U.S. Supreme Court THOMPSON V. CONSOLIDATED GAS UTILITIES CORP. , 300 U.S. 55 (1937)

300 U.S. 55

THOMPSON et al.v. CONSOLIDATED GAS UTILITIES CORPORATION et al.No. 89.

Argued Nov. 18, 19, 1936.Decided Feb. 1, 1937.

On Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Texas.[ Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Utilities Corp. 300 U.S. 55 (1937) ]

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Messrs. Wm. Madden Hill, of Dallas, Tex., C.C. Small, of Amarillo, Tex., and Wm. McCraw and W. J. Holt, both of Austin, Tex., for appellants.

Mr. S. A. L. Morgan, of Amarillo, Tex., for appellees.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case challenges the validity of a gas proration order issued by the Railroad Commission of Texas for the Panhandle fields on December 10, 1935, and carried forward in supplemental orders. [Footnote 1] The orders were en-

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were considered together. The court, three judges sitting, granted temporary injunctions, Texas Panhandle Gas Co. v. Thompson (D.C.) 12 F. Supp. 462,2 and made them permanent, Consolidated Gas Utilities Corporation v. Thompson, 14 F.Supp. 318. The cases were consolidated for purposes of appeal. The jurisdiction, federal and equitable, was not questioned. The record is extensive; the findings of fact explicit; the briefs in this Court occupy over 500 pages.

The Texas Panhandle contains the largest natural gas field in the United States, an enormous reservoir of natural gas and oil extending through seven counties for a distance of 125 miles with a width of from 10 to 40 miles. The development of the gas industry which began there in 1926 has proceeded at a rapid rate since 1933. The field produces both sweet and sour gas. [Footnote 3] Wasteful use of sweet gas is prohibited by the statute; and, within the statutory definition, practically the only nonwasteful use is for heat and light. For such use there is substantially no local market,4 as the region is sparsely settled. Gas cannot be stored. To utilize the sweet gas of the Panhandle field, it must be delivered to the ultimate consumer by pipe lines in a continuous flow from the wells to the burner tips of the consumer. Prior to the entry of the orders challenged, the owners of approximatey 80 per cent. of the total area in the Panhandle fields

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proven productive of sweet gas had constructed six major pipe lines from the West Panhandle field,5 and three from the East Panhandle field, extending to Chicago, Des Moines, Omaha, Sioux City, Kansas City, St. Paul, Indianapolis, Denver, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, Dallas, and other distant points. Six or seven of these major pipe line companies, including the plaintiffs', have produced and transported to the markets only gas produced from their own leases.

Under the restrictions imposed by the present statute, there is substantially no market outlet for the sweet gas of these fields except such as may be provided by pipe lines. The owners of 180 wells in the West Panhandle field, and of 121 wells in the East Panhandle field, together representing about 20 per cent. of the proven reserves of sweet gas in the whole field, neither own nor control any pipe line. And they have no access to any;6 since none of the pipe lines here involved is a common carrier. The plaintiffs and most of the other owners of pipe lines have no economic occasion to purchase gas from wells of the non-pipe line producers, as the potential capacity of their own wells far exceeds their market demand. [Footnote 7] There appears no legal obstacle, under the law of

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Texas, to the construction of additional pipe lines to serve the owners of wells in the Panhandle fields now without such connections. It is said that there are communities in other States which would afford markets if pipe lines were constructed to reach them. But the financial difficulties are obvious.

Prior to House Bill 266, several efforts, statutory and administrative, had been made to compel, or induce, the owners of existing pipe lines to purchase the seeet gas of those well owners who lack pipe line facilities. Orders entered under statutes enacted prior to 1933 were enjoined as unconstitutional or ultra vires. [Footnote 8] By chapter

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100, Acts 1933, Forty-Third Legislature, Regular Session,9 the use of natural gas was permitted for other purposes than light or fuel, including the manufacture of natural gasoline, where no reasonable market for light or fuel was available to the owner. Production under authority of this statute and the permits issued thereunder was found to involve intolerable waste. [Footnote 10] Such was the situation when on May 1, 1935, the Legislature enacted House Bill 266 (Vernon's Ann.Civ.St.Tex. art. 6008), under which the order here challenged was issued.

