Court Opinion

ID: 9418152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:10:32.562623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:56.276770
License: Public Domain

Mb. J üstíce Harlan,
dissenting.
As these cases have been determined wholly on the construction of those parts of the Hepburn Act which are here in ques*419tion, and as Congress, if it sees fit, may meet that construction by additional legislation, I deem it unnecessary to enter upon an extended discussion of the various questions arising upon the record, and will content myself simply with an expression of my non-concurrence in the view taken by the court as to the meaning and scope of certain provisions of the act. In my judgment the act, reasonably and properly construed, according to its language, includes within its prohibitions a railroad company transporting coal, if, at the time, it is the owner, legally or equitably, of stock — certainly, if it owns a majority or all the stock — in the company which mined, manufactured or produced, and then owns, the coal which is being transported by such railroad company. Any other view of the act will enable the transporting railroad company, by one device or another, to defeat , altogether the purpose which Congress had in view, which was to divorce, in a real, substantial sense, production and transportation, and thereby to prevent the transporting company from doing injustice to other owners of coal.