Court Opinion

ID: 9651767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:35:46.074561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:39.568724
License: Public Domain

BOURQUIN, District Judge
(concurring). I concur in the result. However, as in court review of the commission’s orders, it is as vital to due process of law that upon the evidence independent judgment be exercised in respect to the commission’s jurisdiction as to its rates, and as the state Supreme Court construes the state statute to withhold from the state courts power to exercise this independent judgment in both instances (Traber v. Railroad Commission of the State of California, 183 Cal. 307, 191 P. 366), it is clear that so far as review in the state courts is concerned there is no due process. See Ohio, etc., Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U. S. 289, 40 S. Ct. 527, 64 L. Ed. 908.
But plaintiff, instead of proceeding in the state courts, comes into this federal court, the plenary equity powers of which are unaffected by the restrictions of the state statute. Reagan v. Farmers L. & T. Co., 154 U. S. 395, 14 S. Ct. 1047, 38 L. Ed. 1014. Herein it can have exercise of our independent judgment upon all issues it presents, including that of the commission’s jurisdiction over the property involved. In other words, herein plaintiff has due process of law. This *640course seems’ to be sanctioned by Bluefield, etc., Co. v. Com., 262 U. S. 679, 43 S. Ct. 675, 67 L. Ed. 1176, and Oklahoma, etc., Co. v. Love, 252 U. S. 331, 40 S. Ct. 338, 64 L. Ed. 596, despite the radical difference in review between them and the Ohio-Ben Avon Case, supra.
Accordingly, consideration of the evidence as it now appears indicates" probability that at final hearing plaintiff’s ease will fail, that the property will be found devoted to public service and within the commission’s jurisdiction, and the latter’s order valid. That suffices to require denial of injunction pendente lite. The law of rates is by no means settled and clear, as appears from the Supreme Court cases, supra, and their citations. Nevertheless it seems that the earlier rule that state statutes denying judicial review are unconstitutional has been abandoned in favor of the rule that in any case the, federal courts will try and determine the merits óf the issue, and adjudge the commission’s order valid or invalid accordingly, which is but to say that the statutes are constitutional, though in their application, as in that of any statute, ■orders pursuant to them may not be.