Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ If the railroads were required to take no active steps until they could bring a writ of error from this court to the supreme court of appeals after a final judgment, they would come here with the facts already found against them. But the determination as to their rights turns almost wholly upon the facts to be found. Whether their property was taken unconstitutionally depends upon the valuation of the property, the income to be derived from the proposed rate, and the proportion between the two,-pure matters of fact. When those are settled the law is tolerably plain. ”

“ An appeal to the supreme court of appeals is given of right to any party aggrieved, upon conditions not necessary to be stated, and that court, if it reverses what has been done, is to substitute such order as, in its opinion, the commission should have made. ”

“ As our decision does not go upon a denial of power to entertain the bills at the present stage, but upon our views as to what is the most proper and orderly course in cases of this sort when practicable, it seems to us that the bills should be retained for the present to await the result of the appeals if the companies see fit to take them. If the appeals are dismissed, as brought too late, the companies will be entitled to decrees. If they are entertained and the orders of the commission affirmed, the bills may be dismissed without prejudice and filed again. ”

“ All their constitutional rights, we repeat, depend upon what the facts are found to be. They are not to be forbidden to try those facts before a court of their own choosing, if otherwise competent. 'A state cannot tie up a citizen of another state, having property within its territory invaded by unauthorized acts of its own officers, to suits for redress in its own courts.' Reagan v. ”

“ No rate is irrevocably fixed by the state until the matter has been laid before the body having the last word. It may be that that body will adhere to the old rate, or will establish one that will not be open to the charge of violating the contracts alleged. ”

“ It the commission is a court, within the meaning of § 720, then the circuit court of the United States was wholly without authority to stay the proceedings of that tribunal by the writ of injunction. The circuit court could not grant the writ of injunction in face of the act of Congrees expressly forbidding such action. No one will question the authority of Congress to prescribe the limits of the jurisdiction of the courts created by it. ”

“ But this decision suggests that in three of the present cases an equally potent constitutional bar is alleged against the proceedings of the commission. The Chesapeake & Ohio, the Norfolk & Western, and the Southern Railway Companies all set up general laws, alleged to be incorporated in their charters and to constitute contracts, providing that their tolls should not be diminished except under conditions of fact alleged not to exist. ”