Lehigh Valley Railroad Company v. United States of America

Decision Date26 March 1917
Docket NumberNo. 733,733
Citation37 S.Ct. 397,61 L.Ed. 819,243 U.S. 412
PartiesLEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY, Appt., v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and Interstate Commerce Commission
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. Richard W. Barrett, John G. Johnson, and Edgar H. Boles for appellant.

Mr. Blackburn Esterline and Solicitor General Davis for the United States.

Mr. Joseph W. Folk for the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a bill to prevent the enforcement of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. On December 2, 1913, the Commission issued a circular calling attention to the fact that the Act of August 24, 1912 (chap. 390, § 11, 37 Stat. at L. 560, 566, Comp. Stat. 1913, §§ 10,037, 8,567), known as the Panama Canal Act, prohibited, after July 1, 1914, any ownership by a railroad in any common carrier by water when the railroad might compete for traffic with the water carrier; and that the Commission was authorized to determine questions of fact as to such competition, and to extend the time beyond July 1, 1914, if the extension would not exclude or reduce competition on the water route. Notice was given that applications for extension of time should be filed by March 1, 1914. Thereupon, in January, 1914, the appellant filed a petition praying for a hearing as to whether the services of a steamboat line owned by it would be in violation of the above section and for an extension of time. It is the order issued upon this petition against which relief is sought.

The facts other than the question whether they warrant the conclusion that the railroad and the steamboat line do or may compete are not disputed. The railroad extends from Jersey City to Buffalo, and there connects with the line of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Company, which runs vessels between Buffalo and Chicago and Milwaukee. The railroad company owns all the stock of the Transportation Company, but, with the exception of the interchange port of Buffalo, serves no point in common with the boats of the latter. It is, however, a party to certain fast-freightline arrangements and all-rail routes and joint rates to the ports served by its vessels. The effect of these connections and of the railroad's membership of the Lake Lines Association was held by the Commission to put the railroad in a position inimical to the best interests of the boat line, to deprive the latter of its initial rate-making power, and to determine by outside authority whether freight shall move by all rail or by lake and rail...

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  • Rochester Telephone Corporation v. United States
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    ...the terms of a statute and the Commission's action is followed by legal consequences, as was the case in Lehigh Valley R.R. v. United States, 243 U.S. 412, 37 S.Ct. 397, 61 L.Ed. 819, or where the Commission's order denies an exemption from the terms of the statute, as in the Inter-Mountain......
  • Utah Fuel Co. v. National Bituminous Coal Commission, 7247.
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    ...Ct. 761, 56 L.Ed. 1091; Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 283 U.S. 235, 241, 51 S.Ct. 429, 75 L.Ed. 999; Lehigh Valley R. R. v. United States, 243 U.S. 412, 37 S.Ct. 397, 61 L.Ed. 819; Manufacturers' Ry. v. United States, 246 U.S. 457, 483, 38 S.Ct. 383, 62 L.Ed. 831; Jones v. Securities a......
  • American Power & L. Co. v. Securities and Ex. Com'n, 3823
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    ...24, 1912, 37 Stat. 566, 49 U.S.C.A. § 5; Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. United States, D.C.E.D.Pa.1916, 234 F. 682, affirmed, 1917, 243 U.S. 412, 37 S.Ct. 397, 61 L.Ed. 819. Cf. also paragraph (11) of § 5 of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended by the Emergency Transportation Act of 1933, 48 St......
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