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handle Fields shall be distributed and prorated among the individual wells on the following basis and in the following manner, to-wit: Fifty (50%) per cent. of the reasonable market demand of the field shall be allocated on the ratio of the individual well acreage to the sum of the total well acreage in the field; and fifty (50%) per cent. of the reasonable market demand of the field shall be allocated on the ratio of the individual well potential to the sum of the total well potentials in the field.'

The order reduces plaintiffs' allowable production to a volume far below their requirements. The plaintiffs and other pipe line owners acquired, at large cost, their markets in distant States and their transportation and marketing facilities. [Footnote 12] By means of their pipe lines all the sweet gas produced by the plaintiffs (and likewise all produced by other pipe line owners) was, and is, marketed under contracts with distant distributors, chiefly in other States. These markets are not free markets. The plaintiffs necessarily bound themselves to supply the requirements of the distributors; and the distributors bound themselves to take their requirements from the plaintiffs. In order to fulfill their contractual obligations, the plaintiffs developed the capacity of their wells and acquired large reserves to provide for their future needs so that they have no occasion to purchase gas from other wells. By limiting the plaintiffs' allowable production, the order disables them from perform-

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effect of the order are to prorate, not production, but distant markets and the facilities for serving them; and that, thus, the order takes their property without warrant in law.

First. Prior to the enactment of House Bill 266,14 the property rights of the plaintiffs were substantially those conferred by the common law of the State. Under it, the owner of land has title to oil and gas in place and, likewise, to the oil and gas which migrate to formations under his land through drainge from other lands. [Footnote 15] Under that rule, he may produce all the oil and gas that will flow out of the well on his land, subject to the exercise by other landowners of the same right of capture through drilling offsetting wells, so as to get their full share. [Footnote 16] This common-law rule, declared in an unbroken line of authorities, has been widely applied. [Footnote 17] While a producer who negligently uses explosives in his operations will be liable if he causes physical damage to his

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ground that to authorize the restriction of nonwasteful production by the pipe line well owners solely for the purpose of compelling them to furnish other wells with a market would be a change of the common law of Texas so radical that, if the Legislature had so intended, it would have expressed that intention in language more explicit than any used in the act. Moreover, the court pointed out that, under the established rule of construction, the interpretation urged by defendants should be avoided because the statute so construed would be of doubtful validity. [Footnote 20]

We are always reluctant to pass upon a seriously controverted question of the meaning of a state statute, because our decision, although disposing of the particular case, cannot settle the issue of the proper construction of the statute. [Footnote 21] No court of the State has construed the act. The defendants might, perhaps, have secured its construction by the state court. For the amendment of section 266 of the Judicial Code made in 1913 provides that upon the institution of an appropriate suit in a state court a stay may be had of the proceedings in the federal court to await adjudication by the state court. 22 But no suit in a state court was instituted by the defendants to that end. When not instructed by some decision of a state court, we are disposed, in exercising appellate jurisdiction, to accept the construction given by the lower federal court to a statute of the State, particularly when that court is composed, as in this in

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stance, wholly of citizens of the State, familiar with the history of the statute, the local conditions to which it applies, and the character of the State's laws. [Footnote 23] But, being under duty to make an independent study of the question, we have done so.24 That study leaves us in grave doubt whether the lower court has correctly interpreted the intention of the lawmakers. [Footnote 25] On the other hand, we are clearly of opinion that, if the act were construed as the defendants contend it should be, and as the commission has applied it, it would violate the Federal Constitution. As a general rule, it is no less true with reference to State than to Federal legislation that this Court will not decide an issue of constitutionality if the case may justly and reasonably be decided upon a

