with the responsibility of protecting the fund and of disposing of it according to law, and free in the discharge of that duty to use broad discretion in the exercise of its powers in such manner as to avoid an unjust or unlawful result. It entered into no contract or understanding with the litigants; it entered into no undertaking as to the manner of disposing of the fund; its duty with respect to it is that prescribed by the applicable principles of law and equity for the protection of the litigants and the public, whose interests the injunction and the final disposition of the fund affect. Inland Steel Co. v. United States, supra.

It is familiar doctrine that the extent to which a court of equity may grant or withhold its aid, and the manner of moulding its remedies, may be affected by the public interest involved. Central Kentucky Gas Co. v. Railroad Commission, 290 U. S. 264, 271; Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U. S. 176, 185; Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U. S. 515, 552 et seq. Congress having by the Packers and Stockyards Act established the public policy of maintaining reasonable rates for stockyard services, and having prohibited and declared unlawful any unjust or unreasonable rate, a court of equity should be astute to avoid the use of its process to effectuate the collection of unlawful rates, and equally so to direct it to the restitution of rates which it has taken into its own custody, once they are shown to have been unlawful. If such a determination had already been made by the Secretary in the proceeding before him, after full hearing, and if it were found by the district court to be supported by evidence, the duty of the court to make restitution forthwith would seem evident, notwithstanding the absence of any order of the Secretary directing the payment. Inland Steel Co. v. United States, supra. The Secretary, as we

*In Inland Steel Co. v. United States, 306 U. S. 153, the Interstate Commerce Commission had ordered certain railroads to cease

have seen, is authorized to make the determination. Section 305 denounces unreasonable rates as unlawful. The statute, as declared by § 308 (b), saves to the court authority to give any, remedy which in the present circumstances it might otherwise afford.

This Court went much further in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, supra, in denying, on equitable grounds, restitution to shippers of the excess of an intrastate rate, prescribed by order of the Interstate Commerce Commission to avoid discrimination against interstate commerce, over that prescribed by the state commission, where the order of the former was later set aside by this Court for want of proper findings by the Commission. Upon further proceedings before the Commission it made a second order, upon proper findings of discrimination, establishing the rate as before. The final result of the litigation was that the railroads were permitted to collect and retain the higher rates for a period during which there was no lawful order of the Commission superseding the state commission rates. There, as here, the administrative

the payment to shippers, in conformity to a filed tariff, of switching charges which the Commission had found to be unlawful. On review of the action of the Commission the district court stayed the Commission's order and directed the railroads, pending final disposition of the cause, to place further payments due under the tariff in a special fund to be held subject to the order of the court. The Commission's order was ultimately sustained, but meanwhile the Commission, pending review in the courts, had postponed the effective date of its order, so that during the litigation there was no operative Commission order forbidding the unlawful payments. This Court rejected the contention of the shippers that the fund must be paid over to them because it was accumulated in the absence of a controlling order of the Commission. We held that it was the duty of the district court, resulting from its injunction and its control over the fund, to make equitable disposition of it, and we sustained the district court's order that the fund should be turned over to the railroads in conformity to the Commission's determination, confirmed on judicial review, that the switching allowances were unlawful.

agency could prescribe rates only for the future, and the higher rates exacted between the date of the first order and the second were without the sanction of a valid order. But there, as here, the first administrative order was not a nullity. Ewell v. Daggs, 108 U. S. 143, 148, 149; Weeks v. Bridgman, 159 U. S. 541, 547; Toy Toy v. Hopkins, 212 U. S. 542, 548. Though voidable, it could not be ignored without incurring the penalties for disobedience inflicted by the applicable provisions of the statute. The rates did not lose their unjust and unreasonable quality in the one case, or cease to be unjustly discriminatory in the other, merely because the administrative orders in each were voidable for procedural defects or because a second order could operate only for the future. In each case the administrative agency was not without power to inquire whether injustice had been done by the earlier rate, and the court, called on to ascertain, according to equitable principles, the rights of the parties with respect to payments made under the voidable order, could take into account the subsequent determination of the administrative agency as the basis of its action. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, supra, 312–313, 317; New York Edison Co. v. Maltbie, 244 App. Div. 436; 279 N. Y. S. 949; Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. Maltbie, 245 App. Div. 74; 281 N. Y. S. 233.

It is said that the distinction between this and the Atlantic Coast Line case is the distinction between judicial inaction and judicial action; that there the court, upon settled equitable principles, was free to refrain from compelling restitution if satisfied that no injustice had been done, see Tiffany v. Boatman's Institution, 18 Wall. 375, 385; Mississippi & M. R. Co. v. Cromwell, 91 U. S. 643, 645; Deweese v. Reinhard, 165 U. S, 386, 390, but that here the court is called on by appellants to act by withholding from ap

pellees rates which are still lawfully in force because the filed schedule has not been set aside by a valid order of the Secretary. While at the moment appellants are content with inaction, and it is appellees who are demanding action-the payment to them of rates whose lawfulness is challenged and not yet determined-the actual posture of the case is such that the court is under a selfimposed duty to act by virtue of having taken the fund into its possession, and in acting to dispose of the fund it must conform to controlling legal principles. Reasonableness of the rates was not established by the filed schedules. Had the rates collected been paid to appellees instead of to the clerk of the court, the Secretary could have ordered reparation upon proper findings that they were unreasonable. And the question is whether the court must now, in the face of a proceeding by the Secretary to determine the reasonableness of the challenged rates, use its power to complete their collection at the risk of obstructing reparation, or whether it should itself remain inactive until their lawfulness is determined and then act accordingly.

It is a power "inherent in every court of justice so long as it retains control of the subject matter and of the parties, to correct that which has been wrongfully done by virtue of its process." Arkadelphia Co. v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co., 249 U. S. 134, 146. See Northwestern Fuel Co. v. Brock, 139 U. S. 216, 219. What has been given or paid under the compulsion of a judgment the court will restore when its judgment has been set aside and justice requires restitution. Northwestern Fuel Co. v. Brock, supra; Ex parte Lincoln Gas & Electric Co., 257 U. S. 6; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. United States, 279 U. S. 781. And where by its injunction a court has compelled payment into its registry of amounts which may in pending proceedings be found not to have been due

from those who paid them, we think justice equally requires the court to await the outcome of the proceedings in order that it may discharge the duty which it owes to the litigants and the public by avoiding unlawful disposition of the fund in the meantime, and ultimately distributing it to those found to be entitled to it. See New York Edison Co. v. Maltbie, supra; Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. Maltbie, supra; cf. United States v. Klein, 303 U. S. 276.

A proceeding is now pending before the Secretary in which, as we have seen, he is free to determine the reasonableness of the rates. His determination, if supported by evidence and made in a proceeding conducted in conformity with the statute and due process, will afford the appropriate basis for action in the district court in making distribution of the fund in its custody. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, supra, 312-313, 317. Due regard for the discharge of the court's own responsibility to the litigants and to the public and the appropriate exercise of its discretion in such manner as to effectuate the policy of the Act and facilitate administration of the system which it has set up, require retention of the fund by the district court until such time as the Secretary, proceeding with due expedition, shall have entered a final order in the proceedings pending before him. Cf. Mahler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32; Tod v. Waldman, 266 U. S. 113. The district court will thus avoid the risk of using its process as an instrument of injustice and, with the full record of the Secretary's proceedings before it, including findings supported by evidence, the court will have the appropriate basis for its action and will be able to make its order of distribution accordingly.

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE REED took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.