City of San Diego v. Southern California Telephone Corp.
City of San Diego v. Southern California Telephone Corp.
Concurring in Part
I concur in the judgment of reversal, but do not agree with the reasoning
It is my considered opinion that the majority view is a departure from the rule established in the Dinuba case (County of Tulare v. City of Dinuba, 188 Cal. 664 [206 P. 983]), in that it seeks to employ the capital investment method of apportionment beyond its limitations.
The same general principles which I enunciated in my dissent in the Southern Counties Gas case (County of Los Angeles v. Southern Counties Gas Co., post, p. 129 [266 P.2d 27]) should be applicable to the instant ease, since in both cases the municipality granting the franchise is entitled to 2 per cent of the gross annual receipts arising from the “use, operation, or possession” of the franchise. There are, however, a few problems in regard to telephone revenues which are not present in cases involving gas and electric companies. One such problem has to do with the apportionment of toll receipts. It is true that part of the tolls collected in an area are for communication services rendered in other areas, where the message is transmitted and received; however, inasmuch as messages are also sent into and received in the local area without any revenues being collected there it would seem that the factors would balance each other out. Thus, by attributing all local tolls collected in an area to the gross receipts of that area, we are giving credit for some services rendered elsewhere; but this is counterbalanced by the fact that an equal proportion of toll calls are probably transmitted or received by the local area without any increase to its gross receipts.
In the case at bar the gross receipts (including toll receipts) collected by the telephone company within the extended area should be used as the starting point in our formula. These gross receipts should be apportioned between the distribution system and other systems (such as production facilities) so as to ascertain the proportion of gross receipts- attributable to the entire distribution system. These gross 'receipts of the entire distribution system should then be apportioned between the public and private franchises on a mileage basis. Since 43.15 per cent of the mileage in the extended area is on public property within the Old City, 43.15 per cent of the entire distribution receipts should be allocated to the fund from which the 2 per cent is to be taken.
For these reasons, and those given in my dissent in the Southern Counties Gas case, post, p. 129 [266 P.2d 27],
Plaintiff and appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied February 17, 1954. Carter, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff city of San Diego, by Ordinance No. 5681 granted defendant Southern California Telephone Company
The present controversy is over the amount that the company must pay the city for use of the public streets of the Old City between August 7, 1944, the date the franchise expired, and September 1, 1949, the first day of the calendar month preceding its application for a new franchise. The parties concede that their rights are governed by the terms of the 1946 judgment. The relevant part thereof provides that the company shall pay the city “that sum of money determined by applying the rate at which compensation for the franchise and privilege of such use was fixed by Ordinance No. 5681 of said city to the period from and including August 8, 1944 to, but not including, the first day of the calendar month immediately preceding the filing of such application.” Ordinance 5681 fixed such compensation at “two per cent of the gross annual receipts of such grantee and his or its successors or assigns arising from the use, operation or possession
The trial court concluded that under the provision of the 1946 judgment quoted in the preceding paragraph, the amount due was $239,337.23. Both parties appeal. The city contends that the injunction was stayed on the condition that in the interim the previous method of computation would be continued and that the city is therefore entitled to $421,-435.68. If that contention is not sustained, the city contends that $333,541.14 is nevertheless due under the 1946 judgment. The company contends that properly computed a payment of only $158,670.03 is required. It has paid that amount to the city.
With minor exceptions the parties are in agreement as to the facts. The controversy is over the application of the 1946 judgment to those facts. The following factual and legal background is material in passing on the respective contentions of the parties.
The company operates a state-wide and interstate communication system. For tariff purposes its service is divided into toll service and local or exchange service. Toll service permits a subscriber to call an exchange outside his local calling area, e. g., from San Diego to Los Angeles over the lines of defendant company or from San Diego to New York by use of a connecting system. A toll charge is made for each toll call. Exchange service is generally, charged for at a flat or minimum monthly rate without a special charge for each call. Exchange areas are established by the Public Utilities Commission and the boundaries thereof do not necessarily follow political boundaries. Extended area service is an expanded exchange service whereby a subscriber may call several exchanges without payment of a toll charge. The San Diego extended area, which is over 40 miles long and nearly 30 miles wide, includes most of the city of San Diego,
The company provides its service by a complicated system of facilities. There are telephone instruments and drop wires upon the subscribers’ premises; a network of poles, wires, cables and conduits partly upon public streets and partly upon private rights of way, referred to as “outside plant”; central offices with the equipment that makes and unmakes connections between telephone instruments; and offices and equipment in which engineering, accounting, billing, and administrative activities are performed. Of these facilities, only a part of the outside plant occupies public streets; the remainder is on private property.
In 1905 the Legislature amended section 536 of the Civil Code (now Pub. Util. Code, § 7901) to apply to telephone corporations.