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construction of the statute under which the act is clearly constitutional. Compare Bratton v. Chandler, 260 U.S. 110, 114, 44; South Utah Mines & Smelters v. Beaver County, 262 U.S. 325, 331, 43 S. Ct. 577, 579; Hopkins v. Southern California Telephone Co., 275 U.S. 393, 403, 183. But where one party's case depends upon a construction of a state statute under which it plainly must be held to violate the Federal Constitution, and where the proper construction of the statute is a matter of grave doubt, this Court will rest its decision on the Constitution, and will not undertake to decide the question of construction as to which it lacks the power to give a definitive answer. Compare Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Kuykendall, 265 U.S. 196, 204, 556; Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke, 266 U.S. 570, 578, 193, 36 A.L.R. 1105; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 396, 53 S. Ct. 190, 194. We, therefore, accept, for the purposes of our decision, the defendants' construction; and pass to the discussion of constitutional questions.

Fourth. Either production greater than the demand or use for an inferior purpose would necessarily involve overground waste of gas. The manner, place, or extent of production might lead to underground waste. We assume that the prohibition of any wasteful conduct, whether primarily in behalf of other owners of gas in the common reservoir, or because of the public interests involved, is consistent with the Constitution of Texas and that of the United States, and that to prevent waste production may be prorated. [Footnote 26] We assume, also, that the State may constitutionally prorate production in order to

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prevent undue drainage of gas from the reserves of well owners lacking pipe line connections. [Footnote 27] If proration were lawfully applied for any such purposes, the fact that thereby other private persons would incidentally and gratuitously obtain important benefits would present no constitutional obstacle. And the fact that plaintiffs' gas is to be sold in interstate commerce would not preclude such exercise of the State's power. Compare Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Commission, 286 U.S. 210, 235, 52 S. Ct. 559, 565, 86 A.L.R. 403.

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ities for transmitting their gas to market with, the owners of wells not now connected to pipe lines, who have not contributed in money, services, negotiations, skill, forethought or otherwise to the development of such markets and the construction of such pipe lines and other facilities. In short to compel complainants to afford markets to those having none. 'The necessary operation and effect of such orders is to take from complainant and others similarly situated substantial and valuable interests in their private marketing contracts and commitments and in the use of their pipe lines and other facilities for transmitting their gas to their markets, without compensation, and to confer same upon the owners of the approximately 180 sweet gas wells in the field not connected to pipe lines.'

The use of the pipe line owner's wells and reserves is curtailed solely for the benefit of other private well owners. The pipe line owner, a private person, is, in effect, ordered to pay money to another private well owner for the purchase of oil which there is no wish to buy. [Footnote 28] Moreover, he is thus prevented from protecting himself, to the extent that he is able to market his gas, against the losses which the court below finds are occurring and will continue to occur due to drainage from the high-pressure areas, wherein plaintiffs' wells are located, to the existing low-pressure areas, in which are located the majority of the wells not connected to pipe lines. There is here no taking for the public benefit; nor is payment of compensation provided. Plaintiffs' pipe lines are private property. So far as appears, they are constructed on private lands. There is no suggestion that

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any of them is a common carrier of gas. The purpose of the owners in constructing the pipe lines was for the transport of gas only from their own leases, and such has been their consistent policy. Unlike the property involved in The Assigned Car Cases, , the pipe lines are not used in connection with the operation of any public utility in Texas. [Footnote 29]

