“ Completely lost in the confusion of language too frequently invented for the purpose of confusing-commissions and courts passing upon rates for public utilities are driven to listen to conjectures, speculations, estimates, and guesses, all under the name of 'reproduction costs.' In the testimony of professional witnsses employed by the litigants, courts listen to guesses about 'going value' ”

“ This Court has announced the doctrine that the States have full and complete rights to regulate the rates of local intrastate utilities and that the federal courts cannot and will not interfere with this regulation unless the rates are confiscatory. Furthermore, 'upon that question (of confiscation) the complainant has the burden of proof, and the court may not interfere with the exercise of the state's authority unless confiscation is clearly established.' [2] The judicial function does not extend beyond the decision of the constitutional question. ”

“ In the margin appears the record of stockholders' dividends since the $19,000,000 valuation. [18] In view of these dividends on this stock of uncertain cost, these stockholders were in no imminent peril because of the District Court's valuation of more than $21,000,000.
This case is an illustration of the almost insuperable obstables to rate regulation today. It involves a single Company supplying water to a single community. It does not present the difficulties of a far-flung utility system covering much territory with many separate corporate creatures. ”

“ I base this belief on the record which does not show clearly that the stockholders of the Indianapolis Water Company hve ever made any substantial investment which could be confiscated. I further believe that the evidence does not clearly establish that the rates fixed by the Commission will fail to provide an income amply adequate to pay all interest on the Company's funded debt and provide far more than a 6 per cent. profit on any actual value in excess of the borrowed capital remaining unpaid. ”

“ Even the testimony of engineers, with wide experience in developing this theory and expounding it to courts, is not in agreement as to the meaning of the vague and uncertain terms created to add invisible and intangible values to actual physical property. ”

“ This Court has even said, 'Reproduction value, however, is not a matter of outlay, but of estimate, and * * * proof of actual expenditures originally made, while it would be helpful, is not indispensable.' [14] Courts have gone further and further away from considering cost in determining the value of utility property. The cost of this Company's property apparently was given little weight in previous litigation which came to this Court. [15] This Company's property was valued by this Court at $19,000,000 in the prior litigation, although the Commission's valuation was $16,495,000. ”

“ Witnesses in the present case varied as to 'organization' costs from $81,000 to $325,000. Experts differed as to 'going value' between $1,000,000 and $2,700,000 and on water rights from nothing to $2,000,000. ”