Title: Greyhound Corp., SE Greyhound Lines Div. v. Carter
Citation: 124 So. 2d 9
Docket Number: N/A
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: October 21, 1960

124 So. 2d 9 (1960)
GREYHOUND CORPORATION, SOUTHEASTERN GREYHOUND LINES DIVISION, Petitioner,
v.
Jerry W. CARTER, Alan S. Boyd and Wilbur C. King, as and constituting the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission, Respondents.

Supreme Court of Florida.
October 21, 1960.
Rehearing Denied November 28, 1960.
*10 Wayne K. Ramsay and Milam, LeMaistre Ramsay &amp; Martin Jacksonville, for petitioner.
Lewis W. Petteway and Guyte P. McCord, Jr., Tallahassee, for Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission; A. Pickens Coles, Tampa, Clifford T. Inglis, Jacksonville, and Coles &amp; Himes, Tampa, for Tamiami Trail Tours, Inc., respondents.
KEHOE, Circuit Judge.
This is a petition for writ of certiorari filed by Greyhound Corp., Southeastern Greyhound Lines Division, to review order No. 4809 of the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission, granting intervenor, Tamiami Trail Tours, Inc., two extensions to its certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.
The two extensions involved are from Gainesville to Jacksonville via Orange Heights and Melrose over State Highway 27, thence over State Highway 21 to Jacksonville via Keystone Heights, Middleburg and Wesconnett (hereinafter called the Gainesville Extension) and from Canal Point to Jacksonville (hereinafter called the Canal Point Extension). In practical effect the first extension allows Tamiami a through service from Jacksonville to Miami via Tampa and the West Coast; the second, a through service from Jacksonville via Canal Point to Miami. Greyhound already operates several schedules daily between Jacksonville and Gainesville, though not over the particular route involved. Greyhound also operates from Jacksonville to Miami via U.S. 1 with several cross-state feeder lines joining the main line along the East Coast. Greyhound also has a certificate to operate from Jacksonville to Miami via Orlando, Canal Point and West Palm Beach but prior to the application here concerned did not operate such as a through service.
Greyhound, in its brief, urges several grounds which we consolidate for convenience' sake as follows:
1. The Commission departed from the essential requirements of law by permitting Tamiami to introduce certain resolutions, by allowing hearsay and opinion testimony, and in finding that the public convenience and necessity requires four new schedules between Jacksonville and Gainesville.
2. The Commission erred in finding public convenience and necessity required the extensions.
3. There is no substantial competent evidence from which the Commission could find that Greyhound has failed in its duty to the traveling public.
4. The Commission erred in not considering the service of Greyhound subsequent to the filing of the application by Tamiami.
Considering first the question of public convenience and necessity, it is clear that the overwhelming weight of authority, with which Florida is in accord, holds, as expressed by this Court in Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Wells, 100 Fla. 1027, 130 So. 587, 588; "The word `necessity' as used in the statute does not mean an absolute and indispensable necessity, but rather that the proposed service is reasonably necessary to meet the public needs." Possibly *11 the rule is best stated by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in Re John T. Donovan, 1921 D PUR 488 as follows:
or again, as the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia has said in Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Commonwealth, 193 Va. 799, 71 S.E.2d at pages 146 and 150:
See also State ex rel. Missouri Kansas &amp; Okla. Coach Lines v. Public Service Commission, 238 Mo. App. 317, 179 S.W.2d 132, at page 136.
In regard to the Gainesville Extension it should be noted that Greyhound's certificate was revoked by order No. 4808, certiorari from which we have today denied. However, even if we must look to conditions as they existed on the day application for the extension was made, Greyhound's certificate had already become dormant through failure to serve for a period of longer than 6 months without the formal approval required by statute. Thus the inquiry re the Gainesville extension is not actually one of duplicated service. No one was authorized, either on the date of application or on the date order No. 4809 was handed down to operate through Melrose, Orange Heights, Keystone Heights, Middleburg and Wesconnett. It is quite true that Greyhound was operating between Gainesville and Jacksonville, and that the Commission had recently authorized a reduction in that service but it seems to us that the essential point is that Greyhound was operating over an entirely different route leaving this particular route unserviced. Since Greyhound's certificate was dormant, no carrier, so far as appears, was certified to operate over this route. The question of public convenience and necessity thus has a different complexion on this extension than on the Canal Point extension which is essentially a duplicated service and to which different principles must be applied.
