Opinion of the Court.

329 U.S.

do not think this formula fits contractual arrangements for compensation. Exactly what factors the parties consider, in addition to bare value, cannot easily be ascertained. This very group of transactions illustrates that there may be many such additional factors. For example, all the contracts here provided for immediate Government possession, though none contemplated immediate payments. We cannot know what amounts were added in the bargains to the bare market values as estimated, though unarticulated, allowances for the anticipated delays in payment. And other factors, which need not be enumerated, entered into the contract prices. These things demonstrate the inadvisability of applying a constitutional rule as to interest, specially designed to enable courts to calculate "just compensation," to an entirely different situation in which parties, supposedly with due regard to their own interests, bargain between themselves as to compensation. Since these petitioners have chosen to stand on their contract terms as to the amount they will receive for their property, rather than to have "just compensation," in the constitutional sense, fixed by the courts, we must look to those terms for the measure of their compensation, including their right to that part of compensation which courts have called interest.

We have not overlooked the contention that this conclusion is in conflict with our holding in Danforth v. United States, 308 U. S. 271. We do not think it is. That was also a case in which a statute authorized Government agents to purchase property, and a price had been agreed on prior to condemnation proceedings. But the asserted interest claim was there denied. The decision in that case reasserted the principle that interest in condemnation proceedings does not begin until there has been a taking. After noting the several incidents asserted to constitute a taking, we held that there was no interval between the

599

Opinion of the Court.

taking of the property there and payment for it. Thus the question we have considered here was neither directly involved, raised, nor given special consideration. A further incidental distinction between that case and this is that in the Danforth case the contract did not anticipate that the taking would precede payment.

Turning now to the right to interest under the contracts, and apart from the contention regarding the Fifth Amendment, we find that the contracts have no provision for payment of interest. No statute authorizes the payment of interest in cases like this. In the absence of specific contract or statutory provisions no interest runs against the Government even though the Government's payment for the contract purchases be delayed. See Smyth v. United States, 302 U. S. 329, 353; United States v. ThayerWest Point Hotel Co., 329 U. S. 585, 588; United States v. N. Y. Rayon Importing Co., 329 U. S. 654, 659-660.

There is some argument that interest should be allowed because the Declaration of Taking Act, 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U. S. C. § 258a, under which condemnation proceedings were filed, authorizes payment of interest from the date property is taken. Cf. United States v. Thayer-West Point Hotel Co., supra, p. 588. This provision, however, is no more than a statutory embodiment of the rule for determining constitutional "just compensation" in the absence of a governing contract, and what we have already said is equally applicable to the claim for interest under the statute. It contains no specific provision for interest on Government contracts of purchase. And here, while the litigation was under the condemnation statute, the petitioners' reliance on the purchase price provisions of the contracts as to value took these claims for interest outside the purview of the interest provisions of the Declaration of Taking Act, and left them to be governed by the interest rules which would have applied had suit been

Pe

brought by petitioners to enforce the contract terms. titioners were barred from receiving interest in any proceeding for the reason that their contracts contained no promise to pay interest.

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE REED and MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.

"The stipulation merely had the effect of relieving the Government from having to make proof as to what was just compensation and of running the risk of having an amount fixed which might be unsatisfactory." United States v. Baugh, 149 F. 2d 190, 192. The landowners' "right to have interest is found in the Constitution and is neither found nor lost in the contract." Id., p. 193. The justness of the claim for interest in these cases is underlined by the fact that the land was taken over four years before full payment was made. The United States renounced these contracts and retained possession of the properties by the Declaration of Taking Act, which by its terms, 46 Stat. 1421, 40 U. S. C. § 258a, entitled the condemnee to interest on the value from the date of taking except as to sums paid into court. After the decision in Muschany v. United States, 324 U. S. 49, the Government carried out its condemnation suits and obtained titles to these properties by condemnation.

