Pub. Serv. Comm'n v. Girton
| Decision Date | 16 November 1920 |
| Docket Number | No. 23669.,23669. |
| Parties | PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION v. GIRTON. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Shelby County; David L. Wilson, Special Judge.
Action by Jacob W. Girton against the Public Service Commission. An order of the commission was adjudged unlawful by the circuit court, and the commission appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Ele Stansbury and U. S. Lesh, both of Indianapolis, for appellant.
Wray & Sullivan, of Shelbyville, for appellee.
In March, 1900, the appellee and another, who together owned certain telephone lines radiating from the village of Flat Rock in Shelby county, Ind., along the public highways, in which they had been built under a general franchise grant from the county board of commissioners sold the lines, switchboard, and instruments to the Flat Rock Telephone Company, a corporation. The vendors then had subscribers for 33 telephones, including the appellee.
The sale contract recited a conveyance in consideration of $900 paid and the delivery to the vendors of eight shares of stock in the purchasing company, with an agreement by said company to install a new switchboard and to complete the conversion of the lines into a metallic system, and to perform existing contracts of the vendors, and then continued:
“And said Flat Rock Telephone Company further agrees not to make any greater charge on the present subscribers than they are now paying to the said vendors, except by the written consent of said (vendors) and *** that should said company make a contract to connect their switchboard with one in Edinburg, *** Shelbyville, Hope and Columbus, Ind., services to said towns are to be maintained to the present subscribers to the Flat Rock switchboard on the said exchanges without any additional charges to their monthly telephone rent.”
It does not appear that the franchise under which the telephone company operates along the public highways contains a provision fixing or limiting the rates to be charged for telephones, nor are we apprised of any power which the board of commissioners would have to impose a limitation upon the rates charged as a condition of granting such a franchise.
So far as is shown, the purchasing company continued to charge all subscribers at the rates referred to in the contract, for a period of more than 18 years, during which the number of telephones rented increased from 33 to 210, and the value of the property increased to $6,000 or $8,000, besides paying the total sum of $1,000 in dividends.
Appellee was a subscriber at the time of said purchase, in 1900, and continued to be one at all times, and so did two or more others. Four or more of the subscribers in 1900 had ceased to be subscribers in 1918, but it does not appear just how many of the original subscribers had dropped out.
In September, 1917, the salary of the man who served the telephone company as superintendent and lineman was increased from $1.50 per day to $50 per month, and in March, 1918, to $75 per month. In November, 1917, the wages of the girls who worked as operators was advanced from 65 cents per day to $1 per day. And at the time of the hearing before the Public Service Commission in November, 1918, the manager and lineman was demanding $100 per month, and each of the operators $1.20 per day, which the company professed a willingness to pay, if granted an increase of rates. There was evidence tending to show that, even without making such proposed increases of salaries, the current income of the company, at the rates previously charged, would not meet the current operating expenses, allowing nothing for depreciation, nor any return on the capital invested.
There was no evidence that the company had surrendered its franchise and taken out an indeterminate permit, the witnesses testifying without contradiction that it had not done so.
On December 4, 1918, the Public Service Commission ordered that the company might increase its rates 20 cents per month for each of certain residence telephones, and might charge 50 cents per month for each extension phone, and 25 cents for each extension bell.
There is ample evidence to sustain the decision of the commission if it was authorized by law to make such an order in such a case.
Upon petition of the appellee the circuit court adjudged that the order of the appellant Public Service Commission was unlawful and enjoined said appellant from enforcing it, from which judgment an appeal was duly taken.
The only error assigned is the overruling of appellant's motion for a new trial, on the alleged grounds that the finding and decision is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to law. And the only questions discussed in the briefs relate to (1) the power or lack of power of the Public Service Commission, on petition of a public telephone corporation created and organized before the enactment of the Public Service Commission Law, to regulate and increase the rates charged by such corporation, and (2) the effect of appellee's contract with the telephone company as depriving or not depriving the commission of the right to exercise such power by increasing rates, if the power of regulation exists.
The statute creating the Public Service Commission and defining its duties and powers provides as follows:
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