Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co.

Citations

• 76 F. 183
• 1896 U.S. App. LEXIS 2872

Syllabus

<p>1. The Right to Prescribe Maximum Rates eor the Transportation op Freight.</p> <p>The right to prescribe maximum rates for the Iransportation of freight is the right to dictate an indispensable a.nd one of the most important terms of the contract between the carrier and the shipper.</p> <p>3. Same.</p> <p>As a legislative right it has been so long and so generally recognized as to be beyond question, and it results from the corporate existence of the common carrier, or from his quasi public relation to any and all who may come to him as freighters or passengers.</p> <p>8. Same.</p> <p>It can hardly he sa.id to be within the recognized limits of the exercise of judicial right or power, because, while a court of equity may enforce specific performance of a contract, or correct mutual mistakes in it, it never makes a contract.</p> <p>4. The Interstate Commerce Commission.</p> <p>The interstate commerce commission is not invested, and cannot he invested, under the constitution, with either legislative power or purely judicial power. Its functions are necessarily restricted to the performance of administrative duties, with such quasi judicial powers as are incidental and necessary to the proper performance of those duties.</p> <p>5. Same — Right op the Commission to Fix Rates.</p> <p>It is not an incidental light. It is not a right or power to he derived by implication or construction from general librases in the first or other sections of the act to regúlale commerce, nor can it he imported into the act by reference to or by reason of the necessities of the case. If found at all, it must he found in express and specific language, among the powers and rights granted in direct terms, and there is no such language in the act.</p> <p>6. Same.</p> <p>The power of the commission to fix rates was denied by the supreme court in Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Go. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 102 TJ. S. 196, 16 Sup. Ct. 700.</p> <p>7. The Act to Regulate Commerce.</p> <p>