Court Opinion

ID: 3482976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 21:06:34.289271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:13:27.583660
License: Public Domain

It will probably be thought a work of supererogation for one, who agrees with the conclusions reached in the able opinion written by Judge Offutt for the court, to file a concurring opinion. When the opinion is read as a whole there should be no misconception as to its meaning, so far as any expressions therein are necessary to the conclusions. But it is always possible, in reading detached expressions and considering them out of their setting, to attribute to them a bearing not intended by the writer or by the court. For that reason, and to make my own position clear, I file this memorandum, in which I desire to state what I understand *Page 608 
to be the meaning of Judge Offutt and of the court as to the matters herein referred to.
It was not intended, as I understand, to suggest that there is anything in the record to indicate that a ten cent fare would be more than the service is worth, if such a fare should be found necessary to pay for the cost of the service and to give the company a fair return on the value of its property. Nor, as I understand, was it intended to indicate that a finding of the commission as to the proper amount to be allowed annually for accruing depreciation would be conclusive and unreviewable, even though the commission should base that finding on present value rather than original cost, if the amount so found should be manifestly unreasonable on the whole evidence. Here, the question of confiscation is involved; and in any hearing by a court on such a question it must be satisfied, not necessarily that it would have reached the same conclusion on the evidence, but, at least, that the conclusion reached by the commission was fairly deducible from the evidence. The opinion clearly indicates the kind of evidence on which a finding as to depreciation should be based.
There are some expressions in the opinion with which I am not in full accord, but they are not necessary to the conclusions reached. For instance, I do not agree with all that is said in what is designated in the opinion as the third method of approach to the question whether the schedule of fares authorized by the commission is confiscatory within the meaning of the State and Federal Constitutions, or unlawful and unreasonable within the meaning of the statute creating the commission.