Court Opinion

ID: 9418425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:25:15.017356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.847817
License: Public Domain

*288Mr. Justice McReynolds
delivered the opinion of the , court.
Acting upon a complaint charging plaintiff in error, a water company, with demanding unreasonable rates, the Public Service Commission of Pennsylvania instituted an investigation and took evidence. It found the fair value of the company’s property to be $924,744 and ordered establishment of a new and lower schedule which would yield seven per centum thereon over and above operating expenses and depreciation.
. Claiming the Commission’s valuation was much too low and that the order would deprive it of a reasonable return and thereby confiscate its property, the company appealed to the Superior Court. The latter reviewed the certified record, appraised the property at $1,324,621.80, reversed the order and remanded the proceeding with directions to-authorize rates sufficient to yield seven per centum of such sum.
The Supreme Court of the State reversed the decree and reinstated the order saying — “The appeal [to the Superior Court] presented for determination the question whether the order appealed from was reasonable and in conformity with law, and in. this inquiry was in volved, the question of the fair value, for rate'making purposes, of the property of appellant, and the amount of revenue which appellant was entitled to collect. In its decision upon the appeal, the Superior Court differed from the commission as to the proper valuation to be placed upon several items going to make up. the fair value of the property of the water company for rate making purposes.” 1+ considered those items and held that as there was competent evidence tending to sustain the Commission’s conclusion and no abuse of discretion appeared, the Superior Court should not have interfered therewith. “A careful examination of the voluminous record in this case has led us to the *289conclusión that in the items wherein the Superior Court differed from the commission upon the question of values, there was merely the substitution of the former’s judgment for that of the commission, in determining that the order of the latter was unreasonable.”
Looking at the entire opinion we are compelled to conclude that the Supreme Court interpreted the statute as withholding from the courts power to. determine the question of confiscation according to their own independent judgment when the action of the Commission comes to be considered on appeal.
The order here involved prescribed a complete schedule of maximum future rates and was legislative in character. Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210; Lake Erie & Western R. R. Co. v. State Public Utilities Commission, 249 U. S. 422, 424. In all such cases, if the owner claims confiscation of his property will result, the State must provide a fair opportunity for submitting that issue to a judiciál tribunal for determination upon its own independent judgment as to both law and facts; otherwise the order is void because in conflict with the dud, process clause, Fourteenth Amendment. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U. S. 340, 347; Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, 235 U. S. 651, 660, 661; Missouri v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Co., 241 U. S. 533, 538; Oklahoma Operating Co. v. Love, 252 U. S. ,331.
Here the insistence is that the Public Service Company Law as construed and applied by the Supreme Court has deprived plaintiff in error of the right to be so heard; and this is true if the appeal therein specifically provided is the only clearly authorized proceeding where the Commission’s order may be challenged because confiscatory. Thus far plaintiff in error has not succeeded in obtaining the review for which the Fourteenth Amendment requires the State to provide.
*290Article VI, Public Service Company Law of Pennsylvania—
“Section 31. No injunction shall issue modifying, suspending, staying, or annulling any order of the commission, or of a commissioner, except upon notice to the commission and after cause shown upoU a hearing. The court of Common Pleas of . Dauphin County is hereby clothed with exclusive jurisdiction throughout the Commonwealth of all proceedings for such injunctions, subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court as aforesaid. Whenever the commission ■ shall make any rule, regulation, • finding, determination, or order under the provisions of this act the same shall be and remain conclusive upon all parties affected thereby, unless set aside, annulled, or modified in an appeal or proceeding taken as provided in this act.”
It is argued that this section makes adequate provision for testing judicially any order by the Commission when alleged to be confiscatory, and that plaintiff in error has failed to take advantage of the opportunity so provided.
The Supreme Court ' of Pennsylvania has not ruled upon effect or meaning of § 31, or expressed any view concerning it. So far as counsel have been able to discover, no relief against an order alleged to be confiscatory has been sought under this section, although much litigation has arisen under the act. It is part of the article entitled — “Practice and Procedure before the Commission and upon Appeal.” Certain opinions by the Supreme Court seem to indicate that all objections to the Commission’s orders must be determined upon appeal — St. Clair Borough v. Tamaqua & Pottsville Electric Ry. Co., 259 Pa. St. 462; Pittsburgh Railways Co. v. Pittsburgh, 260 Pa. St. 424 — but they do not definitely decide the point.
Taking into consideration the whole act, statements by *291the state Supreme Court concerning the general plan of regulation, and admitted local practice, we are unable to say that § 31- offered an opportunity-to test the order so clear and definite that plaintiff in error was obliged to proceed thereunder or suffer loss of rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. On the contrary, after specifying that within thirty days an appeal may be taken to the> Superior Court (§ 17) the act provides (§ 22): “At the hearing of the appeal the said'court shall, upon the record-; certified to it by the commission, determine whether or not the order appealed from is reasonable and in conform^ ity with law.” But for the opinion of the Supreme Court in the present cause, this would seem to empower the Superior Court judicially to hear and determine all objections to an order on appeal and to make its jurisdiction in respect thereto exclusive. Of this the latter court apparently entertained no doubt; and certainly counsel did not- fatally err by adopting that view, whatever meaning finally may be attributed to § 31.
Without doubt the duties of the courts upon appeals under the act are judicial in character — not legislative,' as in Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., supra. This is not disputed; but their jurisdiction, as ruled by the Supreme Court, stopped short of what must be plainly entrusted to some court in order that there may be' due process of law.
Plaintiff in error has not had proper opportunity for ah adequate judicial hearing as to confiscation; and unless such an opportunity is now available, and can be definitely indicated by the court below in the exercise of its power finally to construe laws of the State (including of course § 31), the challenged order is invalid.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania must be reversed and the cause remanded there with instructions to take further action not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.