The Penn's Grove record., 1915-05-21
COURT RULING
FAvORS P..S. C.
Decision Gives Company Pow
er to Evade Agreements
APPEAL TO ERRORS COURT
Ruling OF Court to Be Taken Up by
State Mayors League-Decision
May Effect Every Municipal
ity in the State.
Especial Trenton Correspondence.y

Especial Trenton Correspondence.)
Trenton.-The Supreme Court, in
an opinion by Justice Kalisch, has de-
cided that the Public Service Electric
Company, which is a subsidiary of the
Public Service Corporation, need not
carry out its contract with the city of
Plainf1eld to light free of charge GER
tain public buildings and offices in
part consideration for the passage of
an ordinance granting to the com
pany the use of the public streets for
its poles and wires. !
If this decision is upheld it will
mean that the trolley and lighting
companies will escape carrying out
their agreements with every munich
pality in the State. These agreements
call for the concessions in lighting on
the part of the electric light companies
n for paving and repairing streets,
carrying public officials free and school
children at reduced rates on the part
of the trolley companies.
In the Plainfeld case the contract
was made with the Plainfeld Gas and
Electric Light Company, later taken
over by the Public Service, which as
sumed its obligations. From 1898 until
February l, 1914, the terms of the
contract were kept. Then the Public
Service Corporation notified the city
that the public utility act forbade the
making or giving, directly or indirect
ly, of any undue or unreasonable pre-
ference or advantage to n corpora
ton or to any locality.
Utility Board Appeal.
Appeal was made to the Public
Utility Commission, which, issued an
order directing the Public Services
Company to conform to the duties i'm
posed upon it by the contract and
to furnish free of charge to the city
of Plainfield the service it had agreed
to furnish.
1t was held by the Public Utility
Commission that the law did not in
tend that any contracts or agreements
made by the Public Service of it's pre-
decessors should be null and void, but
rather that they should continue in full
force and be performed by the com
pany, and that the paragraph referred
to has to do only with the sale of the
service by the corporation. and has
nothing to do with any agreements
made by it or its predecessors in con-
s%ideration of franchise grants.
This order and ruling have been
set aside by the Supreme Court de-
cision, which holds that the evil sought
to be eradicated by the public utility
act was the insidious influence which
Nigh be exercised on municipal bodies
and officers against the general public
welfare by the donors of such gratu-
tiles" 1t appeared to the court that
the gratuity granted to Plainfield gives
undue and unreasonable preference or
advantage and is with in the inhibition
of the public utilities act. Also that
the Public Utility Commission is with
out power to enforce the specific per-
Torrance of contracts.
Affecting practically every munich
pal corporation in the State, this de-
cision has attracted considerable atten-
ito nand is to be considered by the
New Jersey League of Mayors, an or
ganization that was. formed recently
for the mutual benefit of the larger
cities and towns. Appeal has been
taken to the Court of Errors and APP
peals, which will soon be called upon
to interpret what the Legislature in
tended when it passed, in 1911, the
act creating a commission to supervise
the operation of public utilities.
The courts of the States have al
ready decided that agreements made
by trolley companies to carry police
men, fremen and municipal officers
wree when travelling in the perform
ance of their duties are unenforceable,
and that the companies are under no
obligation to give reduced fares to
school children during certain hours
of the day. So the decision in the
Plainfield case seems to be in line
with the presidents.
There is a paragraph in the State
Constitution which reads: "The Leg
islature shall not pass any bill of at
tainder. ex post facto law, or law
impairing the obligation of contract,
or depriving a party of any remedy for
enforcing a contract which existed
when the contract was made.
How this provision can be recon
ciled to the Supreme Court decision is
rot clear to laymen, though the courts
may find a way of doing it. The criti-
cism is that, as in the recent 90-cent
gas rate decision that was so generally
condemned, the courts are inclined to
favor the public utility corporations at
+ho evnonce Of tho npon1a