. Market Street R. Co. v. Railroad Comm'n, 324 U. S. 548, 561-562; cf. Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 154–155. In these cases no more is necessary than to apply that rule. The remaining objections are directed more appropriately to the findings and their support in the evidence. Appellees say that the order granting both applications is defective in that it is not founded upon an express finding or indeed upon any finding that there was a need for two through-line operations which would be in competition with one another. They urge that it was not sufficient for the Commission to find, as it did on adequate evidence, that the existing service between Portland and San Francisco was inadequate; and to conclude, as the report expressly stated, that in view of this fact, among others, "public convenience and necessity require the op 16 Cf. Judicial Notice by Administrative Tribunals (1934) 44 Yale L. J. 355; Faris, Judicial Notice by Administrative Bodies (1928) 4 Ind. L. J. 167. |