Union Dry Goods Co v. Georgia Public Service Corporation

• Decision Date: 07 January 1919
• Docket Number: No. 87,87
• Parties: UNION DRY GOODS CO. v. GEORGIA PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

248 U.S. 372

39 S.Ct. 117

63 L.Ed. 309

UNION DRY GOODS CO.

v GEORGIA PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION.

No. 87.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 18, 1918.

Decided Jan. 7, 1919.

Messrs. R. Douglas Feagin and Rudolph S. Wimberly, both of Macon, Ga., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Roland Ellis, of Macon, Ga., and Thomas W. Hardwick, of Sandersville, Ga., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Georgia Public Service Corporation and the Union Dry Goods Company, both corporations organized under Georgia law and doing business in Macon on July 18, 1912, contracted together in writing for the term of five years, the former to supply electric light and power to the latter, which agreed to pay stipulated rates for the service.

The contract was performed for almost two years until in April, 1914, when the Dry Goods Company refused to pay a bill for service rendered during March, in which a rate higher than that of the contract was charged. The Service Corporation claimed that this rate was authorized and required by an order of the Railroad Commission of Georgia, entered after investigation and hearing.

Soon thereafter the Dry Goods Company commenced this suit to compel specific performance of its contract, which had three years yet to run; to enjoin the Service Corporation from charging the higher rate, and from executing a threat to cut it off from a supply of electricity, because of failure to pay the increased rate.

The trial court and the Supreme Court of Georgia both held against the claims of the Dry Goods Company, and the case is here for review on writ of error.

The order of the Railroad Commission of Georgia, entered on February 24, 1914, reads:

'Ordered: That on and after March 1, 1914, and until the further order of the Commission, the following schedule of rates shall be the maximum schedule of rates to be charged by the Georgia Public Service Corporation.'

Then follow the rates complained of.

No opinion was rendered in this case, but on the same date, in prescribing the same rates in a proceeding instituted by the Macon Railway & Light Company, also of Macon, the Commission said:

'The rates prescribed herein are in the opinion of the Commission at this time just and reasonable. We have no power to compel the company to accept less, except as implied in the power to prevent unlawful discrimination. * * * All special rates, whether in the form of contracts for definite periods, or informal, in excess of these prescribed rates are illegal.'

Of the several claims pressed in argument, we need notice only two: That the obligation of the contract of July 18, 1912, was impaired, and that the plaintiff in error was deprived of its property without due process of law, by the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia, holding that the rates prescribed by the Railroad Commission were valid and superseded those of the contract between the parties.

Long prior to the contract of 1912 the Railroad Commission was given jurisdiction over, and power to regulate, the rates of electric light and power companies by statutes in form not greatly different from those of many other states, and, since no reason is assigned for assailing their validity, other than the result in this case, they must be accepted as valid laws.

As we have seen, the rates prescribed by the Commission were declared by it to be reasonable and the Service Company was given authority to charge them. The plaintiff in error did not assert in its pleadings, or offer evidence tending to prove, that these commission rates were unreasonable, but complained, only that they were higher than the contract rates, and for this reason, it argued, that to give effect to the order as the state Supreme Court did, violated the provisions of the Constitution referred to.

The presumption of law is in favor of the validity of the order, and the plaintiff in error did not deny, as it could not successfully, that capital invested in an electric light and power plant to supply electricity to the inhabitants of a city is devoted to a use in which the public has an interest which justifies rate regulation by a state in the exercise of its police power. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 24 L. Ed. 77; Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 12 Sup. Ct. 468, 36 L. Ed. 247; German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Lewis, Superintendent of Insurance of the State of Kansas, 233 U. S. 389, 407, 34 Sup. Ct. 612, 58 L. Ed....