Case ID: ohio-st_112/html/0717-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The Federal Gas & Fuel Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
    
      Public utilities commission — Jurisdiction—Rights involved in action pending in court.
    
    (Nos. 18987, 18988, 18989
    Decided May 19, 1925.)
    Error to the Public Utilities Commission.
    These three cases involve similar facts and apply for similar relief. The complainants in the case before the Public Utilities Commission are all owners adjacent to and along property in which carrying lines of the Federal Gas & Fuel Company, the plaintiff in error, are located.
    In cases 18987 and 18989 a single complainant asks the Public Utilities Commission to order a single defendant, the Federal Gas & Fuel Company, to make service to his newly constructed residence.
    In case No. 18988 some 30 plaintiffs, joining four gas companies as defendants, ask relief similar to that prayed for in cases 18987 and 18989.
    The complainant in cases 18987 and 18989 prayed the Public Utilities Commission to- order the Federal Gas & Fuel Company -to- invest additional capital into making new service connections with the residences -of the complainants. The answer in each case alleged that the company ceased to be a public utility in Columbus upon November 10, 1924; that it had during all of the period in question no franchise contract with the: city of Columbus; that since November 10, 1924, the gas company has been compelled by an injunction issued by the court of common pleas of Franklin county, Ohio, to continue to furnish gas to consumers then on its lines, in Columbus, Ohio, and that the case is still pending in the court of common pleas of Franklin county. These facts alleged in the answer were admitted at the hearing. In each case the answer alleged that, the proceeding before the Commission would directly affect the rights involved in the court of common pleas of Franklin county; that, therefore, the Commission had no statement of the complaint, and that the statute under which the power of the Commission was authorized to be invoked was unconstitutional as being a derogation of judicial power.
    
      Gas, 28 C. J. §21.
    
      In case No. 18988 the complaint charged that the four named defendant companies are in effect and in law one public utility and that the real defendant is the holding company, the Ohio Fuel Supply Company, of which the other defendant companies are arms or agencies, and that the Ohio Fuel Supply Company is guilty of unlawful discrimination in refusing to make the connections requested. Each of the four defendants filed a separate answer in the case, but in the answer of the Federal Gas & Fuel Company it was averred that an action was pending in the court of common pleas of Franklin county, in which rights, were involved that would be directly affected by the complaint and order prayed for before the Public Utilities Commission. The Commission, upon hearing, granted the prayer of certain complainants; its order being in part as follows:
    “Said .the Federal Gas & Fuel Company be, and hereby it is notified, directed and required, within ten days from the date of the service of this order, to establish, or cause to be established, the service connections necessary to inaugurate the furnishing of natural gas service and to thereupon inaugurate the furnishing of its said service, at the premises for which application has been made to it by the following named parties, and each of them, to-wit — all in the City of Columbus, Ohio.
    “And it appearing further that it would require extensions of the distributing lines of this defendant company in order to provide service connections for the other premises described in the complaint herein and, since this Commission has only reviewing jurisdiction in the matter of extensions and there is no evidence that the City of - Columbus has initiated any legislation which would require the company to extend its distributing lines, the Commission is without jurisdiction at this time to order such extension to be made.”
    It appears from the record that the petition filed in the court of common pleas is in language in great part identical with the language of the complaint filed before the Public Utilities Commission, charging that the four named defendant companies are in effect and law one public utility, and that the Columbus Gras & Fuel Company is but an arm of a public utility which comprises all of the four gas companies named as defendants.
    The ease comes into this court upon petition in error.
    
      Mr. Freeman T. Eagleson, for plaintiff in error.
    
      
      Mr. C. C. Crabbe, attorney general, and Mr. John W. Bricker, for Public Utilities Commission.
    
      Mr. Charles B. Cranston and Mr. Charles A. Leach, for complainants in No. 18988.
    
      Mr. J. M. Lewis, for complainants in Nos. 18987 and 18989.
   By the Court.

Inasmuch as the record shows that the complaint filed with the Public Utilities Commission and the order prayed for directly affect rights involved in the cause pending in the court of common pleas of FranMin county, the Commission has no jurisdiction of the complaint. The order must therefore be reversed upon the authority of the case of Incorporated Village of New Bremen v. Public Utilities Commission, 103 Ohio St., 23, 132 N. E., 162.

Order reversed.

Jones, Matthias, Day, Allen and Robinson, JJ„ concur.

Kinkade, J., not participating.