State ex rel. Dayton Power & Light Co. v. Riley

• Decision Date: 15 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-914,77-914
• Citation: 53 Ohio St.2d 168,7 O.O.3d 317,373 N.E.2d 385
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court
• Parties: , 7 O.O.3d 317 The STATE ex rel. DAYTON POWER & LIGHT COMPANY v. RILEY, Judge, et al.

Page 168

53 Ohio St.2d 168

373 N.E.2d 385, 7 O.O.3d 317

The STATE ex rel. DAYTON POWER & LIGHT COMPANY v. RILEY, Judge, et al.

No. 77-914.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 15, 1978.

Relator, Dayton Power & Light Co. ("the company"), seeks to prohibit respondent Judge Paul E. Riley from proceeding in a cause pending before him. The instant action is now before this court on motions for judgment on the pleadings filed by respondent and by intervening respondent, The Irwin Auger Bit Company ("Irwin"), the plaintiff in the cause which the relator seeks to prohibit.

Pickrel, Schaeffer & Ebeling, Gordon H. Savage, Frank M. Root, Jr., J. R. Newlin and S. F. Koziar, Jr., Dayton, for relator.

Judge Paul E. Riley, pro se.

Buckley & Miller, Frederick J. Buckley and Daniel J. Buckley, Wilmington, for intervening respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The issue before this court is the availability of the writ of prohibition. To determine this, it is necessary to state some of the allegations raised in the cause in the trial court which relator would prohibit.

The litigation which relator would have prohibited commenced on May 20, 1977, when Irwin filed suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Clinton County on behalf of itself and others similarly situated.

Irwin alleged that during the winter of 1976-77, non-domestic natural gas customers of Dayton Power & Light Company were faced with rapidly diminishing allowable usages. The company offered these customers an opportunity to store liquid propane gas under its "Propane Gas Program," and, allegedly, over 900 such customers entered into agreements which were approved by the Public Utilities Commission ("commission"). Under these agreements, the company agreed to store the customer's propane, vaporize it, and make it available to the customer by "displacement" through the company's facilities. The customer agreed to procure liquid propane and cause it to be delivered to the company and to pay the company specified vaporization and storage charges.

Basically, the complaint of Irwin was that the company breached the contracts in that it allegedly converted the propane to its own use and was unjustly enriched.

The company filed a motion to dismiss in the trial court alleging that such court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction because it was vested exclusively in the commission. Judge Riley denied the company's motion and, also, determined that Irwin had properly delineated a class to which relief could be granted should the allegations of the complaint be supported.

If a court has jurisdiction of the subject-matter involved in litigation, a writ of prohibition will not issue to prohibit it from exercising such jurisdiction. Issuance of this writ is dependent upon the issue of...