Illinois Central Railroad v. State Public Utilities Commission

Citations

• 245 U.S. 493
• 38 S. Ct. 170
• 62 L. Ed. 425
• 1918 U.S. LEXIS 2126

Syllabus

<p>Suits brought by carriers to restrain state officials from interfering with the establishment and maintenance of intrastate rates which the carriers have adopted in pursuance of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission requiring the removal of- discrimination against interstate commerce, are not suits to “enforce” the order ' in the sense of the jurisdictional provision of the Act of October 22, 1913, c. 32, 38 Stat. 219, and need not be brought in the district “wherein is the residence of .the party or any of the parties upon whose petition the order was made.” They come within the provision in § 1 of the Act of June 18,1910, c. 309,36 Stat. 539, repeated in Jud. Code, § 207, by which the general jurisdiction over cases not therein enumerated is preserved.</p> <p>In such a suit neither the United States nor the Commission is a necessary party, either by statute or under the rules governing suits in equity.</p> <p>As, by the jurisdictional provision of the Act of October 22, 1913, supra, a suit to set aside an order of the Commission, relating to transportation and made upon petition, may be brought only in the district of the petitioner’s residence, and as the-United States has not consented to be thus impleaded in any other district, and its immunity from suit recognizes no distinction between' cross and original bills, or ancillary and original suits, it follows that the District Court of another district, in a suit by a carrier against state officials in aid of such an order, cannot entertain a cross bill seeking to have the order declared void and to enjoip the United States and the Commission from enforcing it and the carrier from complying with it.</p> <p>Nor may sucb cross bill be entertained as against the Commission and the carrier only; under Jud. Code, §§ 208,211, the United States is a necessary party, as the representative of -the public.</p> <p>-When, in the exercise of the power constitutionally reposed in it by the Act to Regulate Commerce,