Case ID: pa_254/html/0289-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Pennsylvania Utilities Company, Appellant, v. Lehigh Navigation Electric Company and the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania.
    
      Corporations — Public Service 'Company — Rights of companies exercising franchises prior to the time the Public Service Commission Act of July %6, 1918, P. L. 187-1-, went into effect.
    
    Where it did not affirmatively appear that a Public Service Corporation had not, prior to January 1, 1914, the time the Public Service Commission Act of July 26,1913, went into effect, actually commenced to exercise its franchises in the territory covered by its ■charter, it was not error to dismiss an appeal from the action of the Public Service Commission, refusing to interfere with the company’s exercise of its franchises in the said territory.
    Argued Jan. 14, 1916.
    Appeal, No. 8, May T., 1915, by Pennsylvania Utilities Company, from order of C. P. Dauphin Co., Commonwealth Docket 1914, No. 75, dismissing appeal from the action of the Public Service Commission in case of Pennsylvania Utilities Company v. Lehigh Navigation Electric Company and The Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania.
    Before Brown, C. J., Mestrezat, Stewart, Frazer and Walling, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Appeal from the order Of the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin 'County dismissing appeal from decision of the Public Service Commission.
    From the record it appeared that the appellant is a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of thQ Commonwealth of Pennsylvania having the right by its charter and by purchases of and mergers with other corporations to supply heat, light and power, or either of them, by electricity to certain townships of Pike, Monroe and Northampton Counties and to the Boroughs of Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, Bangor, East Bangor, Penn Argyl, Wind Gap, Bath, Nazareth, Glendon, Portland and the City of Easton, and that it had furnished electric light and power to these municipalities for periods running from three to twenty years. The Le-high Navigation Electric Company, appellee, was formed by the merger of certain electric companies and ■ by its charter, approved January 6,1913, was authorized . to do business, inter alia, in certain townships of Monroe and Northampton Counties, including districts served by appellant. The appellant company filed a complaint with the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania, praying that the appellee should be prevented from entering upon the territory prescribed in its charter because of the fact that the territory was already occupied by appellant. The Public Service Commission dismissed the complaint on answer and demurrer upon the ground that it had no jurisdiction over the appellee company under the provisions of the Act of July 26, 1913, P. L. 1374.
    The Pennsylvania Utilities Company, complainant, appealed to the Common Pleas of Dauphin County from the order of the commission dismissing its complaint. It did not affirmatively appear that the Lehigh Navigation Company had not, prior to January 1,1914, actually commenced to exercise its franchises in the territory covered by its charter.
    
      Error assigned was the decree of the court dismissing the appeal.
    
      John R. Geyer, of Fox & Geyer, with him E. E. Beidleman, for appellant.
    
      
      William Jay Turner, for Lehigh Navigation Electric Co., appellee.
    
      William N. Trinkle, for the Public Service Commission, appellee.
    May 23, 1916:
   Per Curiam,

As it did not affirmatively appear that the Lehigh Navigation Electric Company had not, prior to January 1, 1911, — the date when the Public Service Commission Act went into effect, — actually commenced to exercise its franchises in the territory covered by its charter, the court below did not err in dismissing appellant’s appeal from the action of the Public Service Commission.

Appeal dismissed at appellant’s costs.