Opinion ID: 2407622
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the cox act

Text: To arrive at legislative intent, it is necessary to look at the pertinent provisions of the entire Cox Act. The Act was broken up and codified in the official Revised Civil Statutes and the Revised Criminal Statutes of 1925. Accordingly, the Cox Act Section numbers and the Sections of the 1925 Revision will be shown. The Act, now Article 6050, begins with a broad definition of those subject to regulation thereunder: The term `gas utility' and `public utility' or `utility,'    includes persons, companies and private corporations, their lessees, trustees, and receivers, owning, managing, operating, leasing or controlling within this State any wells, pipe lines, plant, property, equipment, facility, franchise, license, or permit for either one or more of the following kinds of business: 1. Producing or obtaining, transporting, conveying, distributing or delivering natural gas: (a) for public use or service for compensation; (b) for sale to municipalities or persons or companies, in those cases referred to in paragraph 3 hereof, engaged in distributing or selling natural gas to the public; (c) for sale or delivery of natural gas to any person or firm or corporation operating under franchise or a contract with any municipality or other legal subdivision of this State; or, (d) for sale or delivery of natural gas to the public for domestic or other use. . . . . . . 3. Producing or purchasing natural gas and transporting or causing the same to be transported by pipe lines to or near the limits of any municipality in which said gas is received and distributed or sold to the public by another public utility or by said municipality, in all cases where such business is in fact the only or practically exclusive agency of supply of natural gas to such utility or municipality, is hereby declared to be [a] virtual monopoly and a business and calling affected with a public interest, and the said business and property employed therein within this State shall be subject to the provisions of this law and to the jurisdiction and regulation of the Commission as a gas utility. Every such gas utility is hereby declared to be affected with a public interest and subject to the jurisdiction, control and regulation of the Commission as provided herein. Section 1(3) of the Cox Act as it now reads in Art. 6050(3) provides: Producing or purchasing natural gas and transporting or causing the same to be transported by pipe lines to or near the limits of any municipality in which said gas is received and distributed or sold to the public by another public utility or by said municipality, in all cases where such business is in fact the only or practically exclusive agency of supply of natural gas to such utility or municipality, is hereby declared to be virtual monopoly and a business and calling affected with a public interest, and the said business and property employed therein within this State shall be subject to the provisions of this law and to the jurisdiction and regulation of the Commission as a gas utility. Every such gas utility is hereby declared to be affected with a public interest and subject to the jurisdiction, control and regulation of the Commission as provided herein. Section 2 of the Cox Act, as now carried in Article 6051: The operation of gas pipe lines for buying, selling, transporting, producing or otherwise dealing in natural gas is a business which in its nature and according to the established method of conducting the business is a monopoly and shall not be conducted unless such gas pipe line so used in connection with such business be subject to the jurisdiction herein conferred upon the Commission. The Attorney General shall enforce this provision by injunction or other remedy. The first sentence of Section 3 of the Cox Act came to be codified as Section 1 of Article 6053. In order to facilitate the reading of the section, we have divided the portions of the very long sentence at places where the 1925 revisers placed semicolons. Article 6053 now reads: The Commission after due notice shall fix and establish and enforce the adequate and reasonable price of gas and fair and reasonable rates of charges and regulations for transporting, producing, distributing, buying, selling, and delivering gas by such pipe lines in this State; and shall establish fair and equitable rules and regulations for the full control and supervision of said gas pipe lines and all their holdings pertaining to the gas business in all their relations to the public, as the Commission may from time to time deem proper; and establish a fair and equitable division of the proceeds of the sale of gas between the companies transporting or producing the gas and the companies distributing or selling it; and prescribe and enforce rules and regulations for the government and control of such pipe lines in respect to their gas pipe lines and producing, receiving, transporting, and distributing facilities; and regulate and apportion the supply of gas between towns, cities, and corporations, and when the supply of gas controlled by any gas pipe line shall be inadequate, the Commission shall prescribe fair and reasonable rules and regulations requiring such gas pipe lines to augment their supply of gas, when in the judgment of the Commission it is practicable to do so; and it shall exercise its power, whether upon its own motion or upon petition by any person, corporation, municipal corporation, county, or Commissioners precinct showing a substantial interest in the subject, or upon petition of the Attorney General, or of any County or District Attorney in any county wherein such business or any part thereof may be carried on. The second sentence of Section 3 of the Cox Act became Article 6054. That article says: All orders and agreements of any company or corporation, or any person or persons controlling such pipe lines establishing and prescribing prices, rates, rules and regulations and conditions of service, shall be subject to review, revision and regulation by the Commission on hearing after notice as provided for herein to the person, firm, corporation, partnership or joint stock association owning or controlling or operating the gas pipe line affected. The third sentence of Section 3 became Article 6055 which reads: If any rate or charge for gas or for service or for meter rental or any other purpose pertaining