Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota 134 U.S. 418 (1890)

• Author: David Gordon
• Pages: 346

Page 346

This decision, making the courts arbiters of the reasonableness of railroad rates, presaged the Supreme Court's final acceptance of SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS ten years later. The Minnesota legislature had established a commission to inspect rail rates and alter those it deemed unreasonable. A 6?3 Court struck down the statute as a violation of both substantive and PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS. Justice SAMUEL BLATCHFORD found that the statute neglected to provide procedural due process: railroads received no notice that the reasonableness of their rate was being considered, and the commission provided no hearing or other chance for the railroads to defend their rates. Moreover, Blatchford said that a rate's reasonableness "is eminently a question for judicial investigation, requiring due process of law for its determination." A company, denied the authority to charge reasonable rates and unable to turn to any judicial mechanism for review (procedural due process) would necessarily be deprived "of the lawful use of its property, and thus, in substance, and effect, of the property itself, without due process of law" (substantive due process). In dissent, Justice JOSEPH P. BRADLEY declared that the majority had effectively overruled MUNN V. ILLINOIS (1877). Bradley's opinion explicitly rejected the assertion that reasonableness was a...