Opinion ID: 1495221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Service Complaint

Text: The intervenors claim that Swan's application for additional authority should have been handled as a service complaint. They argue that if Sanborn's service was inadequate, the proper remedy was a complaint under 35 M.R.S.A. § 291 and, following a hearing on that complaint, an order by the Commission of changes in the service as shall be just and reasonable. 35 M.R.S.A. §§ 294, 296. No grant of additional authority, the argument continues, should have been allowed until the existing carrier had been given an opportunity to furnish such additional service. We disagree. The public need for same-day service and Sanborn's failure to provide it were clearly demonstrated. Before granting the authority to the applicant, the Commission was obligated to consider the effect of that grant upon the intervenors. It was also obligated to consider the effect of the grant upon the highways and existing transportation facilities, as well as safety and the regulation of congestion on those facilities. 35 M.R.S.A. § 1551. As these factors suggest, the prevention of unnecessary duplication in public service enterprises is an element to be considered, at least by implication, in the evaluation of the need for a grant of additional authority in an area already served by existing carriers. The law does not, however, require that the Commission's power to grant the additional authority be circumscribed by any rule vesting existing carriers with an opportunity to remedy inadequacies before an additional grant of authority can be allowed. The limited rivalry which the law permits common carrier operators would be vitiated by a rule mandatorily precluding a grant of additional authority for the sole reason that the territory was already served by a carrier. See Schaffer Trans. Co. v. United States, 355 U.S. 83, 78 S.Ct. 173, 2 L.Ed.2d 117 (1957). In short, while the Commission could have remedied the scheduling inadequacies by treating the matter as a service complaint, it was not bound to do so. In any application for additional authority, the Commission must consider the existence of other transportation facilities and may consider the ability of those facilities to provide the type of service proposed by the applicant; but the mere existence of other facilities does not forbid the grant of the additional authority. The evaluation of the public needs in regulated industries and the provision of the manner in which those needs may best be fulfilled is within the informed discretion of the Commission, whose judgments will not be lightly disturbed. Dickinson v. Maine Public Service Co., Me., 244 A.2d 549 (1968). The service complaint is not an exclusive remedy and the Commission acted within its authority when it granted applicant the additional authority.