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authorize the incidental limitations of its own production; since the Legislature would not have prohibited the waste, or inferior uses of the gas, without providing for its purchase by the pipe line companies. Whether the latter assertion is true in fact, we do not know. But it is clear that there is no basis in law for the argument, since there is no claim that plaintiffs ever consented to inserting any such provision in the act. Indeed, they insist, as a matter of construction, that the Legislature has not done so. And House Bill 266 is so much more drastic a statute than the restrictions upon inferior uses of gas which were apparently the object of plaintiffs' efforts before the Legislature that in their present situation plaintiffs cannot fairly be said to be receiving the benefits and evading the burdens of a measure which they initiated. Moreover, plaintiffs do not assert rights under the statute which they assail. They have not taken, and are not obliged to take, any affirmative steps thereunder to obtain whatever benefits may accrue to them because of the restrictions imposed on production for inferior uses. Compare Daniels v. Tearney, 102 U.S. 415, 421; Wall v. Parrot Silver & Copper Co., 244 U.S. 407, 411; Booth Fisheries Co. v. Industrial Commission, 271 U.S. 208, 211. Those benefits result incidentally from the enactment of other provisions of the act, the constitutionality of which is not questioned, and which seem clearly separable from the sections here challenged. Compare Hurley v. Commission of Fisheries, 257 U.S. 223, 42 S. Ct. 83; United Fuel Gas Co. v. Railroad Commission, 278 U.S. 300, 308.31

Affirmed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 The complaints' original bills challenged earlier orders issued by the Railroad Commission under the Act here in question, notably the orders of August 28, and September 25, 1935. These orders were the subjects of temporary injunctions granted in Texas Panhandle Gas Co. v. Thompson (D.C.) 12 F.Supp. 462 Upon the issuance of the order of December 10, 1935, complainants amended their bills to make that order and its supplements the object of their attack.

Footnote 2 Compare note 1, supra.

Footnote 3 Only sweet gas is fit for lighting and heating. Sour gas is that contaminated by sulphur compounds. It is now used in this field principally in the manufacture of carbon black. When the act was passed, plants supplying 70% of the carbon black manufactured in the United States were operating in this field.

Footnote 4 The small market for sweet gas within the field is limited to fuel for the drilling of wells and the operation of industries incident to the oil and gas business; to small pipe lines supplying gas to communities near the field; and to purchases by two companies with pipe lines to distant cities. These have made 30 new connections with wells of others and are taking rateably from these wells.

Footnote 5 For administrative purposes the territory is divided into the East Panhandle and the West Panhandle zones. The West zone alone contains any sour gas area. The sweet gas area of the West Panhandle field embraces 723, 000 acres. In it there are 517 wells, 180 of which do not have an outlet for light and fuel purposes. The sweet gas area of the East Panhandle field embraces 181,000 acres. In it there are 322 wells, of which 121 do not have an outlet for light and fuel purposes. Gas from the Panhandle field is supplied for domestic and industrial light and fuel purposes to approximately 10,000,000 persons in the United States.

Footnote 6 The only exception to this is in the case of the few independent wells with which two of the pipe line companies have made connections. See note 4, supra.

Footnote 7 Thus at the time of the hearing below Texoma Natural Gas Company was producing its wells at the rate of about 10 per cent. of their daily potential capacity, and the average throughout the year, it was found, had been and would be substantially less than this figure. The highest percentage of the daily potential ever taken over a period of one month for all of the wells of Consolidated Gas Utilities Corporation has been 6. 53 per cent. The wells of other pipe line owners in these fields have likewise been produced at low percentages of capacity.

Footnote 8 (a) Chapter 28, Acts 1931, Forty-Second Legislature, First Called Session (Vernon's Ann.Civ.St.Tex. art. 6049a), known as the Common Purchaser Act, was construed and applied by the Railroad Commission as requiring private pipe line companies engaged theretofore only in producing and transporting gas from their own leases to purchase without discrimination, under regulations of the commission, quantities of gas offered them by producers in the field lacking their own pipe lines. The act was held unconstitutional as in violation of the due process and commerce clauses of the Federal Constitution, and enforcement of the orders was enjoined, in Texoma Natural Gas Co. v. Railroad Commission (D.C .) 59 F.(2d) 750.

