Because of the new Act, litigation began in earnest. Hundreds of suits were filed by and against the new company, in many different courts throughout the area.
"The Supreme Court of Louisiana decided in favor of the company, and five of the cases came into this court under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act in December, 1870, where they were the subject of a preliminary motion by the plaintiffs in error for an order in the nature of a supersedeas. After this, that is to say, in March, 1871, a compromise was sought to be effected, and certain parties professing, apparently, to act in a representative way in behalf of the opponents to the company, referring to a compromise that they assumed had been effected, agreed to discontinue "all writs of error concerning the said company, now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States;" stipulating further "that their agreement should be sufficient authority for any attorney to appear and move for the dismissal of all said suits." Some of the cases were thus confessedly dismissed. But the three of which the names are given as a subtitle at the head of this report were, by certain of the butchers, asserted not to have been dismissed. And Messrs. M. H. Carpenter, J. S. Black, and T. J. Durant, in behalf of the new corporation, having moved to dismiss them also as embraced in the agreement, affidavits were filed on the one side and on the other; the affidavits of the butchers opposed to the "monopoly" affirming that they were plaintiffs in error in these three cases, and that they never consented to what had been done, and that no proper authority had been given to do it. This matter was directed to be heard with the merits. The case being advanced was first heard on these, January 11th, 1872; Mr. Justice Nelson being indisposed and not in his seat. Being ordered for reargument, it was heard again February 3d, 4th, and 5th, 1873."
---Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 U.S. 36, 44 (1873)
Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872) Available from Google Scholar, Legal Information Institute, and Justia.