Smyth v. Ames, 171 U.S. 361 (1898), also called The Maximum Freight Case, was an 1898 United States Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court voided a Nebraska railroad tariff law, declaring that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in that it takes property without the due process of law. The Court defined the constitutional limits of governmental power to set railroad and utility rates by stating that regulated industries have the right to a "fair return". The ruling was later overturned in Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas Co.