Sw. Motor Carriers Corp. v. State

• Decision Date: 05 May 1942
• Docket Number: Case Number: 30415
• Citation: 190 Okla. 491,1942 OK 179,125 P.2d 760
• Parties: SOUTHWESTERN MOTOR CARRIERS CORP. v. STATE et al.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

1942 OK 179

125 P.2d 760

190 Okla. 491

SOUTHWESTERN MOTOR CARRIERS CORP. v. STATE et al.

Case Number: 30415

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: May 5, 1942

Syllabus

¶0 AUTOMOBILES--Statutory authority for Corporation Commission to grant certificate of public convenience and necessity as class "A" motor carrier.

Under 47 O. S. 1941 §§ 161-166, the Corporation Commission is authorized to grant to any suitable party a certificate of public convenience and necessity as a class "A" motor carrier where the operations are to extend to two or more cities, with or without fixed termini, and may in the first instance, or thereafter, where public convenience and necessity demand, permit periodic or irregular departure from the fixed termini or regular route to and from a rural community for the purpose of transporting passengers in inter-city traffic.

Proceedings by Oklahoma Transportation Company before the Corporation Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity extending its class "A" motor carrier passenger service beyond its present operations.From an order granting the application, the protestant Southwestern Motor Carriers Corporation appeals.Affirmed.

W. C. Austin and Robert B. Harbison, both of Altus, and W. D. Benson, Jr., of Lubbock, Tex., for plaintiff in error.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., for State of Oklahoma.

L. V. Reid, General Counsel, and Floyd Green and Ed White, Assts., for Corporation Commission.

GIBSON, J.

¶1 This is an appeal by a protestant from an order of the Corporation Commission granting to a common carrier a certificate of convenience and necessity extending its class "A" motor carrier passenger service beyond its present operations as heretofore authorized.

¶2The defendant in error Oklahoma Transportation Company filed its amended application for certificate of public convenience and necessity with the commission "extending its present operations from Lawton, Okla., via State Highway 36 to Fort Sill Military Reservation.Seeking to render service between Ft. Sill and all points it now serves; particularly Oklahoma City and Duncan, Oklahoma."Plaintiff in error, Southwestern Motor Carriers Corporation, and certain others appeared in protest, challenging the commission's jurisdiction on the ground that it was without power to grant a certificate authorizing passenger service into a military reservation, and that the contemplated service was not between fixed termini as required by law.

¶3 After a hearing pursuant to 47 O. S. 1941 §166, the commission entered its order granting the application to the following extent:

"For the transportation of passengers between Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, on the one hand, and all points now served under Amended CertificateNo. 755 at and beyond Duncan, Marlow and Geronimo, on the other hand, and in reverse order."

¶4 And a portion of the application was denied as follows:

"It is the further order of the Commission that insofar as said amended application seeks authority to transport passengers between Lawton and Ft. Sill, as purely local movements, be, and the same is hereby dismissed for want of jurisdiction."

¶5 The appeal brings here for review the action of the commission in overruling the objection to the jurisdiction as aforesaid; and protestant also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to show the existence of public convenience and necessity justifying the commission's order.

¶6 Under a former certificate, the applicant is now operating a passenger service through the city of Lawton with Marlow on the northeast, Duncan on the southeast, and Geronimo on the south, as so-called gateway towns on its route leading into Lawton; that is, they are the first incorporated towns served by petitioner in all directions out of Lawton.Petitioner's bus route as formerly established runs due west into Lawton, thence due south.Fort Sill lies north of Lawton and some four or five miles off this route.The order on review would permit applicant to run its busses off its established route at Lawton north to Fort Sill on State Highway 36, and back on said highway to Lawton for the purpose of transporting passengers to Fort Sill from or beyond the gateway towns aforesaid, or from Fort Sill to or beyond said gateway towns.

¶7 As above said, the protestant asserts that by reason of certain statutes(80 O. S. 1941 §§ 1, 2, 4) the commission was without power to authorize passenger service to and from a military reservation.But the commission in its brief interprets the order not as authorizing service inside the reservation but only to and from the point where State Highway 36 terminates at the south boundary of the reservation.We accept that interpretation, and will therefore give no further consideration to that particular jurisdictional question.

¶8 Protestant says the authority applied for and granted was not between fixed termini as defined by law, and the order was therefore Without the jurisdiction of the commission.

¶9 Whether the boundary line of the reservation was a proper place for taking on and discharging passengers to and from incorporated towns beyond Lawton and points further on, and within the power of the commission to so order, must be determined from the statutes dealing with the particular subject.The general powers conferred upon the commission by the Constitution are not in dispute here.

¶10 The controlling sections are 47 O. S. 1941, §§161-166.

¶11 Applicant is a motor carrier within the definition of that term as contained in said section 161 (b), which reads in part as follows:

"(b) The term 'motor carrier,' when used in this Act, means any person, firm, business, trust, or corporation, lessee or trustee or receiver,

...