Opinion ID: 1908784
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Demurrer of Telephone Company

Text: Complainant, in her bill, seeks an order requiring the Telephone Company to discontinue service to the Botelers or, in the alternative, to monitor and keep complete records as to date, number and duration of time, of all telephone calls made by respondent, Ulma Lee Boteler, to any of the following persons or to any of the following telephone numbers (list of eight). Appellant's theory of the case seems to be this: That the Telephone Company, as a public utility, is under a duty to use all reasonable and proper means to provide effective, prompt and adequate service to its subscribers; that the only way appellant can secure such service is to require the Telephone Company to remove the Boteler telephone, or to supervise its use so that the respondent Ulma Lee Boteler cannot impair appellant's satisfactory use of her telephone by incessant nuisance calls. In appellant's brief the question presented is said to be as follows: Does a public utility, operating a telephone system and service, have any duty to aid a customer who is the victim of an incessant campaign of nuisance telephone calls from another customer of the same telephone company? With respect to this question it is stated as follows:    The appellant is unable to find any authority in any jurisdiction which specifically rules on this point. [We here note the following from brief on behalf of the Telephone Company: Our search likewise has revealed no decisions directly in point with this case.] However, the law of Alabama imposes a duty on the telephone company to provide complainant with `adequate' telephone service and to use all reasonable and proper means within its control to provide effective, prompt and adequate telephone service. Alabama Code of 1940, Title 48, Section 34; Vinson v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co., 188 Ala. 292, 66 So. 100, L.R.A.1915C, 450. It is apparent that appellant bases her right to relief against the Telephone Company on the supposed failure of the Company to render her adequate service as required by Code 1940, Tit. 48, § 34. This section is as follows: Every utility shall maintain its plant, facilities and equipment in good operating condition and shall set up and maintain proper reserves for renewals, replacements and reasonable contingencies. Every utility shall render adequate service to the public and shall make such reasonable improvements, extensions and enlargements of its plants, facilities and equipment as may be necessary to meet the growth and demand of the territory which it is under the duty to serve. The argument, as we understand it, is that Ulma Lee's calls prevent appellant from receiving adequate service, which she is entitled to, and that since the Telephone Company can remedy the situation by discontinuing telephone service to Ulma Lee (It is not clear from the bill which of the Botelers is the subscriber. We are treating it as though Ulma Lee is.), it should be required to do so. We are unable to follow this argument. There is no question that it is the duty of a telephone company, as a public utility, to use all reasonable means to provide its patrons with adequate and efficient service. Vinson v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co., 188 Ala. 292, 301, 66 So. 100, 102, L.R.A.1915C, 450; 86 C.J.S., Tel. & Tel., Radio & Television, § 66, p. 81. But there is nothing here to show that the Telephone Company's service is either inadequate or inefficient. If anything, the alleged circumstances disclose a more than adequate service. The facts alleged in the bill show a personal controversy which is solely between the complainant and respondent Ulma Lee Boteler. The telephone is a passive, impersonal service. If it is used as an instrumentality for the creation of a private nuisance the responsibility for the nuisance rests with the individual who abuses the service and not with the Telephone Company. Although in Vinson v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co., supra, the action was at law for damages for failure of the company to render service to a patron, due to the company's negligence, what was there said seems appropriate, by analogy, to the instant case, viz.: It is the duty of telephone companies maintaining lines and exchanges for the purpose of affording patrons the means of telephonic communications to exercise in that public service a character and degree of care and diligence and skill commensurate with their undertaking. All reasonable and proper means and agencies within their control should be employed to secure effective, prompt, and accurate service. The duty exacted comprehends reasonable and proper care, skill, and effort to afford for the service undertaken suitable appliances, instruments, and apparatus, and competent and skilled servants, agents, and operators. And if the appliances, instruments, or apparatus are defective, or if the operatives are incompetent or unskilled, or if there is other negligence in respect of the service undertaken, liability attaches for the loss or damage proximately resulting therefrom to one entitled to proper, prompt, and efficient service. Such companies are not insurers; and where the service undertaken is interfered with, or rendered ineffectual by, uncontrollable causescauses not traceable or ascribable to negligence or intentional misconduct in respect of the duty assumedsuch companies are not liable for a tortious breach of duty. 2 Joyce on Elec. Law, § 733. [Emphasis supplied.] We find no error in the ruling on the Telephone Company's demurrer. Motion of appellee Mary Nell Boteler to dismiss the appeal taken from the ruling on her demurrer to the bill is granted. The decree sustaining the Telephone Company's demurrer to the bill is affirmed. LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON and COLEMAN, JJ., concur.