Court Opinion

ID: 9585683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:02:45.304666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:52.292947
License: Public Domain

Ness, Justice:
This action is to vacate certain orders of the Public Service Commission approving the transfer of four Class “E” Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity.1 The trial court set aside the transfers and remanded the issue to the Commission for a hearing, 'with notice. We affirm.
In January of 1975, the Commission received applications for the transfer of two Class “E” Certificates from Westbury Trucking Co., Inc. to Willms Trucking Co., Inc. and two Class “E” Certificates from Harvin Truck Lines, Inc. to Westbury. In February of 1975, without notice or a hearing, the Commission approved -the transfers. A petition by some of the respondents requesting the Commission to grant a public hearing on the transfers was denied. This action was then brought by holders of Class “E” Certificates to have the transfers vacated.
The trial court properly set aside the Commission’s orders and remanded the matter for a hearing. We hold that prior to approving a transfer application, the Commission must give public notice of the proposed transfer; following receipt of a protest to the proposed transfer, the Commission shall conduct a public hearing.
*407We recognize the wide amount of discretion vested in the Public Service Commission by the legislature. However, in order to insure the wise application of the Commission’s authority, a full hearing, where the true facts surrounding the proposed transfers are revealed, is essential. See 2 Am. Jur. (2d), Administrative Law, Section 397. In Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 301 U. S. 292, 57 S. Ct. 724, 81 L. Ed. 1093 (1937), Justice Cardozo observed:
“All the more insistent is the need, when power has been bestowed so freely, that the ‘inexorable safeguard’ ... of a fair and open hearing be maintained in its integrity . . . The right to such a hearing is one of ‘the rudiments of fair play’ . . . assured to every litigant by the Fourteenth Amendment as a minimal requirement.” 301 U. S. at 304-305, 57 S. Ct. at 730.
The Commission’s discretion does not extend to making unilateral determinations of the necessity of affording notice. Considerations of due process require that notice be given in every instance prior to approval of a transfer by the Commission. In the event such notice provokes a protest, the Commission must afford all parties an opportunity to be heard at a public hearing.
A transfer is essentially a granting of the certificate in the first instance, and the interests considered in the original application should be considered in a transfer. The Commission’s procedure here effectively circumvented the entire theory of a regulated industry. It is arbitrary to grant hearings in one case where material rights are potentially affected, and then deny such safeguards in cases involving similar rights. Consolidated Freightways, Inc. v. United Truck Lines, Inc., 216, Or. 515, 330 P. (2d) 522 (1958), Cert. Denied, 359 U. S. 1001, 79 S. Ct. 1136, 3 L. Ed. (2d) 1029 (1959).
The power of the Commission to approve the transfer of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity was con*408sidered in Beard-Laney, Inc., et al. v. Darby, et al., 213 S. C. 380, 49 S. E. (2d) 564 (1948). While the issue of notice and a hearing was not addressed directly by the Court, a hearing was conducted in that case. The following language indicates the Court assumed that due process requirements were satisfied before the Commission approved a transfer: “We must assume that the door was open to the respondents and other protestants to establish, if they could, that the public interests would suffer from the transfer.” 213 S. C. at 390, 49 S. E. (2d) at 568.
We are unpersuaded by tire argument that the requirement of notice and a hearing will place an undue burden on the Commission.
“There can be no compromise on the footing of convenience or expediency, or because of a natural desire to be rid of harassing delay, when that minimal requirement (of due process) has been neglected or ignored.” Ohio Bell Telephone Co., supra, 301 U. S. at 305, 57 S. Ct. at 731.
Appellants assert this mode of approving transfers under Rule 37 has gone unchallenged for many years.
The fact that the Commission relied on Rule 37 in authorizing the transfer of certificates without notice and without a hearing, and that this procedure was unchallenged either in court or by the legislature neither lends legality to the Rule nor to the denial of notice and the right to be heard to these respondents.
Appellants raise numerous other exceptions which are without merit.
Affirmed.
Lewis, C. J., and Rhodes, J., concur.
Littlejohn and Gregory, JJ., dissent.

 A Class “E” Ceertificate authorizes the holder to furnish motor freight service over irregular routes in accordance with the provisions of the Certificate.