Contemporary American History, 1877-1913Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
History
Contemporary American History, 1877-1913
Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
United States -- History -- 1865-1921
Although the denial of the right of the judiciary to review the
"reasonableness" of a rate fixed by the legislature in the Granger cases
had been _dictum_, a case was not long arising in which the issue was
squarely raised. Had this case gone to the Supreme Court, the question
of judicial review would have been decided a full decade or more before
it really was. In this case, the Tilley case, a bondholder of a railroad
operating in Georgia sought to restrain the railroad from putting into
force a tariff fixed by the state railroad commission, on the ground
that it was so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory. Judge Woods, of
the Federal circuit court, refused to grant the injunction, basing his
decision squarely upon the dictum in Munn _v._ Illinois, and declaring
that the railroad must seek relief from unjust action on the part of the
commission at the hands of the legislature or of the people.
It was not till seven years after the Granger cases that another case
involving rate regulation was presented to the Federal courts.[21] The
Ruggles case, brought to the Supreme Court by writ of error to the
supreme court of Illinois, in 1883, involved a conviction of one of the
agents of the Illinois Central Railway for violating a maximum passenger
fare statute of that state, and raised substantially the same question
as all of the Granger cases except the Munn case--the right of the
legislature to regulate the rates of a railroad which was itself
empowered by its charter to fix its own rates. The Court affirmed the
doctrine of the Granger cases, Chief Justice Waite again writing the
opinion. The case is noteworthy only for the opinion of Justice Harlan,
concurring in the judgment, but dissenting from the opinion, of the
Court, in so far as that opinion expressed, as he declared, the doctrine
that the legislature of Illinois could regulate the rates of the railway
concerned, in any manner it saw fit. Justice Harlan argued that inasmuch
as the charter of the railroad had conferred upon it the right to demand
"reasonable" charges, the legislature, when it resumed the power of
fixing charges, was estopped from fixing less than "reasonable" charges;
and should charges lower than "reasonable" be fixed, it would be within
the province of the judicial branch to give relief against such an
impairment of the obligation of contract.
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