Title: Aberdeen Cable TV Service, Inc. v. City of Aberdeen

State: south-dakota

Issuer: South Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

176 N.W.2d 738 (1970) ABERDEEN CABLE TV SERVICE, INC., Walter A. Brown and Stacy B. Brown, Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF ABERDEEN, South Dakota, A Municipal Corporation, J. Clifton Hurlbert, As Mayor and Member of the City Commission of the City of Aberdeen, Fred Gerdes, Hale Inman, Al Donahue and Bill Coester, As Members of the City Commission of the City of Aberdeen, and Winifred Kraft, as City Auditor of the City of Aberdeen, Defendants and Respondents, and South Dakota Television Inc., Intervenor Defendant and Appellant. No. 10731. Supreme Court of South Dakota. May 5, 1970. Rehearing Denied June 30, 1970. *739 Voas, Richardson, Groseclose & Kornmann, Aberdeen, for intervenor-defendant and appellant. Austin, Hinderaker & Hackett, Watertown, for plaintiffs and respondents. F. W. Noll, Aberdeen, for defendants and respondents. HANSON, Judge. On August 12, 1968 the Aberdeen City Commission enacted Ordinance No. 1187-Amended entitled: The Ordinance was referred to the electors of the City and substantially defeated at the election. The referendum petitions were determined by the trial court to be insufficient and the election void. Nevertheless, the court concluded Aberdeen Cable TV Service, Inc. was not a public utility and Ordinance No. 1187-Amended was in full force and effect as it did not grant a franchise and did not have to be submitted to a vote of the electors. Therefore, the sole issue on appeal is whether the Ordinance required submission to a vote of the electors before it could become effective. Community antenna television is a relatively new means of television transmission. It is described and explained in a symposium on "Communications" in Vol. 34, No. 2, Law and Contemp.Prob. on p. 238 as follows: In this state an abutting property owner in a municipality holds fee title to the center of the street, SDCL 43-16-3, subject and subordinate to an easement or servitude in favor of the public. "When a street is used for any proper street purpose by permission of the city authorities, such use does not constitute an additional servitude, though such use may not have been known when the streets were dedicated, appropriated, or condemned for street purposes, and the abutting fee owner is not entitled to compensation for any damages he may sustain by reason of such use." Kirby v. Citizens' Telephone Co., 17 S.D. 362, 97 N.W. 3. But an unauthorized use of the streets for private purposes is compensable. 39 Am.Jur.2d, Highways, Streets, and Bridges, § 160, p. 535. In this respect every municipality in this state is expressly authorized In State v. Scougal, 3 S.D. 55, 51 N.W. 858, the court pointed out the term "franchise" means a special privilege conferred by government upon an individual which does not belong to citizens generally by common right. Accordingly, the ordinance granting Aberdeen Cable TV Service, Inc. the right to erect, maintain and operate towers, poles, lines, cables, wires, and other *741 apparatus in, under, over, along, across and upon all the streets, sidewalks, alleys, bridges, and highways in the City of Aberdeen for the transmission and distribution of audio, visual, electronic and electric signals for a period of twenty years is clearly a franchise ordinance as it confers upon a private corporation for profit a right or privilege which does not belong to the citizens of Aberdeen generally by common right. Kornegay v. City of Raleigh, 269 N.C. 155, 152 S.E.2d 186; 36 Am.Jur.2d, Franchises, § 1, p. 723. The public utility commission is given general supervision of all common carriers in the state, except street railways, SDCL 49-3-4, and for this purpose the term "common carriers" shall be deemed and taken to mean "all corporations, companies, or individuals now owning or operating, or which may hereafter own or operate any railroad, express company, telegraph, or telephone company, in whole or in part, in this state." SDCL 49-3-1. These provisions merely designate the public utilities which are now subject to regulation by the commission. Obviously, all public utilities in this state are not under the control and supervision of the public utilities commission, such as water, gas, and electric companies. Furthermore, all common carriers are public utilities, but all public utilities are not common carriers. The question of whether or not a given business, industry or service is a public utility "does not depend on legislative definition, but on the nature of the business or service rendered, and an attempt to declare a company or enterprise to be a public utility, where it is inherently not such, is, by virtue of the guaranties of the federal Constitution, void wherever it interferes with private rights of property or contract. So, a legislature cannot by mere fiat or regulatory order convert a private business or enterprise into a public utility, and the question whether or not a particular company or service is a public utility is a judicial one". 73 C.J.S. Public Utilities § 2, p. 993. The term "public utility" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary 4th Ed. as follows: It is now settled that community antenna television is subject to governmental regulation and control in the public interest. The Federal Communications Commission asserted jurisdiction over both cable and microwave CATV by issuing regulations governing the carriage of local television signals, signal duplication, and prohibited cable systems, temporarily, from entering the 100 largest television markets of the nation. The Commission's power and authority to regulate all CATV systems was affirmed in United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157, 88 S. Ct. 1994, 20 L. Ed. 2d 1001. Also the state of Nevada imposed statewide public utility regulation over its cable television systems and its constitutionality was upheld by a three-judge federal court in TV Pix, Inc. v. Taylor, D.C., 304 F. Supp. 459. Therefore, it would now appear to be merely a matter of how extensive national, state, and local supervision will eventually be asserted and exercised over cable television programs, service, and rates. For our present purposes it is sufficient that the nature and character of CATV renders it subject to governmental control in the public interest. We conclude that within the purview of SDCL 9-35-1 and 9-35-3 Aberdeen Cable TV Service is a public utility. Consequently, franchise Ordinance 1187-Amended not having been submitted to and approved by the electors of Aberdeen, as required by law, is of no force and effect. Reversed. RENTTO, BIEGELMEIER and HOMEYER, JJ., concur. ROBERTS, P. J., not participating.