Court Opinion

ID: 9583043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:34:19.841654+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:06.871910
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
dissenting.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 75-311 (Reissue 1981) provides that an applicant for a certificate of public convenience and necessity bears the burden of showing that the authority it seeks is required by the public convenience and necessity. In re *688Application of Red Carpet Limo. Serv., Inc., 221 Neb. 340, 377 N.W.2d 91 (1985). We have defined public convenience and necessity to include: whether the operation will serve a useful purpose responsive to a public demand or need; whether this purpose can or will be served as well by existing carriers; and whether this purpose can be served by the applicant in a specified manner without endangering or impairing the operations of existing carriers contrary to the public interest. In re Application of Greyhound Lines, Inc., 209 Neb. 430, 308 N.W.2d 336 (1981).
The determination of the issue of public convenience and necessity is peculiarly within the discretion and expertise of the Public Service Commission. Red Carpet Limo. Serv., Inc., supra. As the majority recognizes, the standard of review in this court for cases of this kind is well established. Upon an appeal from an order of the commission granting a certificate, this court decides only whether the commission acted within the scope of its authority and whether the order in question was reasonable and not arbitrary. As we stated in Red Carpet Limo. Serv., Inc., supra at 342, 377 N.W.2d at 93: “If there is evidence to sustain the finding of the commission, this court cannot intervene. It is only where the findings of the commission are against all the evidence that this court may hold that the commission’s finding on the evidence is arbitrary.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The evidence presented to the commission in this case met all the requirements for a certificate of public convenience and necessity. First, Regency Limo presented evidence that its proposed operation would serve a useful purpose responsive to a public demand or need. Regency Limo, Inc., proposed to provide round-the-clock luxury limousine services to celebrities, dignitaries, and businesspersons visiting Omaha and points outside the city. This is unlike the situation in Red Carpet Limo. Serv., Inc., where the applicant’s proposed services would have provided limousine transportation from the Omaha airport to points in the city, such services being identical to those already offered by Omaha taxi and limousine companies. Regency’s president and sole stockholder testified that he and his financial backers perceived the need for a *689more personalized and luxurious limousine service after entertainers visiting Omaha complained to them about the quality of existing limousine services. After further investigation into the feasibility of the venture, Regency concluded that a clientele existed for the type of service it proposed.
Regency subsequently purchased a 1985 Lincoln “stretch” limousine, complete with color television, stereo, VCR, telephone, and intercom. In the record the protestants conceded that Regency’s limousine was superior to theirs in features and luxurious appointments which presumably would appeal to the clientele Regency believed existed and hoped to attract.
Regency also demonstrated to the commission that its proposed services could not be offered by existing' limousine services. As noted earlier, the protestants acknowledged the superiority of Regency’s “stretch” limousine, a type of vehicle which no other Omaha-based limousine service currently owned or operated at the time Regency made its application. Without major expenditures for new and better-equipped vehicles (Regency testified that its stretch Lincoln cost $48,000), existing limousine services did not have the capability to serve the limited clientele to which Regency’s services were to be directed.
Finally, the fact that Regency met the first two requirements for a certificate of public convenience perforce establishes that it met the third requirement — that is, Regency’s purpose could be served in a specified manner without endangering or impairing the operations of existing carriers contrary to the public interest. The protestants conceded that they were not currently engaged in the type of business Regency proposed, in part because they lacked the luxurious vehicles needed for such an offering. That the protestants may have in the future been willing to expand their services to accommodate Regency’s targeted clientele does not establish that their existing services would somehow be harmed by Regency’s proposed offering. The simple fact is Regency developed an innovative marketing concept in the limousine service field that the other carriers had not considered. The commission’s granting of a certificate.of public convenience and necessity to Regency Limo should have *690been affirmed.
Boslaugh, J., joins in this dissent.