Felix Frankfurter

“ After a thorough hearing [2] and the submission of briefs, the examiner filed his report, to which the Rochester duly excepted. Upon the basis of these proceedings and of argument before it, the Commission, through its Telephone Division, sustained the findings of its chief examiner, determined that the Rochester was under the 'control' of the New York and therefore not entitled to the classification of a mere connecting carrier under Section 2 (b) (2) . ”

“ Judicial relief would be precisely the same as in the recognized instances of review by courts of Commission action: if the legal principles on which the Commission acted were not erroneous, the bill would be ordered dismissed; if the Commission was found to have proceeded on erroneous legal principles, the Commission would be ordered to proceed within the framework of its own discretionary authority on the indicated correct principles. The requisites of equity have of course to be satisfied, but by the conventional criteria. ”

“ So long as there is warrant in the record for the judgment of the expert body it must stand. The suggestion that the refusal to regard the New York ownership of only one third of the common stock of the Rochester as conclusive of the former's lack of control of the latter should invalidate the Commission's finding, disregards actualities in such intercorporate relations. ”

“ United States, 287 U.S. 229, 235, 53 S.Ct. 124, 126, 77 L.Ed. 275.↑ This becomes clear on analysis of the precise problem presented in the Procter & Gamble case. It was a dispute between shippers who owned private cars and those who did not as to the distribution of the cars owned by the carriers. The Commission was called upon to resolve that economic conflict by virtue of its authority to prevent practices which unfairly discriminated against one group at the expense of the other. ”

“ The complaint challenged the validity of these orders on the ground inter alia that appellant as a matter of law is, and by the evidence and facts found by the commission is shown to be, not subject to any of them. ”

“ But this bears on the disposition of a case and should not control jurisdiction. The nature of judicial relief, that is the form of directions available, in situations like those presented by the Procter & Gamble and the Lehigh Valley cases, were the Commission's orders reviewed, would be no different than was that used in the Inter-Mountain Rate and the New River Co. cases. [29] In both types of situations 'a judgment rendered will be a final and indisputable basis of action as between the Commission and the defendant,' Interstate Commerce Commission v. ”

“ Partly these have been written into Article 3 of the Constitution, U.S.C.A., by what is implied from the grant of 'judicial power' to determine 'Cases' and 'Controversies,' Art. 3, Sec. 2, U.S.Constitution. ”