People v. Pirie
| Decision Date | 07 December 1925 |
| Docket Number | 10935. |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. PIRIE et al. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Error to District Court, Clear Creek County; S.W. Johnson, Judge.
Suit by the People against James Pirie and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed.
Wayne C. Williams, former Atty. Gen., R. R. Cloud former Asst. Atty. Gen., W. L. Boatright, Atty. Gen., and Otto Friedrichs, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the People.
Sabin McGlashan & Sabin, of Denver, for defendants in error.
This is a writ of error to a judgment of the district court in an action that grew out of the case of Pirie v. Public Utilities Commission, 72 Colo. 65, 209 P. 640. We held in this case that the findings of our Public Utilities Commission as to the right of an applicant for a certificate of public necessity and convenience, under the provisions of the Public Utilities Act of 1917 (Laws 1917, p. 418) are binding upon a court of review, that the act is not open to constitutional objections on the alleged grounds that it confers upon the commission judicial power, or that it is in contravention of the due process law embodied in the Constitution of the United States, or that it is not within the police power of the state. The order of the Utilities Commission reviewed in that case, and approved by this court, prohibited James Pirie and his successors from doing any acts of things or exercising any rights or privileges under a certain franchise which had theretofore been granted to Pirie by the city council of the city of Idaho Springs, Clear Creek county, and from extending his lines from Lawson, in that county, where he then was doing business as a public utility, 'into the territory of Idaho Springs,' within which territory defendant Pirie had not theretofore carried on operations or furnished service and within which territory the complainant, the Colorado Power Company, was then and theretofore had been operating and furnishing adequate service as a public utility to the public in such territory. After this decision was handed down, Pirie and his successors extended their transmission lines from the town of Lawson to the town of Dumont, Clear Creek county, and, as the Utilities Commission claims, into the 'territory' of Idaho Springs as established by its order. The people of the state of Colorado as plaintiff, apparently on the relation of the Public Utilities Commission, thereupon brought the pending action for a temporary and permanent injunction restraining Pirie and his successors from operating and furnishing service as a public utility 'in the Idaho Springs territory contrary to the foregoing order of the Public Utilities Commission.'
It is contended here for the state by the Attorney General that in the proceeding before the Public Utilities Commission culminating in the order withholding the certificate asked for by Pirie, it had the power, and exercised it, not only of precluding Pirie and his successors from furnishing electricity to the residents of Idaho Springs but, in effect prohibiting them from operating, or supplying electricity to consumers in any part of Clear Creek county in 'the territory' of that city. The contention of the defendants is that in the application to the Utilities Commission for the required certificate there was sought permission entitling the applicant to furnish electricity only to the residents of the city of Idaho Springs, under a franchise or contract between applicant and the city, and that applicant did not at that time, or at any other time, seek or ask for a certificate of permission to supply electricity to the town of Dumont or to any person or corporation in Clear Creek county outside of the municipal limits of Idaho Springs. The district court, in this injunction suit, held that, in the original proceeding by the defendants for the certificate in question, they asked for and desired a certificate which, if granted, would entitle them to furnish electricity as a public utility to the inhabitants of the city of Idaho Springs only, under the franchise which they held from that city, and that the francise was limited to the territory included within the corporate limits of the city, and that the attempt of the commission to fix the boundary of what constitutes the Idaho Springs 'territory,' by extending it beyond...
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Bartley v. People
...(Colo.1985); Kelley v. South Jeffco Metro. Recreation & Park Dist., 155 Colo. 469, 473, 395 P.2d 210, 212 (1964); People v. Pirie, 78 Colo. 361, 365-66, 242 P. 72, 73-74 (1925). We therefore disapprove the lower courts' discussions of the constitutional propriety of the observations made by......
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Public Service Co. v. Public Utilities Commission
...certificate such as here granted. Utility status is a factual determination. They rely on the decision of this Court in People v. Pirie, 78 Colo. 361, 242 P. 72, 73. In this case, Pirie sought a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to furnish electricity to the residents of Clear......
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Mountain States Beet Growers' Marketing Ass'n v. Monroe
...question which would require the full bench, and it is not necessary to determine the case.' To like effect: People v. Pirie, 78 Colo. 361, 365, 242 P. 72; Land Co. v. Hubbard, 30 Colo. 40, 69 P. 514; Joralmon v. McPhee, 31 Colo. 26, 36, 71 P. 419; Gutshall v. Kornaley, 38 Colo. 195, 200, 8......
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