(b) Purporting to act under the general conservation laws of the State, as amended by chapter 26, Acts 1931, Forty-Second Legislature, First Called Session, the Railroad Commission subsequently issued orders completely closing down some portions of the Panhandle field, and limiting production from pipe line companies' wells in other portions. Enforcement of these orders was enjoined on the ground that the commission's action was ultra vires, in Texoma Natural Gas Co. v. Terrell (D.C.) 2 F.Supp. 168.

(c) By chapter 2, Acts 1932, Forty-Second Legislature, Fourth Called Session, the Railroad Commission was meantime authorized, whenever the full production from wells producing gas from a common reservoir should exceed reasonable market demand, to limit production to such demand and allocate the allowable production. Orders purporting to be issued under the authority of this act were enjoined in Canadian River Gas Co. v. Terrell (D.C.) 4 F.Supp. 222, on the ground that they were ultra vires because the statute authorized regulation only to prevent waste, and the court concluded that the orders did not bear any reasonable relation to that end.

(d) Then followed the enactment of the statute now under consideration.

Footnote 9 As amended by chapter 88, Acts 1933, Forty-Third Legislature, First Called Session. Compare F. C. Henderson, Inc., v. Railroad Commission (D.C .) 56 F. (2d) 218; Sneed v. Phillips Petroleum Co. (C.C.A.) 76 F.(2d) 785.

Footnote 10 According to evidence presented by the State, in July, 1935, before the prohibitions of House Bill 266 became effective against uses therein declared wasteful, there were in the West Panhandle field 41 stripping plants producing natural gasoline, consuming daily 1,847,339 M.C. F. sweet gas, from which the gasoline production saved only 3 per cent. of the fuel value of the gas in its original state. Between February 1, 1933, and August 1, 1935, 709 billion cubic feet of gas were said to have been blown into the air after the natural gasoline content had been extracted.

Footnote 11 'Section 1. Declaration of policy: In recognition of past, present, and imminent evils occurring in the production and use of natual (natural) gas, as a result of waste in the production and use thereof in the absence of correlative opportunities of owners of gas in a common reservoir to produce and use the same, this law is enacted for the protection of public and private interests against such evils by prohibiting waste and compelling ratable production.''Sec. 11. The Commission shall exercise the authority to accomplish the purpose designated under item (a) of Section 10 when the presence or imminence of waste is supported by a finding based

upon the evidence introduced at a hearing to be held as herein provided.'The Commission shall exercise the authority to accomplish the purpose designated under item (b) of Section 10 when evidence introduced at a hearing to be held as herein provided will support a finding made by the Commission that the aggregate lawful volume of the open flow or daily potential capacity to produce of all gas wells located in a common reservoir, is in excess of the daily reasonable market demand for gas from gas wells that may be produced from such common reservoir, to be utilized as permitted in this Article.'Sec. 12. On or before the twentieth (20th) day of each calendar month the Commission shall hold a hearing * * * for the purpose of determining the aggregate daily capacity to produce of all gas wells in a common reservoir, and as nearly as possible, the daily volume of gas from each common reservoir that will be produced from gas wells during the following month to be utilized as permitted in this Article. Upon such determination, the Commission, based upon evidence introduced at such hearing, shall allocate to each gas well producing gas from such common reservoir a percentage of the daily productive capacity of each well which may be produced daily during the following month from each gas well producing gas from such common reservoir. Such percentage of the daily producing capacity