The Commission has found that "The testimony and evidence presented by the applicant (Tamiami) amply showed that public convenience and necessity require the proposed service. There is not only a present need for the service but the continuing rapid growth of this section of the *12 state and the West Coast area generally indicates a need from the standpoint of future public convenience and necessity."
This court's function in matters before it on certiorari has often been discussed (see e.g. Great Southern Trucking Co. v. Douglas, 147 Fla. 552, 3 So. 2d 526; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 149 Fla. 245, 5 So. 2d 708; Florida Motor Lines Corp. v. Douglass, 150 Fla. 1, 7 So. 2d 843; Tamiami Trail Tours v. Carter, Fla., 80 So.2d 322). In the last cited case in the original opinion which we readopted and adhered to in the rehearing of Alterman Transport Line v. Carter, Fla., 88 So. 2d 594, we stated as follows:
Likewise in the instant case there has been no showing that the Commission has done an illegal or unauthorized act, has exceeded its jurisdiction, or failed to accord with the essential requirements of the law, for it has found in a hearing completely regular under the statute that public convenience and necessity exists for service over a route not now served at all. Further considerations, which may or may not be sufficient standing alone to warrant granting the applications, add weight to the Commission's determination. Such considerations are the need and advantage of through bus service from the lower West Coast to Jacksonville  and indeed beyond in Interstate Commerce; the elimination not only of transfer of passengers from the facilities of one company to those of another, but the elimination as well of transferring from one station to another, with the attendant *13 loss of time, delay in baggage handling and general passenger inconvenience (cf. Tamiami Trail Tours v. Railroad Commission, 128 Fla. 25, 174 So. 451, 453). Having so found in a proper proceeding, the Commission did not depart from the essential requirements of law, provided that there was "substantial competent evidence" to support their findings. We discuss the evidence question below.
Coming then to the question of convenience and necessity for the Canal Point Extension, we are immediately faced with a problem of a different sort, since essentially this is a duplicating or competitive type of service. That the commission recognized that it was dealing with a different problem is apparent from its comments on the inadequacy of service over this route and its statement that "though Chapter 323, Florida Statutes, affords considerable protection for existing certificate holders against competition, it does not guarantee or contemplate a complete monopoly where public convenience and necessity for a new service is shown."
The question of an application by a competing carrier is governed in this state by the provisions of F.S.A. § 323.03(3):
This court has frequently had occasion to interpret this statute, thus in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 149 Fla. 245, 5 So. 2d 708, and Florida Motor Lines Corporation v. Douglass, 150 Fla. 1, 7 So. 2d 843, over a vigorous dissent, the court upheld the grant of a certificate of convenience and necessity to a junior competitor. In Great Southern Trucking Co. v. Mack, Fla. 54 So. 2d 153, 155, the court again had occasion to construe the statute which it did in the following terms:
Again in Alterman Transport Line v. Carter, Fla., 88 So. 2d 594, 598, on rehearing, the court receded from its original decision in the same case and the decision on rehearing in Tamiami Trail Tours, Inc., v. Carter, Fla., 80 So. 2d 322 in the following words:
As recently as Ace Delivery v. Boyd, Fla., 111 So. 2d 448, 451, the court reiterated its position in regard to competitive service saying:
The Commission in the case now before the court specifically found that "Greyhound has provided an adequate service between Jacksonville and Miami over its coastal route  U.S. Highway 1, but service over the inland route has been for less adequate. *15 The testimony shows a definite need for service for this area." The Commission further found that "public convenience and necessity require the proposed extension of applicant's certificate and the granting of these applications will have no appreciable adverse effect upon transportation facilities within the territory sought to be served by said applicant or upon transportation as a whole within the said territory."
Here, provided the Commission's findings are based on "substantial competent evidence," the court can find nothing illegal about the order or that it is against the essential requirements of law.
