Herkness v. Irion

Mr. Justice Brandéis

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was brought in a federal court for Louisiana by Herkness, an owner of natural gas wells, to enjoin the Commissioner of Conservation and the Attorney General of that State from interfering with the erection, on plaintiff’s land, and the operation, of a factory for the manufacture of carbon black from natural gas. The bill alleges that a number of other persons are now engaged in that business and have been for many years with the sanction of the Department of Conservation; that it had been its practice to require persons about to…