People ex rel. South Shore Traction Co. v. Willcox
| Citation | 89 N.E. 459,196 N.Y. 212 |
| Parties | PEOPLE ex rel. SOUTH SHORE TRACTION CO. v. WILLCOX et al., Public Service Commission, First District. |
| Decision Date | 26 October 1909 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
Certiorari by the People, on relation of the South Shore Traction Company, against William R. Willcox and others, constituting the Public Service Commission of the First District, to review the denial of relator's application for approval of the construction of a street railroad authorized by franchise between relator and the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of New York. From an order of the Appellate Division, First Department (118 N. Y. Supp. 248), reversing the order of the Commission, it appeals. Affirmed.
George S. Coleman, for appellants.
Clarence Lexow for respondent traction company.
Francis K. Pendleton, Corp. Counsel (Terence Farley and Theodore Connoly, of counsel), for respondent city of New York.
We think that the Public Service Commission is entitled to prosecute this appeal. People ex rel. Burnham v. Jones, 110 N. Y. 509, 18 N. E. 432; Public Service Commissions Law (Laws 1907, p. 896, c. 429) § 12.
The Public Service Commissions law took effect on July 1, 1907. It provided that on and after that date the Board of Railroad Commissioners should be abolished. ‘All the powers and duties of such board conferred and imposed by any statute of this state shall thereupon be exercised and performed by the Public Service Commissions.’ Laws 1907, p. 936, c. 429, § 80. By section 59 of the railroad law as it then existed it was provided that ‘no railroad corporation hereafter formed under the laws of this state shall exercise the powers conferred by law upon such corporations or begin the construction of its road until the directors shall cause a copy of the articles of association to be published in one or more newspapers in each county in which the road is proposed to be located, at least once a week for three successive weeks; * * * nor until the Board of Railroad Commissioners shall certify that the foregoing conditions have been complied with, and also that public convenience and necessity require the construction of said railroad as proposed in said articles of association.’ Railroad Law (Laws 1892, p. 1395, c. 676) § 59.
The power to grant or withhold a certificate of public convenience and necessity theretofore vested in the Board of Railroad Commissioners was manifestly transferred to the Public Service Commission by the Public Service Commissions law. Section 53 of that law also expressly provides, among other things, that no street railroad corporation shall begin the construction of a street railroad without first having obtained the permission and approval of the proper commission;
In the present case the South Shore Traction Company applied to the Public Service Commission for the First District to approve the construction of a line of street railway from the boundary of Nassau county, through Jamaica, to Long Island City, and across Queens Borough Bridge to Second avenue, in the borough of Manhattan, covering a distance of 13 miles in the borough of Queens and 1 1/2 miles on the bridge. The application was referred to one...
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City of Niagara Falls v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n of New York for Second Dist
...the law of the state had no force or effect so far as the state was concerned. It was simply nugatory. People ex rel. South Shore Traction Co. v. Willcox, 196 N. Y. 212, 89 N. E. 459. If it be true, as indicated, that the state, as an attribute of sovereignty in the exercise of police power......