Court Opinion

ID: 9794661
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:09:17.864547+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:32.045777
License: Public Domain

CALLISTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. Although efforts have been made by appellants to distinguish this case from Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. State of Florida,1 I fail to see any basic difference.
In the Atlantic Coast Line case the facts are parallel to those in this case. There, as here, the I. C. C.’s order increasing intrastate rates was upset by the U. S. Supreme Court and, in both instances, the carriers exacted the increased rates by virtue of the invalid order. There, as here, the I. C. C. held a second hearing and entered a new order to the same effect as the first. There, as here, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the second order of the I. C. C.
The majority of the court in the Atlantic Coast Line case (it was a 5-4 decision) placed great importance upon the fact that the second I. C. C. order was valid, thus determining that the first order was factually reasonable — an element of which the court could take advantage under the equitable nature of the action. The majority concluded that restitution is an equitable action and that the shippers had failed to sustain the burden of proving that it would be inequitable to permit the carrier to retain the alleged overcharges.
The majority opinion in the instant case applies equitable principles and holds that it would be inequitable, under the circumstances, to require the carriers to make restitution where the moneys had been collected as operating income and integrated into their operations. The opinion holds that the result might be different had the moneys been impounded.
I fail to understand what difference it makes whether the funds collected are impounded or not. The shippers are either entitled to restitution or they are not, and the use or disposition of the funds by the carriers should have no bearing thereon.
The majority opinion criticizes the P. S. C. for failing to reject the filing of the tariffs set by the I. C. C.’s first order and failing to order that the increased charges be impounded. It is submitted that the P. S. C. had no alternative but to accept the filing and certainly had no authority to require the impounding of the increased charges.
I find the minority view in the Atlantic Coast Line case to be persuasive. Its adoption would render moot the questions relating to the impounding or not of the funds, whether the I. C. C.’s first order was void or voidable and whether the second order *265of the I. C. C. is valid or not. Mr. Justice Roberts, speaking for the minority, stated:
“The case is not to be decided according to the character ascribed to the first order of the Commission. Whether called void or voidable, the order gave the railroad no right to collect the sums exacted. If, as must be conceded, the carrier took, under and by force of that order, money to which it was not in law entitled, the conclusion necessarily follows that it must restore what was so taken.”
WADE, C. J., concurs in the dissenting ■opinion of CALLISTER, J.

. 295 U.S. 301. 55 S.Ct. 713. 79 L.Ed. 1451.