RUTLEDGE, J., dissenting. 334 U.S. sion of the accounting phase. Except for the latter, the judgment was ripe for review. Indeed immediate execution without review of the federal questions affecting the delivery phase until after the accounting had been completed, offered the possibility of irreparable harm to one or possibly both of the parties. This factor obviously tended to make later full review partly or wholly futile. Moreover, until the delivery phase had been settled, it could not be known whether the accounting would be necessary, for that need was consequentially incident to and dependent upon determination of the core of the litigation, which was the right to delivery. In these circumstances it was rightly considered more consistent with the intent and purpose of § 237 to allow immediate review, notwithstanding the possibility of a later further review in the accounting phase, than to deny review with the chance that a later one might not fully save the parties' rights. The section's policy to furnish full, adequate and prompt review outweighed any design to secure absolute and literal "finality." In all these respects this case presents a parallel to the WOW case too close, in my opinion, for distinguishing between them. Republic is not directed to negotiate terms and on completing the negotiation to make its facilities available to Peerless. It is ordered to make a connection with Peerless and to begin carrying gas at once. That phase of the order, like the delivery phase in the accounting cases, does not await the fixing of the terms whether by agreement or by further order." It is a present obligation, effective immediately and without qualification.1 See Knox Loan Assn. v. Phillips, 300 U. S. 194, 198. 11 See notes 6, 7 supra and text. 12 12 In the remote event that Republic should elect to shut down production, there would be no need for a further order or agreement of the parties, and the presently erected obstacle to finality would be completely removed. 62 RUTLEDGE, J., dissenting. Moreover there is nothing tentative or inconclusive about this phase of the order or the state judgment sustaining it. That phase not only is separable from the matter of fixing the terms; like the order for delivery in the WOW case, it is the main core of the controversy to which the aspect of fixing terms is both consequential and incidental. The WOW order required immediate delivery of property, with consequent possibility of irreparable harm. Here the order required immediate acceptance of delivery, with similar possibility of injury for one party or the other.13 Neither is there greater likelihood of piecemeal consideration of constitutional and other questions than in the WOW case. Cf. 326 U. S. at 127. The matter of fixing terms here hardly can be more difficult practically or more complex legally than making the accounting in the WOW case. It is hard also to see how one would be either more or less likely to throw up new constitutional issues than 14 13 To permit Republic to continue drainage from beneath Peerless' land for the indefinite period required for sending the case back to the Oklahoma tribunals and then bringing it back here a second time will be to deprive Peerless of that gas unless the state law allows compensation for such continued taking from the date of the present order. It is at least highly doubtful that the state law allows such a remedy, even if the order is eventually held valid. On the other hand, if the order should be invalidated on the deferred review, Republic will have been put to further and unnecessary delay, uncertainty and expense in ascertaining its rights, merely to secure a determination which cannot possibly affect them. If this may not be irreparable injury, it certainly is not the policy of § 237. 14 In view of marketing conditions in this industry, no such problem of valuation or of reaching agreement upon it would be presented as, for instance, in the case of seeking to place a value upon real estate taken by condemnation for public use or valuation of property for rate-making purposes. The idea that determining the value of the gas taken here would present all the difficulties of valuing a railroad for rate-making purposes blows the matter up beyond all the practicalities of the situation. RUTLEDGE, J., dissenting. 334 U.S. the other. Nor can the WOW case be taken to rule that this Court could not or would not consider constitutional issues arising on the accounting phase, unlikely though the necessity for its doing so may have been. There is thus a substantially complete parallel between the situation now presented and that in the WOW line of cases. In one respect this case is stronger for finding appealable finality. For here no further order may be necessary or made, since present resolution of the basic constitutional problem in all probability will end the entire controversy. That certainly would be the result if the decision should go against Peerless or if Republic should elect to shut down production. And if the decision should be in Peerless' favor, it is hardly likely that the parties will