of each well shall be regarded as its daily allowable production of such daily volume required for utilization from such common reservoir. * * *'Sec. 14. It shall be the duty of the Commission, after notice and hearing, to ascertain and determine the reasonable market demand for gas from gas wells to be used for light and fuel purposes and for all other lawful purposes to which sweet gas may be put under the terms of this Article and by proper order to restrict the production of gas from all gas wells in said field producing such gas to an amount equal to market demand or to an amount which may be produced without waste as otherwise defined; provided, however, the production of such gas shall in any event be restricted to the amount of the reasonable market demand therefor. In such order the Commission shall allocate, distribute or apportion the total allowable production from such field among the various gas wells affected by the order on a reasonable basis, and as provided in Section 13. * * *'Sec. 16. It shall be unlawful for any person to produce gas from a gas well as herein defined in excess of the daily allowable production in such schedule of allowable production. * * *'Sec. 20. In the event the Commission finds that the owner of any gas well has failed or refused to utilize or sell the allowable production from his well when such owner has been offered a connection or market for such gas at a reasonable price, such well shall be excluded from consideration in allocating the daily allowable production from the reservoir or zone in which same is located until the owner thereof signifies to the Commission his desire to utilize or sell such gas. In all other cases all gas wells shall be taken into account in allocating the allowable production among wells producing the same type of gas.'

Footnote 12 The Texoma Natural Gas Company (with an affiliate) has, at a cost of about $72,000,000, acquired 200,000 acres of leases in the West Panhandle field known to be capable of producing sweet gas; drilled about 90 wells; erected a compressor plant; constructed a pipe line to its Chicago market; and secured marketing contracts for distribution in other States. Similarly, the Consolidated Gas Utilities Company (with affiliates) has expended a smaller sum in acquiring and developing gas reserves in the East Panhandle field and in constructing pipe lines to, and securing contracts for marketing its gas in Kansas.

Footnote 13 Section 59a of article 16 of the Constitution of Texas, which article was proclaimed October 2, 1917, provides, in part:'The conservation and development of all of the natural resources of this State * * * and the preservation and conservation of all such natural resources of the State are each and all hereby declared public rights and duties; and the Legislature shall pass all such laws as may be appropriate thereto.'

Footnote 14 House Bill 266 amends article 6008 of the Revised Civil Statutes, which is the statute particularly dealing with the production and use of natural gas. That article was amended by chapter 26 of Acts of 1931, Forty- Second Legislature, First Called Session, p. 46, 2. It was again amended by chapter 100 of the Acts of 1933, called the 'Sour Gas Law,' Forty-Third Legislature, Regular Session, p. 222; also by chapter 88 of the Acts of 1933, Forty-Third Legislature, First Called Session, p. 229, which remained in force until August 1, 1935, when House Bill 266 became effective.

Footnote 15 See Texas Co. v. Daugherty, 107 Tex. 226, 176 S.W. 717, L.R.A. 1917F, 989; Stephens County v. Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Co., 113 Tex. 160, 254 S.W. 290, 29 A.L.R. 566; Grayburg Oil Co. v. State (Tex.Civ.App.) 50 S.W.( 2d) 355.

Footnote 16 Prairie Oil & Gas Co. v. State (Tex.Com.App.) 231 S.W. 1088; compare Houston & Texas Central R.R. Co. v. East, 98 Tex. 146, 81 S.W. 279, 66 L.R.A. 738, 107 Am.St.Rep. 620, 4 Ann.Cas. 827.

Footnote 17 Compare, e.g., Hermann v. Thomas (Tex.Civ.App.) 143 S.W. 195; United North & South Oil Co., Inc., v. Meredith (Tex.Civ.App.) 258 S.W. 550, affirmed (Tex.Com.App.) 272 S.W. 124; Hunt v. State (Tex.Civ.App.) 48 S.W.(2d) 466; Malone v. Barnett (Tex.Civ.App.) 87 S.W.(2d) 523. See Brown v. Humble Oil & Refining Co. (Tex.Sup.) 83 S.W.(2d) 935, 99 A.L.R. 1107.

Footnote 18 See Comanche Duke Oil Co. v. Texas Pacific Coal & Oil Co. (Tex.Com. App.) 298 S.W. 554.

Footnote 19 See Danciger Oil & Refining Co. v. Railroad Commission (Tex.Civ. App.) 49 S.W.(2d) 837, 840, reversed and dismissed as moot, 122 Tex. 243, 56 S.W.(2d) 1075; Brown v. Humble Oil & Refining Co. (Tex.Sup.) 83 S.W.(2d) 935, 940, 941, 99 A.L.R. 1107.

