The Judicial Test of a Reasonable Railroad Rate, and its Relation to a Federal Valuation of Railway Property

Authors

Charles G. Fenwick

Abstract

When the difficulties of the subject are fairly weighed it is not surprising that the problem of the basis by which the reasonableness of railroad rates may be tested continues to await a definite solution by the courts. The Interstate Commerce Commission has confessed its inability at present to decide upon those larger aspects of the question which arise when general schedules are under consideration. In its Annual Report for 1903, the Commission made appeal to Congress that provision be made, whether independently of the Commission or by an enlargement of its powers, for an authoritative valuation of railway property. This appeal is continued and emphasized in the 23rd Annual Report recently issued. The object of our inquiry is to consider the judicial development of the present attitude of the Supreme Court of the United States as to the test by which the reasonableness of railroad rates may be determined, and to discuss how far the valuation proposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission will conduce towards a solution of the problem. Rates may be viewed either in their general aspect as constituting the entire schedule of a railroad from which its whole income is derived, or in their specific aspect as applying to individual commodities or classes of commodities. The problems presented by the two points of view are distinctly different, and cannot be solved by an application of the same principles. It is with a general level or schedule of rates that we are here dealing.

Recommended Citation

Charles G. Fenwick, The Judicial Test of a Reasonable Railroad Rate, and its Relation to a Federal Valuation of Railway Property, 8 Mich. L. Rev. 445 (1910).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol8/iss6/1