Federal Power Commission et al. v. Interstate Natural Gas Co. et al. (336 U.S. 577)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 18, 1949 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 336 U.S. 577 · 69 S. Ct. 775
- Docket
- No. 109
- Argued
- January 11, 1949
- Decided
- April 18, 1949
- Term
- October Term 1948
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Douglas
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton (joined a concurrence), Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote a concurrence), Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Frankfurter (wrote a concurrence), Justice Reed
- Concurring in the judgment
- Justice Black (wrote), Justice Rutledge, Justice Murphy
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. This case, here on certiorari, involves the proper disposition of a fund accumulated under a stay order issued by the Court of Appeals pending review of a rate order issued by petitioner. That order reduced the rates for natural gas on sales by Interstate Natural Gas Co. to Mississippi River Fuel Corp., Southern Natural Gas Co., and United Gas Pipe Line Co. for resale to Memphis Natural Gas Co., and on sales by Interstate to Memphis. The Court of Appeals sustained the order, 156 F. 2d 949, and we affirmed its judgment, 331 U. S. 682. Interstate deposited in the registry of the court pending review the monthly difference between payments under existing rates and those required under the order of the commission. Interstate has now moved in the Court of Appeals for a distribution of the fund. The pipe-line companies — Mississippi, Southern, United, and Memphis — claimed the fund and asked that it be distributed to them. Petitioner and certain state and municipal agencies also intervened, opposing distribution to the pipe-line companies and claiming that it should be made to the ultimate consumers of the gas or to such others as may be equitably entitled to it. The Court of Appeals, relying on Central States Co. v. Muscatine, 324 U. S. 138, ordered the fund to be paid to those from whom Interstate wrongfully exacted the…
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