Alabama Public Service Commission et al. v. Southern Railway Co. (341 U.S. 341)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 21, 1951 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 341 U.S. 341 · 71 S. Ct. 762
- Decided
- May 21, 1951
- Term
- October Term 1950
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Vinson
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson delivered the opinion of the Court. The Southern Railway Company, appellee, brought this action in the Federal District Court to enjoin the members of the Alabama Public Service Commission and the Attorney General of Alabama, appellants, from enforcing laws of Alabama prohibiting discontinuance of certain railroad passenger service. Appellee’s Alabama intrastate service is governed by a statute prohibiting abandonment of “any portion of its service to the public . . . unless and until there shall first have been filed an application for a permit to abandon service and obtained from the commission a permit allowing such abandonment.” Ala. Code, 1940, tit. 48, i 106. Severe penalties are prescribed for wilful violation of regulatory statutes or orders of the Commission by utilities or their employees. Id. §§ 399, 400, 405. Appellee operates a railroad system throughout the South. This case, however, involves only that Alabama intrastate passenger service furnished by trains Nos. 7 and 8 operated daily between Tuscumbia, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, a distance of approximately 145 miles mainly within Alabama. On September 13, 1948, appellee applied to the Alabama Public Service Commission for permission to discontinue trains Nos. 7 and 8, alleging that public use of the service had so declined that revenues fell far short of meeting direct…
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