That section was interpreted by this court in County of Tulare v. City of Dinuba (1922), 188 Cal. 664 [206 P. 983], involving a dispute over the amount of payments to be made by an electric company to a city and a county under Broughton Act franchises. The company contended that section three was void for indefiniteness. This court held the act valid, after a careful analysis of its language and the problems involved.
The court first pointed out that “The gross receipts of this defendant accrue from two distinct agencies. One is the generating plants or power-houses of the company, located in three separate counties; the other is the distributing system, consisting of poles and wires extending throughout the three counties, partly upon and over streets and highways and covered by various county and municipal franchises, and partly over private easements owned by the company. ’ ’ (188 Cal. at 673.) The Broughton Act, the court continued, applies only to gross receipts “arising” from the “use, operation or possession of the franchise.” The payment required “is not a tax upon the property of the corporation, nor a license charge for the privilege of operating it's business. It is a compensation for the use of the portions of the
The Tulare case was followed in Monrovia v. Southern Counties Gas Co., 111 Cal.App. 659 [296 P. 117], and Ocean Park Pier Amusement Corp. v. Santa Monica, 40 Cal.App.2d 76 [104 P.2d 668, 879], In the Monrovia case the utility had paid to the various counties and municipalities for Broughton Act franchises an amount estimated on the basis of the total mileage in each county or municipality, eliminating that part of the utility’s earnings attributable to the use of its properties located on private property. The city of Monrovia, however, did not accept this allocation and contended that it should be paid 2 per cent of the gross receipts from the sale of gas within its boundaries. The trial court adopted the city’s theory. The appellate court reversed, on the ground that under the Tulare case an apportionment should be made between receipts attributable to the use of the franchise and receipts attributable to other property of the utility. Similarly, in the Ocean Park ease a wharf franchise followed the wording of the Broughton Act. Part of the wharf was on private land and part on city property. The court reversed a judgment awarding the city 2 per cent of the total receipts from the pier, bolding that under the Tulare case the city could
At the outset, the city contends that interpretation of the 1946 judgment does not turn on application of the Broughton Act or Ordinance No. 5681 to the facts of this case. It contends that the trial court stayed execution of the 1946 judgment on the condition that the status quo be maintained pending outcome of the appeal and that the status quo to be maintained was “the last actual peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy,” namely, the status that existed for 30 years preceding August 8, 1944. Under any other interpretation, the argument continues, the stay would have been beyond the power of the trial court. The city then contends that maintenance of the status quo compelled continued application of the method of accounting used by the company between 1914 and 1944 under the expired franchise, and that the amount due by that method is $421,435.68.
The trial court, however, did not issue an injunction and thereafter stay its effect pending appeal. Instead, it provided that the injunction would not take effect until 30 days after the judgment became final. Until that time, there was nothing to be stayed. Even after the 30-day period, the injunction took effect only if the company had failed within that period to apply for a new franchise and pay for use of the public streets during the interim period, or if it subsequently failed to accept a new franchise or the city refused to grant it.
Since the judgment was affirmed on the previous appeal, the city is foreclosed from challenging the conditions attached to issuance of the injunction. It bears noting, however, that a conditional injunction was appropriate to this litigation. It is true that after the former franchise expired the company no longer had permission from the city to use the streets. (Cf. Village of Lapwai v. Alligier, 69 Idaho 397. 402 [207 P.2d 1025].) It is also true that the trial court did not have the power to grant the company a new franchise; it was the responsibility of the city, under its charter, to determine whether the company should receive a new franchise. (Sunset Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Pasadena, 161 Cal. 265, 285 [118 P. 796].) Nevertheless, the question to be determined in the previous trial and appeal was whether the company needed a new franehise.The company conducted that litigation in good faith and was partly successful. Aside from the rights of
Moreover, even if the action of the trial court were viewed as a stay of an injunction that had previously issued, the terms of the judgment do not support the city’s contention. The judgment provided that the company should pay “that sum of money determined by applying the rate at which compensation for the franchise and privilege of such use was fixed by Ordinance No. 5681 of said City.” It did not provide that payment should be computed according to the previous practice of .the company; it called for payment according to the company’s actual obligation as fixed by the terms of the expired franchise. The terms of the judgment are therefore controlling, whether or not the company misconceived its obligation under the ordinance during the years the franchise was in effect. The judgment did not give either the city or the company more or less rights in the interim than either had had under the expired franchise.
The city contends that the trial court did not have power to stay its injunction unless it required the company to continue to use the same method of accounting that had been used in computing payments under the expired franchise. A trial court is not so limited. It may protect the parties on appeal by providing that its injunction or order is stayed, under conditions that protect the appellant by preserving the subject matter of the appeal pending outcome thereof and at the same time protect the respondent by saving to it the benefits of the judgment in the event of an affirmance. (Tulare Irr. Dist. v. Superior Court, 197 Cal. 649, 669 [242 P.. 725] ; see, also, City of Pasadena v. Superior Court, 157 Cal. 781, 795 [109 P. 620, 21 Ann.Cas. 1355].) The terms of the expired franchise were an adequate standard for determination of the amount that the company should pay the city.
