Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. et al. v. United States et al. (345 U.S. 146)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 16, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 345 U.S. 146 · 73 S. Ct. 592
- Docket
- No. 258
- Argued
- January 7, 1953
- Decided
- March 16, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Minton, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Reed, Justice Black (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Douglas (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant railroads brought this action in a United States District Court to set aside a rate order of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The order prescribed maximum carload rates for carrying certain kinds of fresh vegetables. The rates were charged to be “confiscatory” and therefore in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The sole basis for this charge was an allegation that if put in effect the rates would produce less money than it would cost the railroads to carry the particular vegetables covered by each rate. Denying that a commodity rate violates due process merely because it is noncompensatory, the Commission moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that proof of everything the complaint alleged would not justify invalidation of the order. On this ground, and without reaching another Commission contention on which the District Court relied, we hold that the case was properly dismissed by that court. There is and has been no claim that the challenged rates will make any one of the complaining railroads operate its entire business at a loss, or even carry all fresh vegetables at a loss. The carload rates prescribed are but minor alterations in a vast, complex network of rates that apply to fresh vegetable shipments throughout the Nation. One of the two rates applies only to carload…
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