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

SAGE, District Judge.

The right of the interstate commerce commission to prescribe maximum rates for the transportation of freight was assumed by the commission, is contended for by their counsel, and is essential to their case. It is the right to dictate an indispensable and one of the most important terms of the contract between the carrier and the shipper. As a legislative right, so long and so generally recognized as to be beyond question, 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…