The determinative question on this appeal is thus the cor
(1) Gross receipts of the company from its telephone operations arise from two sources: its exchange service- and its intrastate
It is therefore necessary to determine the Old City’s share of the total amounts received "from exchange service. If conditions throughout the area were uniform, an apportionment on the basis of mileage would be satisfactory. In the present case, however, an apportionment based on relative investment more appropriately measures the gross receipts attributable to the various parts of the local calling area, for there is more outside plant per mile of right of way in the heavily congested urban area comprising the Old City. It is reasonable to assume that the franchise area contributes more to the production of revenue per mile of right-of-way than does the more remote nonfranchise area.
The next problem is to determine the amount of intrastate toll revenue attributable to the Old City. The trial court did not take toll revenues into account. The company, however, uses the public streets of the Old City in earning its revenue from toll calls and some of that revenue thus necessarily arises “from the use, operation or possession” of the franchise and comes within the Broughton Act. The city, following the method used by the company during the expired franchise, computes the amount of toll revenue attributable to gross receipts by ascertaining the amount of toll revenue originating within the Old City and allocating 20 per cent thereof to the Old City. No explanation is made to justify the use of the figure of 20 per cent. The company, on the other hand, begins its computation with its total toll receipts in the state. It determines the Old City’s share thereof by using the ratio of the total investment of the company in toll plant within the state to its investment in toll plant within the Old City.
Clearly, it would be impossible to compute with complete accuracy the Old City’s share of each of the thousands of toll calls originating or terminating therein, for a separate calcu
(2) The next step in determining the amount of gross receipts arising from the use of the franchise is to apportion the gross receipts arising within the Old City between the company’s producing plant and its distributing system. The city does not make this apportionment in its computation. As pointed out in the Tulare case, however, in applying the Broughton Act it is necessary to determine “what proportion of the total annual gross receipts of the public utility should be justly accredited to its distributing system over various rights of way, as distinguished from its power plants or other producing agencies.” (County of Tulare v. City of Dinuba, supra, 188 Cal. 664, 681.)
The city contends that the Tulare case is not applicable here, on the ground that it involved an. electric company that manufactured its product in one locality and distributed it in another, and that both factors contribute to the total gross receipts, whereas the receipts of a telephone company arise solely from its communication service and no revenues could be obtained without use of the city streets. The proposed distinction is untenable. A person buys electric" service just as he buys telephone service. In the one case electric power supplies heat, light, and energy; in the other, spoken words are converted into electric impulses and back again to spoken words. The powerhouse of an electric company and the central plant of a telephone company are essential to the operations of each; neither would have any gross receipts if it had only its central plant and no other means of reaching its customers than by use of the public streets.
It is therefore apparent that the apportionment between the distributing system and the remainder of the company’s plant must be made in the present case unless we overrule the Tulare case and disapprove the Ocean Park and Monrovia cases. We have reexamined those cases and have concluded that they were correctly decided.
The payment required under the Broughton Act is based on the gross receipts of the utility “arising from its use, operation or possession” of the franchise. It is a familiar concept in public utility legislation and regulation that the gross receipts of a utility arise from all of its operative property and not exclusively from any one part thereof. (See
It is necessary, therefore, to determine how to apportion gross receipts between the distributing system and the other operative property of the company. In our opinion, a reasonable method is to allocate gross receipts by the ratio that the company's investment in its distributin'? system in the area bears to its total investment in plant therein. Each category of the company’s property contributes to its total gross receipts. As in rate making, it is reasonable to assume that there is a relationship between the value of the property and the amount that it earns. Moreover, no other method of apportionment is feasible, since invested value is the only common factor between the distributing system and the other operative property that fairly reflects the relative contribution of each category of property to the company’s earnings. Tim city contends that an allocation could be made on a linear basis but, obviously, that method is not feasible, for powerhouses, office buildings, and the like cannot be measured by the mile.
(3) The final step in determining the amount of gross receipts arising from the company’s use of the public streets within the Old City is to apportion the gross receipts attributable to the distributing system between the parts thereof on public and private rights of way.
In the Tulare case, the court stated that ordinarily the apportionment should be made according to the ratio that the mileage of the distributing system on public rights of way bore to the entire mileage of the distributing system
As previously pointed out, in apportioning gross receipts between the Old City and the remainder of the extended area and the Del Mar exchange, a ratio based on relative investment should be used, so that the Old City will be allocated its fair share of gross receipts. As between different parts of the distributing system within the Old City, a ratio based on relative investment would likewise fairly apportion receipts between public and private rights of way.
