In the case of E T & W N C Transportation Co. v. Currie, Commissioner of Revenue of North Carolina (1958), the U.S Supreme Court ruled in favor of E T & W N C Transportation Co., a railway company that challenged a tax imposed by North Carolina on its gross receipts from interstate commerce operations. The court held that this tax was unconstitutional as it violated the Commerce Clause and Due Process Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminated against interstate commerce and unduly burdened it. This decision reinforced previous rulings which established that states cannot impose taxes on activities related to interstate commerce if they interfere with federal regulation or discriminate against out-of-state entities.

In the dissenting opinion for E T & W N C Transportation Co. v. Currie, Commissioner of Revenue of North Carolina, Justice Frankfurter disagreed with the majority's ruling that a state tax on interstate commerce was unconstitutional. He argued that there is no constitutional prohibition against states taxing businesses involved in interstate commerce as long as it does not discriminate or unduly burden such commerce. In his view, the tax imposed by North Carolina did not violate these principles and should have been upheld because it was applied equally to all carriers operating within the state regardless of whether their business activities were intrastate or interstate in nature. Furthermore, he contended that this case did not present any evidence suggesting an undue burden on interstate commerce resulting from this taxation scheme.