Court Opinion

ID: 9564942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:11:54.349044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:16.373020
License: Public Domain

Head, Presiding Justice,
dissenting. The beneficent result anticipated from the enactment of the Federal “Rural Electrification Act” of 1936 (7 U.S.C.A. § 902), and the act of the General Assembly of Georgia of 1937 (Ga. L. 1937, p. 644) as amended, is not advanced by the opinion and judgment of the court in the present case.
Paragraph 2 of the petition alleges in part that the Planters Electric Membership Corporation “on or about December 12, 1961, in contravention of the limitations imposed upon it by the Electric Membership Corporation Act of 1937 as revised, be*845gan the construction of new power lines in an area already served by your petitioner by erecting poles and stringing power lines along the western side of Georgia Highway No. 21, such lines being carried through the Town of Shawnee, Effingham County, Georgia, said lines now being constructed under and across the existing lines of your petitioner. The purpose of these operations is to furnish electric service to A. E. Graham, Jr., whose new residence is now under construction and is situated on Georgia Highway 21, -approximately 1,200 yards south of Shawnee in an -area which has been served by your petitioner under the supervision of the Georgia Public Service Commission since 1940.”
The defendant’s demurrer, sustained by the trial judge, recites: “That the allegation in the petition as amended does not set out a cause of action against this defendant because under the Electric Membership Corporation Act of 1937, as revised, it does not prohibit the serving by the defendant of anyone in a rural area, who is now being served by a corporation regulated by the Public Service Commission of the State of Georgia.”
As I construe the opinion of the court in the present case, it rests solely on the fact that the person constructing a new home in a rural area and seeking service from the defendant membership corporation was not then receiving electrical service or energy from a company under the jurisdiction of the Georgia Public Service Commission.
Paragraph 1 of section 3 of the act of 1937 provides where and to whom electrical service by electric membership corporations can be furnished, and reads as follows: “The furnishing of electric energy to persons in rural areas who are not receiving electric service from any corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the Georgia Public Service Commission, or from any municipal corporation.” (Italics supplied.)
The writer recognizes the general rule that the plural will include the singular. Code § 102-102 (4). Therefore one person in a rural area served by an electric membership corporation would be entitled to make application and procure energy from such corporation. As applicable in this State, both the Federal act *846and the Georgia law contemplate “electric energy to persons in rural areas” not receiving electric service from a corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the Georgia Public Service Commission. The question is not whether or not a person may be actually receiving electrical energy (and admittedly the person to be served in this instance was not because he was constructing a new residence), but whether or not electrical energy is available to him from a corporation under the jurisdiction of the Georgia Public Service Commission. If the energy is available by a corporation under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission, such corporation can be required by the Commission to render the service. It is my opinion that it was not contemplated by the terms of the Federal Rural Electrification Act of 1936, or the Georgia Act of 1937, to promote a system of competition with existing public service corporations, but to make electrical energy available to persons in rural areas where existing distributors of electrical energy were unable, or unwilling, to furnish such services. I therefore dissent from the decision and judgment of the court in the present case.