In the light of the foregoing discussion, we consider the interpretation of the 1946 judgment by the city, the trial court, and the company.
The city’s method of computation: The city contends that if the amount due under the 1946 judgment is to be governed by the ordinance, the company owes it $33,541.14. The city arrives at that figure as follows: The total mileage of the distributing system in the Old City is 562.44 miles, of which 446.297 miles, or 79.35 per cent, is on public property. The gross receipts of the company collected from stations and equipment within the Old City are $21,017,085.16. Those receipts are apportioned between public and private parts of the distributing system by allocating to the former 79.35 per cent of the gross receipts, or $16,677,057.07. Two per cent of that amount is $333,541.14.
The city arrives at $21,017,085.16 as the company’s gross receipts by taking the exchange service receipts actually collected by the company from stations and equipment within the Old City and adding thereto 20 per cent of toll service receipts from calls originating within the Old City. As previously pointed out, gross receipts cannot be computed in this manner. The city’s method is also erroneous in that it attributes all of the receipts to the distributing system and does not allocate any receipts to the use of the company’s other property. Finally, the city has erred in apportioning
The trial court’s method of computation: The trial court concluded that the amount due under the 1946 judgment was $239,337.23. It arrived at that figure as follows: The mileage of the distributing system on public streets in the San Diego extended area is 1,026.214
The trial court thus made the same error as did the city in failing to allocate any of the company’s receipts to its powerhouses, office buildings, and other property not subject to any franchise charge. The trial court disregarded toll calls, although the company used the public streets in obtaining toll revenue. The trial court used a mileage ratio in making its apportionment between total receipts in the extended area and the receipts attributable to the Old City, although, as we have seen, a ratio based on relative investment is appropriate to the present case. Finally, the trial court did not take into account the fact that part of the company’s distribution system is on private rights of way. Had it done so, its ratio would have been the ratio of outside plant on public streets in the Old City, 442.882 miles, to outside plant on public and private rights of way in the extended area, 1,409.573 miles, or 31.42 per cent.
The company’s method of computation: The company contends that the amount due under the 1946 judgment is $158,670.03. It arrives at that figure as follows: The total investment in plant in the San Diego extended area
Under the views expressed in this opinion, the company applied correct legal principles in its computation. It used a ratio based on relative investment in each of the three steps necessary to determine the amount of gross receipts arising from use of the public streets within the Old City: (1) ascertaining the Old City’s share of receipts for local service within the extended area and the Del Mar exchange, and of intrastate toll charges; (2) ascertaining the distributing system’s share of the amount attributable to the Old City; and (3) ascertaining the franchise’s share of the amount attributable to the distributing system.
The company has requested that this court direct the trial court to enter judgment in its favor. Some of the data used by the company in arriving at its computation, however, have not been found to be true by the trial court. We have used these data in this opinion to illustrate application of the legal principles herein discussed but, of course, we cannot deny the city an opportunity to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the company’s figures in the trial court.
The judgment is reversed for further proceedings in.conformity with the views expressed in this opinion. The city shall bear the costs of this appeal.
Gibson, C. J., Shenk, J., Edmonds, J., Schauer, J., and Spence, J., concurred.
Since entry of judgment defendant company has been merged into its parent corporation, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. The change of corporate identity is not material to the issues of this ease.
Accordingly, the judgment appealed from is for $80,667.20 (the difference between $239,337.23 and $158,670.03) with interest from October 4, 1949 (the date the new franchise was applied for) of $11,293.40, or a total of $91,960.60.
Section 536' was amended to read: ‘‘Telegraph or telephone corpora; tions may construct lines of telegraph or telephone lines along and upon any public road or highway, along or across any of the waters or lands within this State, and may erect poles, posts, piers, or abutments for .supporting the insulators, wires, and other necessary fixtures of their lines, in such manner and at such points as not to incommode the public use of the ro'ad or highway or interrupt the navigation of the waters.”
The data used in the following discussion are from the company records, kept pursuant to a uniform system of accounting prescribed by the California Public Utilities Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and regulatory bodies of the several states.
The Broughton Act does not apply to interstate business of the company. (Broughton Act, § 1; now Pub. Útil. Code, § 6001.)
According to the company, the correct figure is 1,029.314 miles. If that mileage were used, the amount due under the trial court’s method would be $238,672.08.
The city’s figure of 446.297 miles in the Old City is the total of 442.882 miles in the extended area, 0.795 miles in the Del Mar exchange, and 2.62 miles attributed to toll plant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The CITY OF SAN DIEGO, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TELEPHONE CORPORATION (A Corporation), Defendant and Appellant
- Cited By
- 13 cases
- Status
- Published