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Show circuit court for tho Eastern district of Pennsylvania, dismissing Bulla brought by the federal government against a number of anthracite coal carrying companies ' to enforco the commodities clause of tho Hepburn law, which tho Judges held deprived tho companies of their property without with-out duo process of law. - Still other noteworthy decisions were those of tho supremo court of Pennsylvania, declaring that the 2-cent faro law could not be enforced against tho Pennsylvania railroad; the decision of the New York court of appeals, holding hold-ing public utilities legislation constl-! tutlonal, and the Judgment of tho United States circuit court of appeals nt New York, declaring tho American Tobacco company an Illegal combination; combina-tion; the decision of the supreme court of Minnesota sustaining the validity va-lidity of the state law Increasing the gross earnings of railroad companies, and the decree of the supremo court of Misourl, fining and ousting certain dl companlos from the state. IMPORTANT DECISIONS. Bradstreets reviews the Important judicial decisions of 1908, and says: Naturally enough, the larger proportion pro-portion of tho leading decisions have dealt with the great field of transportation transpor-tation enterprise, which, of course, is today mostly of an Interstate character. charac-ter. Ono of the early decisions ot this class was that rendered by the supreme court of tho United States in the case of the Great Northern Railroad company In February, de-I de-I clarlng that section 1 of the Elklna j cct. prohibiting the giving of rebates I by railroads, was not repealed by the i Hepburn railroad rate law. A little later the supreme court sustained, as against the judgment of the Interstate commerce commission, the right of a rate on livestock products without railroad company to reduce the frelgiu making a similar reduction in the rate on livestock Itself. At the same time, In two decisions of far-reaching importance, the tribunal of last resort re-sort settled the questions as to tho respective jurisdictions of the federal and state courts, raised in Minnesota I and North Carolina In the summer of 1907. The court held that the question ques-tion as to the sufficiency of rates to enable a rallroaa company to make r.ome return to the stockholders upon their investment was one for the courts to decide; that it would be a violation of the constitution of the United States to fix rates so low that they would be confiscatory if enforced, and that once a federal court had taken Jurisdiction it could enjoin any i person from proceeding In a Ptate court until the federal court had proceeded pro-ceeded to judgment. Of more recent interest are tho decisions by the federal fed-eral court of last resort in the Virginia Vir-ginia 2-cent passenger rate case and in the case of Harriman and Kahn against the Interstate commerce com-rr.ieBlon. com-rr.ieBlon. In the former case the court reversed the decision of Judge Prltch-ard Prltch-ard in favor of the railroads, on tho ground that they had secured the intervention in-tervention of the federal courts before be-fore exhausting the remedies prescribed pre-scribed by the Virginia law. In tho latter case, the court held that, while the Interstate commerce commission may Inquire fully Into the accounts j of railroad corporations to determine the existence of violations of the law, ( it can not extend thiB power over in- dividual members of those concerns i whero the Inquiry has no relation to feuch violations. There wero a number of decisions affecting corporate interests rendered by other tribunals. Among these may be mentioned that of the federal circuit cir-cuit court of appeals for tho Seventh circuit, reversing the judgment of District Dis-trict Judge Landls, Imposing a fine of $29,210,000 upon the Standard Oil company, and the later decision denying deny-ing the petition of the government for a rehearing. Another decision of im-Iortanco im-Iortanco was that rendered by Judges Gray and Dallas In the United States j |