DocketNumber: No. 7,922.
Citation Numbers: 97 P.2d 345, 109 Mont. 345
Judges: MR. CHIEF JUSTICE JOHNSON delivered the opinion of the court.
Filed Date: 12/4/1939
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/12/2023
I concur in the foregoing opinion but on one point I would go further than the reasonable implications inhering in the opinion.
It is my view that in the light of the strange doctrines that lie slumbering in the opinion in the case of Mountain StatesPower Co. v. Public Service Com.,
Also, aside from the Mountain States Power Company Case, which, I think the Supreme Court of the United States will overrule at the first opportunity, there is another reason why the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, even though it had been unanimous for affirmance of the Bruce Case, would not be binding upon this court. It is a fundamental principle of law, supported by a legion of cases, that the United States Supreme Court accepts as binding upon it the construction and applicability of state statutes placed upon them by the courts of the state. In the Bruce Case the majority of this court held that section 25, Revised Codes, was the applicable statute. The Supreme Court of the United States in reviewing that case was bound to accept that holding and would not itself inquire into the question as to which statute applied. It was bound to announce its conclusion, taking as established the fact that section 25, and not section 25.1, was the controlling statute. That being the case, there could exist no reason to prevent this court from correcting its own error, and later holding that section 25.1 was and is the controlling statute.