Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/173

 0 U.&' Opinion of the our. Fed. Rop. 216, 223; Coolidatsd Ga* Co. v. Mayer, 146 Fed. Rep. 150, 153. In MeGahoy v. Virginia, 135 U.S. 662, 694, it was held that to provide a different remedy to enforce s contract, whieh is unreasonable, and which imposes cenditions not existing when the contract was made, was to offer no remedy, and wh.n the remedy is so onerous and impracticable as to subetantilly give none at all the law is invalid, although wkst is termed & remedy is in fact iven. See also Bromon v. K/n, 1 How. 311, 317; $ert v. , 122 U.S. 284. If the law be such as to make the decision of the legislature or of & commition conclusive as to the sufficiency of the rates, this court has held such a law to be unconstitutional. Chicago &c. Railway Co. v. Minsota, 134 U.S. '418. A law whleh indirectly accomplishes a like result by imposing such con- ditions upon he right to appeal for judicial relief as works an abandonment of the right rather than face the conditions.pon which it is off, red or may be obts. ined, is also unconstitutional. It may therefore be said that when the penalties for disobe- dience are by fines so enormous and imprisonment so severe as to intimidate the company and its officers from-res%ting to the courts to test the validity of the legislation, the result is the same as if the law in terms prohibited the company from seeking judicial co0straction of 'laws which deeply a/feet,. its rights. It is urged that there is no principle upon which to base the claim that a person is entitled to disobey & statute st least once, for the purpose of testing its validity without subjecting hlmff to the penalties for disobedience provided by the st ute in case it is valid. This is not an aceurse statement of the case. Ordi,rily a law creating offenses in the nature of misdemeanors or felonies rebates to a subject over which the juriliction of the legislature is complete in any event.. In the case, however, of the establishment of certain rates without any hearing, the validity of such r.tes necessarily depends upon whether they are high enough to permit at least some return upon. the investment (how much it is not now

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