Mr. Justice BLACK, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals, but dissent from the directions given that court for disposition of the impounded funds. In the first place I think those directions rest on erroneous legal principles. Secondly, without precise definition of issues or standards, the directions impose an almost impossible task on the Court of Appeals, a task which is bound to dissipate a large part of the funds in diverse, protracted, involved and confused litigation. Furthermore, I see little assurance that the fund's remnant at the end of this litigation could ever reach the consumers who are in my judgment the equitable and legal beneficiaries of the funds.
Acting pursuant to the Natural Gas Act, the Federal Power Commission ordered the Interstate Natural Gas Company to reduce its rates to certain wholesale pipe-line companies. Challenging this order as illegal, the wholesale companies sought and obtained from a District Court an injunction against enforcement of the rate reduction order. By reason of the injunction the pipe-line companies were compelled to continue to pay the higher gas rates. But the court required the Natural Gas Company to make monthly payment into court of amounts equal to the rate reduction. For more than four years these funds have been collected and paid into court. When this case was submitted, the total amount collected was in excess of two and a half million dollars. The rate reduction order was sustained by this Court and consequently Interstate is not entitled to and asserts no claim to the fund. The wholesale pipe-line companies claim it on the ground that but for the injunction they would have obtained the gas at the lower rate. The Federal Power Commission and certain state agencies here contend that since the purpose of the Natural Gas Act was to provide benefits to the ultimate consumers the total impounded funds should be distributed to the consumers.
First. I agree with the Court that the aim of the Federal Act was to protect ultimate consumers of gas from excessive charges. To protect the ultimate consumer, however, the Act went no further than to fix the interstate rates of producers and wholesalers. Congress intended that these federal rate reductions would lower the costs of gas to local retailers, thus enabling state and local agencies to fix lower consumer rates on the federally fixed lower wholesale rates. Consequently, where courts leave the Act's scheme free to function, ultimate consumers of gas get no benefits from the federally reduced producer rates until and unless state or local authorities fix reduced rates for companies whose sales fall within their respective jurisdictions. Under such circumstances rate relationships and cost consequences as between consumers and dealers under state jurisdiction would raise questions of state law only. But here, the normal consequences of the valid federal rate reduction were not allowed to take place. The injunction placed an insuperable obstacle to state reduction of wholesale or retail rates on the basis of the federal rate reduction order. Thus the court's stay blocked the congressional mechanism intended to produce lower consumer rates. Central States Electric Co. v. Muscatine, 324 U.S. 138, 149, 65 S.Ct. 565, 570, 89 L.Ed. 801 (dissenting opinion). Furthermore, no practical remedy is available in the state courts or state or federal regulatory agencies to determine retroactively what is a proper distribution of the impounded funds. The judicial stay therefore effectually frustrated the congressional purpose to provide a timely opportunity for state or national regulatory agencies to accord consumers the Act's benefits. Consequently, rights in the fund as between ultimate consumers and the pipe-line companies must be determined under the new situation created by the federal court.