Court Opinion

ID: 9664423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:18:52.371519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:06.294390
License: Public Domain

SIMS, Judge
(dissenting).
I find myself unable to agree with that part of the majority opinion which permits *821the Board to cut off a customer’s electric service for the nonpayment of a bill to its predecessor Company. I will succinctly state my view.
It must be admitted the Board has the right to cut off a customer’s current for nonpayment of his bill. Were this not the law, it would be most difficult for public utilities to operate, as they have innumerable customers with small bills and cutting off the service for nonpayment of bills is the only practical way a utility can enforce collection thereon. However, this unusual remedy should exist only in favor of the utility whose customers actually owe it and the privilege should not be extended to one to which a customer is not indebted.
Furthermore, I am in accord with the majority opinion that the Monticello Electric Company and the Electric Plant Board had the right to enter into a contract whereby the Board would collect the unpaid bills for current furnished by the Company. But the provision in their contract that the Board would cut off the customer’s current if he did not pay his bill to the Company cannot be binding on the third party, the customer. As I read Johnson v. Carolina Gas & Electric Co., 106 S.C. 447, 91 S.E. 734, which is summarized in a note in 28 A.L.R. 494, it holds “a company supplying water to customers cannot discontinue service for nonpayment of past-due bills for water supplied at a previous time, under a contract made with another concern and assigned to the company; and that mandamus will lie to compel restoration of service in such a case.” That this was the real question decided is shown in DePass v. Broad River Power Co., 173 S.C. 387, 176 S.E. 229, 95 A.L.R. 545.
As I see it, the case at bar is much stronger than the Johnson case because here the accounts of the Company were not assigned to the Board, but the Board under its contract with the Company agreed to collect the Company’s past-due bills.
This contract between the Company and the Board undertook to adversely affect the duty the Board owed its customers to furnish them current so long as they paid the Board their bills, in that it agreed with the Company it would cut off the customers’ current in the event they refused to pay their bills owed the Company for current. In my judgment, the Board had no right to do this. See 17 C.J.S., Contracts, § 222, p. 592, where it is said, “A public service corporation cannot by contract deprive itself of the power, or impair its power, to perform its duties to the public.”
For the reasons given I most respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge BIRD joins in this dissent.