Footnote 20 Harriman v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 211 U.S. 407, 422; United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366, 408.

Footnote 21 Compare Pullman Co. v. Knott, 235 U.S. 23, 27; Lee v. Bickell, 292 U.S. 415, 425, 731; Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, 294 U.S. 87, 97, 337.

Footnote 22 Act of March 4, 1913, c. 160, 37 Stat. p. 1013 (28 U.S.C.A. 380 and note). Compare Welch Pogue, 'State Determination of State Law and the Judicial Code,' 41 Harv.L.Rev. 623, 626, et seq.

Footnote 23 Compare Wilson Cypress Co. v. Del Pozo y Marcos, 236 U.S. 635, 657; City of Hammond v. Schappi Bus Line, Inc., 275 U.S. 164, 169, 68. See Bowman v. Continental Oil Co., 256 U.S. 642, 647, 608; Louisiana Public Service Commission v. Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Co., 264 U.S. 393, 397, 359; Wabash Valley Electric Co. v. Young, 287 U.S. 488, 497, 236; City of Marion v. Sneeden, 291 U.S. 262, 271, 423. This Court has consistently accorded great deference to the construction of territorial legislation adopted by the local courts, whether the prevailing system was the common or the civil law, and this though in such cases this Court possesses authority to make a definitive construction which it lacks in the case of the legislation of a State. See Fox v. Haarstick, 156 U.S. 674, 679; Kealoha v. Castle, 210 U.S. 149, 153; Phoenix Ry. Co. v. Landis, 231 U.S. 578, 579; Diaz v. Gonzalez, 261 U.S. 102, 105, 106, 287; compare Reynolds v. Fewell, 236 U.S. 58, 67.

Footnote 24 See St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Middlekamp, 256 U.S. 226, 230, 491; Bratton v. Chandler, 260 U.S. 110, 114, 44; South Utah Mines & Smelters v. Beaver County, 262 U.S. 325, 331, 579; Corporation Commission v. Lowe, 281 U.S. 431, 438, 399; Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, 294 U.S. 87, 95, 96, 337. Compare Philippine Sugar Estates Development Co., Ltd. v. Government of the Philippine Islands, 247 U.S. 385, 390; Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500, 522, 523, 624, 625.

Footnote 25 Compare Van Dyke v. Geary, 244 U.S. 39, 46; Palmetto Fire Insurance Co. v. Conn, 272 U.S. 295, 305, 89; Lee v. Bickell, 292 U.S. 415, 424, 731; Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, 294 U.S. 87, 96, 55 S. Ct. 333, 337.

Footnote 26 Ohio Oil Co. v. Indiana (No. 1), ; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, Ann.Cas.1912C, 160; West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 221 U.S. 229, 35 L.R.A.(N.S.) 1193; Walls v. Midland Carbon Co., ; Bandini Petroleum Co. v. Superior Court, 284 U.S. 8, 78 A.L.R. 826; Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Commission, 286 U.S. 210, 86 A.L.R. 403; Sterling v. Constantin, .

Footnote 27 Compare cases cited in note 26, supra.

Footnote 28 Plaintiffs claim that they will be obliged to incur further expense in the construction of gathering lines to connect their pipe lines with the wells of others. There is no finding of willingness on the part of non-pipe line well owners to assume or share such expense.

Footnote 29 Compare Producers Transportation Co. v. Railroad Commission, 251 U.S. 228, 230, 231; Michigan Public Utilities Commission v. Duke, 266 U.S. 570, 577, 578, 193, 36 A.L.R. 1105; Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553, 563, 585.

Footnote 30 See Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. Ochs, 249 U.S. 416, 421, 422.

Footnote 31 Cases are collected in notes, 34 Col. L.Rev. 1495; 48 Harv.L.Rev. 988.