Puget Sound Nav. Co. v. Director and Sup'rs of Dept. of Public Works, 22417.

• Decision Date: 03 July 1930
• Docket Number: 22417.
• Citation: 157 Wash. 557,289 P. 1006
• Parties: PUGET SOUND NAV. CO. et al. v. DIRECTOR AND SUPERVISORS OF DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

289 P. 1006

157 Wash. 557

PUGET SOUND NAV. CO. et al. v. DIRECTOR AND SUPERVISORS OF DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS et al.

No. 22417.

Supreme Court of Washington

July 3, 1930

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Thurston County; John M. Wilson, Judge.

Proceeding before the Department of Public Works of Washington instituted by the Olympic Peninsula Motor Coach Company (formerly Wolverton Auto Bus Company) and another against the Puget Sound Navigation Company and another. To review an order of the department, respondents to the proceeding brought writ of review. From a judgment of the superior court, affirming in part and reversing in part the order of the department, the respondents to the proceeding appeal.

Modified and as modified affirmed.

Bronson Jones & Bronson, Robert Bronson, and William H. Gorham, all of Seattle, for appellants.

John H. Dunbar, John C. Hurspool, and Cleland & Clifford, all of Olympia, for respondents.

TOLMAN J.

This controversy, in its earlier stages, was before this court in the case of Wolverton Auto Bus Co. v. Robinson, 151 Wash. 67, 274 P. 1056. The facts and issues forming the background for the present litigation are there rather elaborately set forth and discussed, and in the interest of brevity we must be content with a mere reference to that case in the hope that it will be read in connection with what follows.

In the former case it was held that the ferry company represented by its receiver and the stage companies, though constituting connecting carriers, were bound by the regular schedule of rates on file with the department and could not by special contract between them depart therefrom. The case was sent back with leave to the department through appropriate proceedings to establish a new general tariff for the service.

After the going down of the remittitur in that case, the respondent Olympic Peninsula Motor Coach Company (formerly the Wolverton Auto Bus Company), joined by the respondent Suburban Transportation System, a corporation, instituted this proceeding before the department complaining of the regularly established schedule of rates which had been held to be in effect by the decision in the prior case as being 'unjust, unfair, unreasonable, more than sufficient and prohibitive.' The complainants asked for an investigation by the department and that after due notice and a hearing the department enter an order 'fixing, determining and establishing for the service hereinbefore rendered and the service to be hereinafter rendered, fair, just, reasonable, and sufficient rates and charges for the transportation of complainants' auto stages upon the ferries of the respondents; * * * and requiring respondents to repay to complainants the amounts heretofore collected in excess of just, fair, reasonable and sufficient rates and charges for the transportation of * * * the auto stages of complainants together with interest on each overcharge from the date of payment.'

A hearing was duly had. The department made certain findings of fact and conclusions, and based thereon made an order from which we quote:

'Wherefore the department orders that Sound Ferry Lines, Inc., and/or its receiver and/or Puget Sound Navigation Company charge and collect a rate of $1.50 per trip for the service heretofore performed in the transportation between Edmonds and Port Ludlow of auto stages operated in regular schedule through service, and file with this department a tariff naming such rate for the same service to be hereafter performed; and it is further

'Ordered that all rates of the carriers named now or heretofore filed and in conflict with the said rate of $1.50 be and they hereby are determined to be inapplicable and in excess of a just, fair, reasonable, and sufficient rate for the service described;'

In due course appellant by writ of review brought the matter before the superior court for Thurston county resulting in a judgment which provides:

'It is hereby ordered, adjudged and decreed that the said order of the Department of Public Works of Washington be and the same hereby is in all respects affirmed, including said department's determination of the just, fair, reasonable sufficient rate applicable both prior and subsequent to the filing of the complaint before the department, save and except only that the court finds and decrees that there is no authority in law for the collection of the undercharge resulting from the...