to the operation of said business shall be made or promulgated by any person, firm or corporation owning or operating any gas pipe line, or in the event of an inadequate supply of gas or inadequate service in any respect, and complaint against same shall be filed by any person authorized by the preceding article to file such petition and such complaint is sustained in whole or in part, all persons and customers of said gas pipe line shall have the right to reparation or reimbursement of all excess in charges so paid over and above the proper rate or charge as finally determined by the Commission from and after the date of the filing of such complaint. Section 5 of the Cox Act read: No such pipe line public utility shall directly or indirectly charge, demand, collect or receive from any one a greater or less compensation for any service rendered than from another for a like and contemporaneous service; provided this shall not limit the right of the Commission to prescribe different rates and regulations for the use of gas for manufacturing and similar purposes, and provided this shall not limit the right of the Commission to prescribe rates and regulations for service from or to other or different places, as it may determine; nor shall any such utility discriminate in favor of or against any person, place, or corporation, either in apportioning the supply of gas or in its charges therefor. This Section 5 of the Cox Act was rearranged in the 1925 revision to read, and the statute now provides: Art. 6057. Discrimination. No such pipe line public utility shall discriminate in favor of or against any person, place or corporation, either in apportioning the supply of natural gas or in its charges therefor; nor shall any such utility directly or indirectly charge, demand, collect or receive from any one a greater or less compensation for any service rendered than from another for a like and contemporaneous service; provided this shall not limit the right of the Commission to prescribe different rates and regulations for the use of natural gas for manufacturing and similar purposes, or to prescribe rates and regulations for service from or to other or different places, as it may determine. In 1925, the Legislature also revised our Criminal Statutes. It enacted the substance of the provisions of Article 6057 as a separate article, Article 1630, Revised Criminal Statutes of Texas. This Criminal Statute was directed in the new (1973) Penal Code to be transferred back to the civil statutes, and it now appears as Article 6057a of Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes. The first two sentences of Section 15 of the Cox Act provided penalties for violations of the Act, including unlawful discrimination: Any public utility as herein defined who shall violate any provision of this Act or who shall fail to perform any duty herein imposed or who shall fail to comply with any valid order of the Commission when not stayed or suspended by order of court, shall be subject to a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars for each offense, such penalty to be recoverable at suit of the Attorney General of the State of Texas in the name of the State and for its use, each violation to constitute a separate offense, and each day that such failure continues shall constitute a separate offense. Such penalty together with reasonable attorney's fees may also be recoverable by and for the use of any person, corporation or association of persons against whom there shall have been unlawful discrimination as herein defined; such suit to be brought in the name of and for the use of the party aggrieved and may be maintained in any court of proper jurisdiction, having due regard to the ordinary statutes of venue. The above section became the substance of Article 6062 in the 1925 Revision which now reads: Any public utility as herein defined violating any provision of this subdivision or failing to perform any duty herein imposed or to comply with any valid order of the Commission when not stayed or suspended by order of the court, shall be subject to a penalty payable to the State of not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars for each offense, each violation to constitute a separate offense, and each day that such failure continues shall constitute a separate offense. An additional penalty of a like amount together with reasonable attorney's fees may also be recoverable by and for the use of any person, corporation or association of persons against whom there shall have been unlawful discrimination as herein defined; such suit to be brought in the name of and for the use of the party aggrieved. The third sentence of Section 15 of the Cox Act read: For the willful violation of the provisions hereof on the part of persons, firms, and corporations owning, operating, or controlling gas pipe lines it is hereby provided that the owners, officers, agents, and employees of such gas pipe lines who may be guilty thereof shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and each violation of such provisions shall be deemed a separate offense and upon conviction thereof the party violating same shall be fined in a sum not less than fifty dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and may be further punished by confinement in the county jail for not less than ten days, nor more than six months. In the 1925 Revision of the statutes, this article became Article 1631 of the Revised Criminal Statutes of Texas of 1925. Upon the adoption of the new (1973) Penal Code, this provision was also transferred to the civil statutes. It is now carried as Article 6057b of Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes Annotated. Section 16 of the Cox Act also provided that if any corporation shall violate any of the provisions of this Act or any of the rules and regulations of the Commission, the Commission shall . . . apply to any court of this State having jurisdiction. . . thereof for a receivership. . .. Such receiver shall control and manage the property of such gas pipe line under the direction of the court . . . . The substance of this provision is carried forward as Article 6063. As mentioned earlier, pursuant to an Agreed Judgment entered July 17, 1973, the Judge of the 200th Judicial District selected and maintains an independent Board of Directors for Lo-Vaca which operates that company in accordance with the plan set out in the Agreed Judgment.