Chemical Bank Trust Co v. Group of Institutional Investors Alleghany Corporation v. Group of Institutional Investors Missouri Pacific Railroad Company Secured Serial Bondholders Committee v. Group of Institutional Investors Farwell v. Group of Institutional Investors Missouri Pacific Railroad Co v. Group of Institutional Investors 528, s. 524
| Citation | 72 S.Ct. 1018,96 L.Ed. 1372,343 U.S. 982 |
| Decision Date | 01 October 1951 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 524,s. 524 |
| Parties | CHEMICAL BANK & TRUST CO., Trustee, v. GROUP OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS. ALLEGHANY CORPORATION v. GROUP OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY 5 1/4% SECURED SERIAL BONDHOLDERS COMMITTEE v. GROUP OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS. FARWELL et al. v. GROUP OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS. MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD CO. v. GROUP OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS. to 528 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
Reference to the opinion in State of Maryland v. Baltimore Radio Show, 338 U.S. 912, 70 S.Ct. 252, 94 L.Ed. 562 makes it unnecessary to indicate the reasons which preclude the Court from stating, however briefly, the grounds for denial of petitions for certiorari. Selective notations of dissent from such denials would not correctly reflect the operation of the certiorari process. That would require notation not only of all dissents when petitions are denied. It would equally require public recording of dissents from the granting of petitions. Due regard for all these factors touching the administration of our certiorari jurisdiction has determined my unbroken practice not to note dissent from the Court's disposition of petitions for
Page 982-Continued.
certiorari.
But it has seemed to me appropriate to indicate from time to time the issues that are involved in a litigation for which review has been sought and denied. These cases, arising out of the long-drawn-out Missouri Pacific reorganization, present another such instance. The denial of these petitions for certiorari does not definitively close the door for relief to security holders who claim forfeiture of their rights. The current Interstate Commerce Commission plan for the reorganization of the Missouri Pacific system has not been consummated. It may never be consummated. If carried to the stage of confirmation by the lower courts, review may again be sought here, perhaps with the benefit of additional light. But as the matter stands, two great questions are in controversy; they are questions for which the Congress has not authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to give final answers.
The reorganization plan sustained by the lower court involves the forfeiture of existing securities of ast proportions. The Commission's plan also eliminates existin g corporations and directs financial power into new channels. These far-reaching consequences are based on the Commission's predictions of the future. One is not remotely unmindful of the relevant elements and their meaning on which judgment in such matters must be based, nor of the diffidence with which courts should sit in judgment upon the Commission's conclusions, by reminding that the Reorganization Act of 1933, § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act, 47 Stat. 1467, 1474, as amended, 11 U.S.C.A. § 205, did subject to judicial review the determinations of the Commission and the processes which underlie them.
In three years (1940, 1944, and 1949) the Commission has proposed forfeiture plans on the basis of estimates of future earnings of the three component parts of the Missouri Pacific lines. The estimates on which the Commission based its proposals to strike down hundreds of millions of dollars of securities were the same in 1944 as in 1940. In 1949, the Commission recognized that the 1940 and 1944 estimates and forfeiture proposals were unsound, to the extent of millions of dollars.
In the eleven years since the Commission first proposed forfeiture on the basis of estimates of future earnings in this case, the actual earnings of each of the three component parts of the Missouri Pacific lines have exceeded those estimates. Two of the three have earned, in those eleven years, more than twice as much as the estimates; one earned almost fifty percent more than the estimate.
For the system as a whole, the actual earnings of the eleven post-estimate years averaged $18,000,000 per year more than the...
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