City of Benwood v. Public Service Commission
| Decision Date | 13 October 1914 |
| Citation | 83 S.E. 295,75 W.Va. 127 |
| Parties | CITY OF BENWOOD ET AL. v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted September 22, 1914.
Syllabus by the Court.
The Public Service Commission has power to change any intrastate rate for service rendered the public, when to do so will conflict with no paramount law or constitutional inhibition.
The rate-making power is inherent in and belongs primarily to the Legislature. The presumption is against exclusive delegation of the power. Unless there has been such delegation by clear and unmistakable terms, the power remains in the Legislature which can exercise the same when it sees fit.
A grant of power by the Legislature to a municipal corporation "to erect, or authorize or prohibit the erection of * * * water works" does not vest the municipal corporation with power to fix water rates by franchise or agreement beyond the control of the Legislature.
The general provision in a municipal charter authorizing the municipal corporation to "contract and be contracted with" does not delegate beyond the state's control the power to fix public service rates.
Impliedly from general powers, a municipal corporation may have the power to contract in the matter of public service rates, as long as the Legislature does not exercise its reserved power in that particular, but any contract so made is only permissive and is subject to future legislative action.
The Public Service Commission may change a public service rate which was fixed for a municipality by franchise ordinance prior to the enactment of the law creating the commission where authority to fix such rate was not expressly delegated to the municipal corporation by the Legislature.
Where by franchise or ordinance, public service rates within a municipality have been fixed and accepted as between a public service corporation and the public, without express delegation of power in such particular by the Legislature to the municipality, a change of the rates by the Public Service Commission does not impair the obligation of a contract.
Proceedings by the City of Benwood and others to secure suspension of an order of the Public Service Commission. Order of suspension refused.
T. S. Riley, of Wheeling, and Martin Brown, of Moundsville, for petitioners.
J. W. Ritz, of Wheeling, A. A. Lilly, Atty. Gen., and Frank Lively, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondents.
The Benwood and McMechen Consolidated Water Company made application to the Public Service Commission for a change in rates for water furnished by the company to the public in the City of Benwood. The city and certain of its citizens appeared to the proceeding before the commission and resisted the application, claiming that the commission was without power to change the rates, since, at the time of the city's grant of the franchise under which the company operated the rates for water to be furnished under the franchise were fixed and contracted for therein. The commission overruled this ground of objection and ordered a hearing on the merits of the application. Thereupon, the city and the citizens, further insisting upon their objection, brought the proceeding into this court, pursuant to the process prescribed in the act creating the Public Service Commission.
The case presents squarely the question: May the Public Service Commission alter a rate that was fixed by franchise ordinance prior to the enactment of the law by which the commission was created and given powers? If it may not, summary prohibition, under the original jurisdictional powers of this court, will lie in the premises. United Fuel Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission, 80 S.E. 931.
That the Public Service Commission may change any intrastate rate for service rendered to the public, when to do so will conflict with no paramount law or constitutional inhibition, we have no doubt. The very spirit and purpose of the act by which the commission is established and performs its functions, affirms that it may do so. The broad and general powers prescribed for it by the statute include that of general rate regulation. A reading of the act fully discloses that the Legislature meant to delegate to the Public Service Commission the administrative supervision and regulation of all service rendered to the public throughout the whole of the State. That it did this for the general welfare is most apparent. Modern conditions giving rise to such legislation in the interest of all, are so well known as to need no recounting here. Moreover, the language of the act is so plain that all doubt as to the power of the commission for general and state-wide administration of rates for service rendered by corporations or individuals to the public, must be eliminated. The act does not exclude, but expressly includes, the supervision and regulation of service to the public in municipalities. The following provisions are here pertinent:
Though the grant and acceptance of the franchise wherein certain rates were fixed, created a contract between the water company and the City of Benwood, the rates thereby fixed are nevertheless cognizable for revision by the Public Service Commission under the broad powers delegated thereto, unless prior to the delegation of those powers the Legislature had expressly delegated power to the City of Benwood which authorized the city to contract inviolably for the rates mentioned in the franchise for the period stated therein. Rate-making is a legislative act. It is inherent in and belongs primarily to the Legislature. The rate-making power is a power of government--a police power of the State. The City of Benwood, at the time of the granting of the franchise, had no rate-making power that could bind the State, if the Legislature of the sovereign State had not theretofore delegated the same to the city. And if such delegation or grant of rate-making power was made to the...
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