Florida Power & Light Co. v. City of Miami

• Decision Date: 27 April 1954
• Citation: 72 So.2d 270
• Parties: FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO. et al. v. CITY OF MIAMI.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 270

72 So.2d 270

5 P.U.R.3d 281

FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO. et al. v. CITY OF MIAMI.

Supreme Court of Florida, En Banc.

April 27, 1954.

Anderson, Scott, McCarthy & Preston, Will M. Preston and Wilson Smith, Miami, for appellant Florida Power & Light Co.

Lewis W. Petteway and Guyte P. McCord, Jr., Tallahassee, for appellant Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission.

J. W. Watson, Jr., and John E. Cicero, Miami, for appellee.

THOMAS, Justice.

The appellee filed its bill for declaratory decree and named Florida Power and Light Company defendant. During the progress of the suit the Attorney General, the State Attorney of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit and Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission intervened.

The provisions of the charter defining the general regulatory powers of the city over utilities were outlined and this was followed by a recital of an ordinance, enacted by the city commission and approved by the electors in 1925, granting to Miami Electric Light and Power Company and its successors a franchise to furnish electricity to the inhabitants. The following year the appellant became the successor of Miami Electric Light and Power Company.

In 1951 the Legislature enacted Chapter 26545, F.S.A. § 366.01 et seq., which contained the provision, in Sec. 4, that the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission should have 'jurisdiction to regulate and supervise each public utility with respect to its rates,' and so on, and that this 'jurisdiction * * * [should] be exclusive and superior to that of all * * * municipalities * * * and in case of conflict therewith all lawful acts, orders, rules and regulations of the Commission [should] in each instance prevail * * *.'

The city charter carried the provision that general laws applying to municipal corporations then in effect or thereafter passed should be applicable where not in conflict with the charter provisions or with ordinances and resolutions adopted by the commission in accordance with charter authority.

The 'interconnected system of power generating plants only one of which, used as a 'stand-by' generating plant, is located within the limits' of Miami, extends from St. Augustine to Homestead and from Fort Pierce to Fort Myers.

Reverting to the Act, it required the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission to appraise costs of property of utility companies actually used in public service, to keep a record of the investments of the companies, and to use the value fixed for the purpose of establishing rates.

By charter or franchise the appellee was authorized to examine the books of the utility company and to prescribe forms of accounts while the appellant was required to file with the appellee, within certain periods, statements of the rate base and the earned return. In the charter it was stipulated that if a public service commission should be given power to prescribe forms of accounts, they should be controlling 'so far as they go' but the city commission could prescribe 'more detailed forms for the utilities within its jurisdiction.'

The appellee charged that the legislative Act, insofar as it purported to deprive the city of 'the right to regulate rates charged and services furnished by [the appellant-utility company] and to examine [its] books and records', violated Sec. 10, Article I and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States and Secs. 20 and 21 of Article III and Secs. 12 and 17 of the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of Florida, F.S.A.

Following the allegations as we have condensed them, the appellee posed twelve questions for decision of the Court, all dealing with the impact of the Act upon the powers vested in the city by its charter and upon the franchise granted under the charter.

The answer of the appellant-Florida Power and Light Company was adopted by the intervenors and then the matter was concluded on motion for summary final decree.

The chancellor held the Act constitutional although it affected the contractual relations of utility company and city, deprived the latter of its power to regulate rates, to fix standards of service, and to demand within a certain time a statement of rate base and earned return; and although it granted the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission exclusive authority to determine the rate base. He specifically held that none of the guarantees secured by the portions of the State and Federal Constitutions, already detailed in analyzing the bill, had been violated.

But he also held that the appellee was authorized to 'prescribe more detailed forms of accounts * * *...