We come then to the important question of evidence. This court is committed to the "substantial evidence" doctrine in agency hearings and has phrased its concept of what constitutes such evidence in various ways (cf. The Substantial Evidence Rule in Fla.Administrative Law, Parsons, 6 U.F.L.R. 481). Most of the recent Railroad and Public Utility Commission cases seem to have settled upon the threefold formula "competent substantial evidence which is legally sufficient to justify the findings and conclusions" (Florida Motor Lines v. Douglass, 150 Fla. 1, 7 So. 2d 843; Pensacola Transit v. Douglass, 160 Fla. 192, 34 So. 2d 555; Benton Bros. Film Exp. Inc., v. Florida Railroad &amp; Public Utility Commission, Fla., 57 So. 2d 435; General Telephone v. Carter, Fla., 115 So.2d 554). However, "competent substantial evidence" is made the norm and is defined in De Groot v. Sheffield, Fla., 95 So. 2d 912, 916, (not a R&amp;PUC case), and that definition is made applicable to a Railroad and Public Utilities Commission case by Florida Rate Conference v. Florida Railroad &amp; Public Utilities Commission, Fla., 108 So. 2d 601, 607, as follows:
There has been an objection by petitioner to the introduction of hearsay and what it chooses to call opinion testimony from witnesses not qualified as experts. While it is true that several witnesses made hearsay statements and expressed opinions, they also testified of their own knowledge to such facts as: present traffic and parking conditions, present population figures, age and financial status of the population affected, present bus schedules and the inadequacy thereof, present terminal facilities and inadequacy thereof, present need either of the witness himself and his immediate associates, or of those interests which it was the duty of the witness to represent. These were facts from which the Commission could (cf. Eager v. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 113 Ohio St. 604, 149 N.E. 865; Atchison, T. &amp; S.F. Ry. Co. v. Public Service Commission of Kan., 130 Kan. 777, 288 P. 755) and did find that over the Gainesville-Jacksonville route public convenience and necessity required the granting of the application and from which the Commission could and did find that over the Jacksonville *16 Canal Point route present service by the certificated carrier was inadequate and that public convenience and necessity required the granting of the application even though it would result in competition for the existing carrier. Despite the fact that there was evidence admitted which would obviously be inadmissible under strict rules of evidence  if indeed administrative agencies are to be held to such strict rules  there was also admitted substantial competent evidence sufficient to justify the findings and conclusions. It is quite generally held that the introduction into an agency hearing of evidence which is irrelevant or incompetent will not of itself render the agency ruling invalid if there is substantial competent evidence to sustain the ruling, (Terre Haute Gas Corp. v. Johnson, 221 Ind. 499, 45 N.E.2d 484, 48 N.E.2d 455 under an Indiana statute similar to F.S.A. § 54.23; City of Pittsburgh v. Pennsylvania P.U.C., 174 Pa.Super. 224, 101 A.2d 127; Sisto v. Civil Aeronautics Board, 86 U.S.App.D.C., 31, 179 F.2d 47, under Federal Administrative Procedures Act; State ex rel. Potashnick Truck Service v. Public Service Commission of Mo., Mo. App., 129 S.W.2d 69).
Petitioner contends that Rule XIII of the Commission's Rules of Practice and Procedure, in effect at the time of the hearing, has been violated by the introduction into evidence of resolutions of various county and city commissions.
Rule XIII (last paragraph thereof) reads as follows:
Rule I reads:
The pre-hearing order provided:
This provision of the pre-hearing order seems only a paraphrase of the last sentence of Rule XIII, and in fact defines the limited use to which the Commission itself will put such evidence. There is nothing to show that the Commission made any other use of the evidence, and if its admission was error, which is doubtful, it was harmless error in view of the more than ample evidence of public convenience and necessity. All three commissioners were agreed that overwhelming lack of convenience was shown; we cannot agree that a lot of convenience does not add up to a little necessity (Tamiami Trail Tours v. Railroad Commission, 128 Fla. 25, 174 So. 451, 453). The concepts are so closely interwoven, as pointed out above, as to have meaning only when considered in conjunction one with the other (cf. also Union Pac. R. Co. *17 v. Public Service Comm. of Utah, 103 Utah 459, 135 P.2d 915). The need of the public stands in direct proportion to the lack of convenience.
Finally petitioner contends that the Commission should have considered its services, instituted subsequent to the date of the intervenor's applications. This question has been answered by the opinion on rehearing in Alterman v. Carter, 88 So. 2d 594, 598, already quoted, where we said:
Applying the rules which we have stated, it is apparent that the Commission was correct in granting the applications below.
It follows that the petition for writ of certiorari must be, and it is hereby denied.
TERRELL, Acting C.J., ROBERTS and O'CONNELL, JJ., and WIGGINTON, District Court Judge, concur.