Page:Department of Public Utilities v. Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co.pdf/12

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DEPT. OF PUBLIC UTILITIES v. ARK.–LA. GAS CO.
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commerce from the individual sales made from its pipe lines to selected customers.

Among decisions relied upon by appellee is Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 225 N.Y. 397, 122 N.E. 260. The opinion was written by Mr. Justice CORDOZO, then Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York, now Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Justice CORDOZO there said: "The rule of the 'original package' is not an ultimate principle. It is an illustration of a principle. It assumes transmission in packages, and then supplies a test of the unity of the transaction. If other forms of transmission are employed, there is need of other tests." Again, in Baldwin v. Seelig, 294 U.S. 511, 55 S. Ct. 497, 79 L. ed. 1032, 101 A.L.R. 55, Mr. Justice CORDOZO said: "The test of the 'original package,' which came into our law with Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, is not inflexible and final for the transactions of interstate commerce, whatever may be its validity for commerce with other countries * * * . There are other purposes for which the same merchandise will have the benefit of the protection appropriate to interstate commerce, though the original packages have been hroken and the contents subdivided. * * * In brief, the test of the original package is not an ultimate principle. It is an illustration of a principle. Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 225 N.Y. 397, 403, 122 N.E. 260."

Finally, in summing up its case, appellee says: "Appellant contends that failure to earmark or segregate any of the gas produced in Louisiana, when placed in the pipe line system in that state for delivery to any particular customer in Arkansas, prevents such gas from moving in and being a part of interstate commerce. But gas from its very nature is incapable of being earmarked for any particular destination or customer. It is a quasi-fluid substance and no one molecule. can be segregated from another. It is impossible to identify any particular quantity of gas in a pipe line. That the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized this fact is shown by numerous decisions. In many of them gas was trans-