Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co v. Department of Public Utilities

Decision Date25 April 1938
Docket NumberNo. 645,645
Citation304 U.S. 61,82 L.Ed. 1149,58 S.Ct. 770
PartiesARKANSAS LOUISIANA GAS CO. v. DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. H. C. Walker, Jr., of Shreveport, La., and J. Merrick Moore, of Little Rock, Ark., for appellant.

Messrs. Thomas Fitzhugh, of Little Rock, Ark., and John E. Benton, of Washington, D.C., for appellees.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellant, a Delaware corporation, lawfully purchases and produces natural gas in Texas and Louisiana and thereafter transports and delivers it through pipe lines to selected industries and public utility distributing corporations—so-called 'pipe line customers'—at points in Arkansas. These deliveries are made under contracts entered into at Shreveport, La., and are effected by tapping a main pipe line or through connecting spurs. They amount annually to some eight billion cubic feet.

Appellant, by admission, also maintains a distribution department, through which it acts as a public utility, for the local sale and distribution of gas in many Arkansas towns; but this organization is distinct from the one which supplies pipe line customers.

The Arkansas Department of Public Utilities, proceeding under a local statute, Laws Ark.1935, No. 324, p. 895, in April, 1935, issued a general order (No. 13) requiring public utilities to file, upon specified forms, schedules of rates, charges, etc. Appellant presented such schedules for local utility service in the state, but declined to file copies of contracts, agreements, etc., for sales and deliveries to pipe line customers.

Thereupon the Department issued an order to show cause for this failure. In response appellant 'set forth that the sale and delivery of gas from its Texas and Louisiana fields to its pipe line and industrial customers in Arkansas constitute interstate commerce, and that in making such sales and deliveries it was and is not acting as a public utility, and that accordingly the sale and delivery of said gas and the rates, schedules and charges upon which the same is delivered and sold were and are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Department and are beyond its power to regulate, and that Order No. 13 is not legally applicable to said business.'

After a hearing upon the citation and response and much evidence, April 30, 1936, the Department ordered compliance with the general order. The matter then went for review to the circuit court, Pulaski county, and...

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