be unable to agree upon terms since, in case of failure to agree, the commission will prescribe them.15 The case indeed is not basically a controversy over terms at all. They present only a contingent, collateral matter. What is fundamentally at stake is the right of Republic to take the gas from beneath Peerless' land and market it without paying Peerless for it. Once that question is finally determined, as it can be only by this Court's decision of the constitutional question, the need for a further order will become highly improbable. This case therefore is one in which the need for further proceedings may never arise and almost certainly would not do so if the constitutional question were now determined. Indeed, in a closer factual application than the WOW case, it presents in the jurisdictional aspect an almost exact parallel to the order reviewed in Pierce Oil Corp. v. Phoenix Refining Co., 259 U. S. 125, where the Oklahoma commission required the appellant to carry oil for the appellee at unspecified rates. Cf. Gulf Refining 15 See note 14. 62 RUTLEDGE, J., dissenting. Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 125; Clark v. Williard, 292 U.S. 112. The parallel to the WOW line of decisions, however, is put aside and this case is decided by analogy to condemnation cases, particularly Grays Harbor Logging Co. v. Coats-Fordney Co., 243 U. S. 251. The analogy is inapposite. It is true that in such cases this Court generally, though not uniformly, 16 has held that the trial court judgment is not final until after the award of compensation is made. The decisions were properly rendered, but for reasons not applicable here. In the Grays Harbor case the state constitution and controlling legislation prohibited the transfer of the condemned property until after the compensation had been determined and paid. Thus the issue of the right to take was necessarily dependent for final resolution on the determination of the amount of compensation." The controversy was not separable into distinct phases as in the WOW case and here. 243 U. S. at 256.18 Nor had the state judgment already affected the appellant's property rights, as was true in the WOW case and is true here. In Catlin v. United States, 324 U. S. 229, the question of the right to take was settled conclusively below before the award of damages was fixed. But there to have permitted an appeal from the order transferring possession would have produced delays inconsistent with the over 16 Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co. v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 138 U. S. 287. 17 The same was said to be true of Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 147 U. S. 337. See id. 341. 18 Moreover, under state practice review of the condemnation order by the state supreme court was by certiorari, not by appeal which lay only from the order fixing damages. As a matter of state law, therefore, the judgment on the condemnation order was interlocutory. See, however, as to this Catlin v. United States, 324 U. S. 229, 234; Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 147 U. S. 337. RUTLEDGE, J., dissenting. 334 U.S. riding purpose and policy of the War Purposes and Declaration of Taking Acts. 26 Stat. 316, as amended by 40 Stat. 241, 518; 46 Stat. 1421. 324 U. S. at 235, 238, 240. Here the converse is true, for to refuse to pass on the merits can serve only to prolong the litigation without compensating advantage for the policy of § 237 or other enactment. There is no overriding policy of independent legislation, comparable to that of the War Purposes and Declaration of Taking Acts, dictating denial or deferring of review. The asserted analogy to the Grays Harbor, Catlin and Luxton (see note 17) cases therefore does not hold for the entirely different situations now presented. In them either there was no separable phase of the litigation; or statutory policy independent of § 237 or other like requirement of finality forbade review before ultimate disposition of every phase of the litigation in the state or inferior federal courts. The condemnation cases therefore, though generally uniform in denying review of orders for condemnation prior to award of damages, are not uniform in resting this result wholly on the requirement of "finality" made by § 237 and like provisions for review, but frequently rest on other and independent grounds pertinent to the application of those provisions. The "penumbral area" of appealable finality, see 326 U. S. at 124, may not be sweeping in its scope. It is nevertheless one essential to prevent the letter of the section from overriding its reason. For this purpose it would seem to comprehend any situation presenting separable phases of litigation, one involving the core or crux of the controversy between the parties, the other collateral matters dependent for the necessity of their consideration and decision upon final and unqualified disposition of the hub of the dispute. If a merely mechanical application of § 237 is to be avoided, it cannot be taken that the practical approach of the WOW line of decisions must |