Railroad Commission v. Houston Natural Gas Corp.

The problem here is to give the capital invested in public utilities the attributes of property protected by constitutional due process in a situation where there is in fact generally no competition, no true barter and sale, and the business operates under governmental regulation. During the last three-quarters of a century the judicial effort to cast this problem in legal terms which will meet the test of confiscation under the Federal Due Process clause has absorbed some of the best efforts of the great operative minds of our law. A few of these are Gray, Holmes, Hughes, Learned Hand,…