William Howard Taft

“ Section 20 provides that, whenever any public utility shall desire to make a change in any rate or rates, it shall file with the Commission a schedule showing the changes desired to be made and put in force by such public utility, but that no change shall be made in any rate without the consent of the Commission, and within 30 days after such changes have been authorized by the Commission copies of such schedule shall be filed in every station, office, or depot of such public utility for public inspection. ”

“ When, therefore, such an administrative agency is required as a condition precedent to an order, to make a finding of facts, the validity of the order must rest upon the needed finding. If it is lacking, the order is ineffective.
It is pressed on us that the lack of an express finding may be supplied by implication and by reference to the averments of the petition invoking the action of the Commission. We cannot agree to this. It is doubtful whether the facts averred in the petition were sufficient to justify a finding that the contract rates were unreasonably low ”

“ Upon this ground they insist that the bill should have been, and must be now, dismissed for want of jurisdiction and without any inquiry into the other issues of law and fact. The original bill set out two grounds of jurisdiction, first that of diverse citizenship, and, second, that the case arose under the federal Constitution in that the order violated the contract clause of the federal Constitution, and also the Fourteenth Amendment. The intervention of the Kansas Company, a citizen of the same state as the Wichita Company, its opponent, did not take away the ground of diverse citizenship. ”