In these condemnation actions the agreed price, stated in the contracts, became the "just compensation" of the Declaration of Taking Act and by that Act interest was due for such amount as had not been deposited with the trial court when the declaration was filed. Interest for the period between the declaration and the payment of the value into the trial court should be allowed on the amount by which the sum fixed in the final decree exceeded the sum deposited with the declaration of taking.

Syllabus.

INSURANCE GROUP COMMITTEE ET AL. v. DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN RAILROAD CO.

ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT.

No. 690. Argued January 6, 1947.-Decided February 3, 1947.

After confirmation of a plan for reorganization of a railroad under § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act had been affirmed by this Court, 328 U. S. 495, the debtor moved in the District Court for a re-examination of the plan in the light of circumstances which had changed since the Interstate Commerce Commission's hearings on the plan. The debtor specified three categories of changed conditions: (a) The decline in money rates to a level far below the rates prevailing at the time of the Commission's hearings, (b) the recent purchase by private capital for private operation of a steel plant which had been constructed by the Government during the war in the area served by the railroad, and (c) a permanent elevation of the national income through intensified industrial activity involving for the indefinite future a greatly increased demand for railway transportation. The debtor prayed that, upon re-examination, the District Court set aside its orders approving and confirming the plan and refer the proceeding back to the Interstate Commerce Commission for the formulation of a new plan. Held:

1. Re-examination would not be justified in this case; because the debtor has failed to allege the existence, since this Court's decision affirming the confirmation of the plan, of changed conditions of a kind not envisaged and considered by the Commission in its deliberations upon or explanations of the plan. P. 611.

2. This Court having ruled in its prior decision that in this reorganization no changed circumstances, up to that date, presented to it by the debtor or other respondents in that review justified a reexamination of the plan as confirmed, that ruling was binding on the District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals as to changed circumstances arising after the order of confirmation and prior to the decision of this Court. P. 612.

3. While power rests in a federal court that passes an order or decision to change its position on a subsequent review in the same cause, orderly judicial action, except in unusual circumstances, re

quires it to refuse to permit the relitigation of matters or issues previously determined on a former review. P. 612.

4. The changed conditions relied upon by the debtor in support of its motion for re-examination of the plan have been considered or anticipated heretofore by the Commission, the District Court, the Circuit Court of Appeals and this Court. Pp. 613–617.

5. Until it can be contended with some show of reasonableness that creditors senior to the creditors and stockholders whom the debtor represents here have received more in value than the face of their claims, the debtor's insistence on a re-examination of the plan is without substantial support. P. 618.

6. While allegations of a petition for re-examination into a confirmed railroad reorganization plan need not contain allegations of the primary facts, they should allege ultimate facts, such as sales and values of securities or improved earnings, sufficient to indicate the factual basis for a re-examination; and such facts have not been alleged here. Pp. 618-619.

7. To open a confirmed plan of railroad reorganization, assuming the power to do so, accepted after years of consideration, requires a showing by allegation of injustice to the complaining debtor or junior creditors far stronger than any made here. P. 619.

8. The record affirmatively shows a proper basis for the valuation and allocation of securities by the Commission and fails to show any sound basis for a re-examination on account of changed circumstances between the date of the Commission's hearings and the date of this Court's prior decision. P. 619.

9. As to the period since this Court's prior decision, there is no basis in the record or in anything judicially known to this Court for a conclusion that there has been a significant change in interest rates, earnings available for interest, or traffic. P. 620.

10. The action of Congress in passing a bill pertaining to railroad reorganizations, which was vetoed by the President, does not require a stay to await further enactments that might affect this reorganization, since this Court does not know whether any changes will be enacted and must continue to act under existing law. P. 620.

11. The public interest in what persons or corporations hold in the future a controlling voice in the management of this railroad has already been considered and protected by the Commission. P. 620.

12. Nothing before or since the confirmation of this plan indicates any disregard by the Commission or the courts of the interests of operators, stockholders, creditors or the public. Pp. 620–621. Order denying petition affirmed.