“ Under an ordinance of the city of Lexington, Kentucky, adopted in January, 1927, the Central Kentucky Natural Gas Company purchased a franchise for the distribution and sale of gas to consumers in that city. The contract with the city provided that the company should promulgate the rates which it proposed to charge and that, if the city deemed them to be excessive, proceedings should be instituted before the Railroad Commission of the State in order to have just and reasonable rates prescribed. ”

“ That at the time when Resolution No. 74 was passed the rate theretofore fixed by the Railroad Commission was a nullity; that the city and the company were as free to agree upon the rates to be charged under the franchise contract as they were before the void finding of the Railroad Commission was promulgated; that the consent of the court or commission required in the resolution was purely a formal consent to the method of distribution ”

“ Appellants, consumers of gas, contend that the obligations of the original franchise contract have been impaired by the attempted compromise in violation of the contract clause of the Federal Constitution (article 1, § 10) and that appellants have been deprived of vested property rights in the impounded fund without due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. ”