Hocking Valley Railway Co. v. Public Utilities Commission
Hocking Valley Railway Co. v. Public Utilities Commission
Opinion of the Court
The judicial article of the constitution, as recently amended, after defining the original and the appellate jurisdiction of this court, provides that it shall have “such revisory jurisdic
Section 33 of the act of April 18, 1913 (103 O. L., 804), to create the public utilities commission, provides in effect that such jurisdiction may be invoked by petition in error, and that a final order of the commission shall be reversed, vacated or modified if the court is of opinion that the order was unlawful and unreasonable. In order to give full validity to the proceedings and orders of the utilities commission, it was necessary that some adequate provision for their judicial review should be made; because if an administrative order results in the taking of property, such as the company claims results in this case, the defendant must not be denied the right to show that as matter of law the order was so arbitrary, unjust or unreasonable as to amount to a deprivation of property in violation of the constitution. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S., 418.
The legislature is not required to -confine such revisory jurisdiction to this court, but would be authorized by Section 4 of Article IV of the Constitution to confer it on the courts of common pleas. By the provisions of the public utilities act all of the powers of the public service commission are conferred on its successor. Full provision is made in Section 524 et seq., General Code, for notice to the defendant of the filing of the complaint and of the time and place of hearing. Full opportunity is given it to be heard and to show that the order asked for is unlawful or unreasonable. It has the benefit of. compulsory process to
The court in Oregon Rd. & N. Co. v. Fairchild, 224 U. S., 510, 528, where a similar administrative order was under consideration, say: “This necessitates an examination of the evidence, not for the purpose of passing on conflicts in the testimony or of deciding upon pure questions of fact, but, as said in Kansas City Railway Co. v. Albers Commission Co., 223 U. S., 573, from an inspection of the ‘entire record, including the evidence, if properly incorporated therein, to-determine whether what purports to be a finding upon questions of fact is so involved with and dependent upon such questions of law as to be in substance and effect a decision of the latter,1’ ”
Various grounds are set out in the petition in error in this case on which it is claimed that the orders complained of are unlawful and unreasonable. They are comprised in the contentions of the company hereinafter referred to. It is urged that the findings and orders are against the manifest weight of the evidence. The findings, as shown by the entry of the commission, are: That the defendant has, since 1896, operated electrically propelled cars and furnished an interurban passenger service to the public over its leased properties be
We have carefully examined all of the evidence and considered it in the light of the conflicting claims of the parties with reference to it, and we are not able to say that the findings of the commission are against the evidence.
It is clearly shown that during the eighteen years while the service was continued, the personal and business relations of the communities served became adjusted in the manner set forth.
It is conceded by counsel on both sides that the order made by the commission does not require that the interurban service be maintained by means of electricity. No particular motive power is made the criterion of compliance by the defendant with
As to the sufficiency of the proposed substitute service, the witness Sellers, whose testimony disclosed that he was well acquainted with the entire situation, testified that it would depend on the nature of the service and whether the substituted service would make stops of the character that were made by the already established service. To the same effect was other evidence in the case.
It is important that an adequate conception should be had of the meaning of the term “interurban service.” It is obvious that the commission used the term as meaning a service consisting of cars or trains which are run more frequently than any through steam-passenger service, and also a service in which frequent stops are made, so that
It is not shown that there is any special franchise provision or any contract by which the defendant expressly agreed to render the service in question. Therefore, the order of the commission must find
It is well established that the benefits which result to the public constitute the consideration for the grant by the state of the franchises, rights and privileges held and exercised by a railroad company, and that their acceptance by the company imposes on it the obligation to operate the railroad which it was incorporated to construct, when constructed, and of doing so in the manner and for the purposes contemplated in its charter. One of the obligations thus imposed is to so operate its trains that they will reasonably serve the needs of the public.
The court in Atlantic Coast Line Rd. Co. v. N. Car. Corp. Commission, 206 U. S., 1, said: “The elementary proposition that railroads from the public nature of the business by them carried on and the interest which the public have in their operation are subject, as to their state business, to state regulation, which may be exerted either directly by the legislative authority or by administrative bodies endowed with power to that end, is not and could not be successfully questioned in view of the long line of authorities sustaining that doctrine.”
The defendant, however, contends substantially that in spite of the state of facts shown in the record, as to the adjustment of the community relations to the service, the conditions in the communities had so changed at the time the complaint was filed that the present needs do not require that the service be maintained; that electric service, considered as a separate operation, is conducted at a loss and that the enforced continuance of the service would be a discrimination against other communities served by the defendant which would not enjoy similar advantages. Defendant offered testimony tending to show that it would be necessary to install new equipment at considerable expense, which could be operated only at a loss if it is required to continue the electric service.
