Latest Important Cases policy of the state and injuriously affecting a multitude of persons."1 Patents. See Monopolies. Railway Rates. Powers of Inter state Commerce Commission — Courts may Review its Decision Regarding Reason ableness or Unreasonableness of Rates. U.S. The Commerce Court handed down a decision February 28, in Louisville & Nashville R.R. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, which in effect accuses the Interstate Commerce Commission of failure to act on evidence duly presented to it, and declares that Congress never intended to clothe the Commission with an unlimited authority to determine questions of the reasonableness or un reasonableness of rates. On account of water competition the railroad had maintained rates from New Orleans to Pensacola and Mobile so low that the Montgomery rate exceeded the sum of the locals through Pensacola and Mobile. The water com petition having ceased, the Pensacola and Mobile rates were increased. This led to complaint that the railroad was discriminating in favor of Montgomery, the Montgomery rate being lower than the sum of the Pensacola and Mobile locals. The Interstate Commerce Com mission then ordered not only restora tion of the old rates to Mobile and Pensacola, but reduction of the through rate to Montgomery. 1 Somewhat similar questions were involved in the cases against the United Shoe Machinery Com pany, which came before Judge Putnam of the United States District Court at Boston on demurrers to indictments charging violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. While the counts charging combi nation and conspiracy in restraint of trade were overruled, on the ground of insufficient law con tained in them, the important counts charging monopoly through the company's system of re strictive leases on patented machinery was sus tained in Judge Putnam's decision rendered March 2.
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The Court (Archibald, J.), in revers ing the decision of the Commission, recited the manner in which the rate contentions came before the Commission, and declared that the hearing provided for by the statute is not perfunctory. "The carrier is entitled," it said, "to know and to rely upon what is adduced at it [the hearing] either for or against the existing rate, and the Commission is not authorized to disregard it and reach a conclusion not at all justified by it. If the rate attacked is shown to be unjust, it may be abrogated and a new one established. But if that is not the outcome of the hearing, and on the contrary it is clearly shown that the rate is not unjust, the evidence as to this cannot be put aside, and if it is and the Commission without reference to it proceeds to condemn the rate and fix another, its action is invalid. "After the most careful consideration we are forced to conclude that the action of the Commission in the present in stance is of that character." The opinion then proceeded to a long examination of the evidence in the case. This raised squarely the issue which the Commerce Commission has been waiting to have raised. The Supreme Court has held that the conclusions of fact of the Commission are not subject to review by the courts. And it was held that the decision of the Commission as to the reasonableness or unreasonableness of a rate was a conclusion of fact. "Counsel for the Commission and for the Government," said the Court, "sim ply rely on the authority of the Com mission to determine what is a reasonable rate, and the conclusiveness of its judgment where it has done so, against which, it was argued, the courts can afford no relief unless the rate which has been fixed is shown to be confiscatory. This contention must be rejected.
