Mississippi Railroad Commission v. Illinois Central Railroad

Syllabus

<p>Where complainant not only sets up diverse citizenship but also a constitutional question he has the right to appeal from the judgment of the Circuit Court to the Circuit Court of Appeals, and from its decision an appeal or writ of error may be taken to this court. Field v. Barber Asphalt Co., 194 U. S. 618, distinguished.</p> <p>A commission created by the law of a State for the purpose of supervising and controlling the acts of railroad companies operating within the State . is subject to suit, and a suit brought by a company of another State in the Circuit Court of the United States against the members of the commission is not a suit against the State within the prohibitions of the Eleventh Amendment.</p> <p>The Railroad Commission of Mississippi is not, as has been determined by the highest court of that State, a court, but a mere administrative agency of the State, and the prohibitions of § 720, Rev. Stat., against injunctions from United States courts to stay proceedings in state courts are not applicable thereto; and even though the Commission might, under the state law, resort to the state courts to aid it in enforcing its orders the proceeding cannot be regarded as one in the state courts within the meaning of § 720, Rev. Stat. While a state railroad commission may, in the absence of congressional legislation, order a railroad company to stop interstate trains at stations where there is only an incidental interference with interstate commerce, based on a legal exercise of the police power of the State exerted to secure proper facilities for the citizens of the State, where the railroad company has — as in this case — furnished all proper and reasonable facilities, such an order is an improper and illegal interference with interstate commerce and void as a violation of the commerce clause of the Constitution.</p>