So far as the matter of the electric service is concerned, that is eliminated by the concessions of
It is undoubtedly true that the question whether or not the interurban service is a paying service should be considered with respect to its bearing on the question whether the public necessities require such service. The presumption is that where there is such a condition and such demand for the service as to amount to public necessity, the rendering of the service would not result in loss. The finding of the commission was that the defendant had not shown that the furnishing of the service will entail
Much testimony was offered touching this question, and, as already indicated, we are not able to say from an analysis of it that the finding- of the commission was not sustained by the evidence.
Under the state of facts shown by the testimony and found by the commission the presumption is that there is a present necessity for the continuance of the service which has been in existence for about eighteen years, in the absence of a showing by the defendant to the contrary.
In Colorado & Southern Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 54 Colo., 64, the company discontinued the service over a certain division, about sixteen miles in length, on the ground that because of heavy grades and curves operation of trains was attended with severe loss. On the other hand, it appeared that deprivation of this service inflicted greater loss on the people of the community affected. On this point the court say: “At the time it purchased the South Park System it purchased other lines * * * . It has not surrendered its franchise, and continues in the enjoyment of all its corporate rights. It does not claim that the service ordered [by the commission] is more than sufficient to accommodate the traffic between Denver and Leadville. In such circumstances, the question of loss must be considered in connection with its duties and the productiveness of its corporate business as a whole.” At page 94 of the opinion it is
In Atlantic Coast Line Rd. Co. v. N. Car. Corp. Commission, supra, the carrier was ordered by the commission to-arrange its schedule so that one of its passenger trains would make connections with a certain passenger train on another line at a given point. The company contended that on account of other connections made by the train in question that train could not be operated so as to make the required connection, and that thus the order would require the operation of an additional train. The company objected to this on the ground that the public convenience did not require the additional facility and, second, that it would entail a daily pecuniary loss.
It will be observed that in that case the requirement was that facilities additional to those already in existence be furnished, while here the order requires the maintenance of existing service or its equivalent. The court sustained the commission and held that its order was not inherently unjust and unreasonable because the running of Such train would impose some pecuniary loss on the company.
Mr. Justice White said: “This proposition is based on the hypothesis that the order, by neces
After conceding that if a scheme of maximum rates was imposed by state authority, as a whole adequately remunerative, and yet that some of such rates were so unequal as to exceed the flexible limit of judgment which belongs to the power to fix rates, that is, transcended the limits of just classification and amounted to the creation of favored class or classes whom the carrier was compelled to serve at a loss, to the detriment of other class or classes upon whom the burden of such loss would fall, such legislation would be so inherently unreasonable as to constitute a violation of the due- • process and equal-protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment, the court further say: “Let it also be conceded that a like repugnancy to the constitution of the United States would arise from an order made in the exercise of the power to fix a rate when the result of the enforcement of such order would be to compel a carrier to serve for a wholly inadequate compensation a class or classes selected for legislative favor even if, considering rates as a whole a reasonable return from the operation of its road might be received by the carrier. Neither of these concessions, however, can control the case in hand, since it does not directly
In Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Kansas, ex rel., 216 U. S., 262, the principle announced in the Atlantic Coast Line case was reaffirmed. The Missouri Pacific case involved an order which directed the railroad company to run a regular passenger
It must not be overlooked that a requirement, whether made by a statute or by the order of a commission, which denies a railroad company ' proper compensation for the carriage of passengers or freight, is entirely different from an order which compels the railroad company to perform duties to the public which are imposed upon it by reason of its exercise of the franchise, rights and privileges which it has acquired from the state.
We think it must be conceded that in a case of this character it would not be necessary for the defendant, in order to justify a withdrawal of the service, to show that such a service entails a pecuniary loss upon its railroad operated as a whole. There is a distinction between withdrawal from a service of this character and from such a
We are not constrained to think, however, that this rule should have conclusive effect in connection with the facts shown in this case. Here the public needs were created and grew up in view of the voluntary action of the defendant itself. The finding of the commission is that the public necessity still exists. An unusual and abnormal situation was developed under the lead of the defendant. The moving by the people away from central points to places scattered along the line of the defendant, and all of the things pointed out in the testimony and the findings, being done while the people relied upon the continuance of the voluntary service by the defendant, present a situation which clearly estops it from invoking the rule above stated.
Counsel for the railroad company urge that the case of Delaware, L. & W. Rd. Co. v. Van Sanwood et al., 216 Fed. Rep., 252, declares the principles which should rule this case. It was there held that where a railroad company discontinued two trains a day each way and was ordered by the service commission to restore them, and it appeared that the people residing in the terminal cities were amply served without it, the question of the right of the commission to order the trains restored depended on whether the convenience and
We think that the situation in this case is so substantially different from the situation described
The order complained of will be affirmed.
Order affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.