Root v. New Britain Gaslight Co.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1916
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: ROOT et al. v. NEW BRITAIN GASLIGHT CO. et al.

99 A. 559

91 Conn. 134

ROOT et al.

v. NEW BRITAIN GASLIGHT CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Dec. 19, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William S. Case, Judge.

Petition by G. E. Root and others against the New Britain Gaslight Company. From a judgment of the superior court for the company reversing an order of the Public Utilities Commission, the petitioners appeal. Judgment set aside, and new trial ordered.

George E. Hinman, of Willimantic, and John F. Forward, of Hartford, for appellants. John Walsh and James E. Cooper, both of New Britain, for appellee.

PRENTICE, C. J. The New Britain Gaslight Company is a Connecticut corporation empowered by its charter to manufacture and sell gas for lighting and other purposes in the town and city of New Britain and the adjoining towns of Berlin and Newington. It has never undertaken to furnish service or exercise its franchise in the latter town, and has no mains, conduits, or other equipment within it necessary for that purpose. Maple Hill is a section of that town lying easterly of the New Britain line and distant approximately 12,000 feet, measured along the highway, from the company's nearest main.

October 29, 1915, certain residents of this section presented their petition to the Public Utilities Commission representing that they were desirous of being served by the company, and had several times, without success, requested such service, and praying for a hearing in the matter. After due notice to the company and a hearing, the commission found that the company had unreasonably failed or refused to furnish the petitioners with service at reasonable rates, and ordered it to extend its mains to the Maple Hill section and supply the inhabitants of that locality with gas. The order permitted the company for a period of three years from the date of installation to so far depart from its regular rates charged in New Britain as to charge each customer on the Maple Hill extension a minimum annual rate of not more than $15.

From this order the company appealed, alleging the foregoing facts, which were admitted, either by the pleadings or orally to the court, and embodying in the appeal by reference the commission's finding and order. No other facts of practical importance in the determination of the question before us or passed upon by the superior court were alleged or proved. In this situation the appeal came before the court, which, without a hearing upon the facts, which the parties were ready to enter upon, and upon the admitted allegations of the complaint and the contents of the rinding of the commission, ruled: (1) That the commission was without power in the premises; and (2) that the record negatived the finding of the commission that the company had acted unreasonably in not giving the desired service.

In the first of these rulings there was error. Section 24 of chapter 128 of the Public Acts of 1911, as amended by section l, c. 225, of the Public Acts of 1913, which upon its enactment became a part of the company's charter, reads, omitting the unimportant provision as to a hearing, and including its title, as follows:

"Rates and Service Affecting a Single Person.—If any public service company shall unreasonably fail or refuse to furnish adequate service at reasonable rates to any person within the territorial limits within which such company has, by its charter, authority to furnish such service, such person may bring his written petition to the commission alleging such failure or refusal. * * * Upon said hearing the commission may, if it finds that such company has unreasonably failed or refused to furnish such person with adequate service at reasonable rates, prescribe the service to be furnished by such company to such person, and the conditions under which, and maximum rates or charges at which, such service shall be furnished. Such company shall thereafter furnish such service to such person in accordance with the conditions so prescribed, and shall not thereafter demand or collect any rate or charge for such service in excess of the maximum rate or charge so prescribed."

Here the legislative intent as to the scope of the commission's authority is expressed in language apparently free from ambiguity or uncertainty of meaning. The express provision is that its authority extends to ordering service to be given and prescribing its character and conditions and the maximum rates chargeable therefor whenever and wherever within the territorial limits within which a public service corporation has, by its charter, authority to furnish such service it has unreasonably failed or refused to do so. This language, so clear, direct, and definite, would seem susceptible of but one meaning, to wit, that the jurisdiction of the commission extends to all situations of unreasonable failure or refusal to furnish adequate service at reasonable rates within its charter territory.

Counsel for the company, however, insist that there are various considerations to be drawn from the section itself and its comparison with the two immediately preceding it in the act of which it forms a part, which, taken together, lead to the conclusion that its provisions are less comprehensive. They say that it thus appears that the jurisdiction of the commission as established by this section is a comparatively narrow one confined to the prevention of discriminations against individual residents within the territory the corporation has chosen to occupy and serve, and that it does not extend to directing extensions of service into new or unoccupied districts. In aid of this contention we are asked to read section 24 in connection with the two preceding sections, and examine their titles. Section 22 deals with plants and equipment, and may be dismissed as throwing little light upon the matter in controversy. Section 23, bearing the title "Rates and Service Affecting Many Persons," like section 24, deals with rates and service, and to that extent they are closely related.

The most significant thing appearing in the comparison of these two sections is that, if section 24 is to be given the narrow construction attributed to it, our law affords no means of relief to persons residing within the area in which the public service corporation has the right to operate, but outside of the area which it has chosen to occupy and serve, who may feel aggrieved at the failure or refusal to provide them with its service. The claim is that section 23 embodies the law and all the law touching the commission's power where the complaint is of want of service in unoccupied territory, but that section does not provide means of relief to persons seeking service denied them. No one is authorized by that section to petition the commission except towns, cities, or boroughs, the public service corporation, and its patrons to the number of ten. Surely it cannot be presumed that the Legislature intended to limit the jurisdiction of the commission in such a way that persons or groups of persons, claiming to be aggrieved by unreasonable deprivation of service by a public service corporation, which, by its charter, has substantially pre-empted the territory within which they reside, were not permitted to go to it for relief. In view of the purposes for which this commission...