Court Opinion

ID: 9831067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:46:24.891041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:29.822209
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
The Legislature has provided the gas utilities with an adequate remedy against council-made rates by affording such utilities an appeal to the rate-making power, and the procedure of, the Railroad Commission. Indeed, the legal history of the various states in general, and of Texas in particular, discloses the fact that the need for creation of a commission to make rates, etc., largely grew out of the inadequacy of courts to deal with legislature-made railroad rates. They indeed had the power and duty to strike down rates which were made operative retroactively, or which were so extremely un-. reasonable and unjust as to be confiscatory, but as the courts have no legislative power, they could not fix rates which were just and reasonable, in lieu of those adjudged void.
 The mere fact that a rate may be retroactive or confiscatory or otherwise invalid does not necessarily confer upon interested parties the right to treat it as void for every purpose. Indeed, Art. 6452, R.S.1925, expressly makes the rates, etc., prescribed by the commission, conclusive and binding in actions between carriers and shippers until finally found otherwise in a direct action brought for the purpose in the manner prescribed by R.S. Articles 6453 and 6454. Indeed, the effect of these articles is to deny railroads- and shippers the right to question the-validity of commission-made rates in suits inter sese, because otherwise every case would be bogged down by the complications of rate-making, and thus redress be practically denied. Railroad Comm. v. Weld, 95 Tex. 278, 66 S.W. 1096. If, therefore, it was competent for the Legislature to make commission-made rates, binding as between carriers and shippers, because it also provided an adequate remedy to the parties by giving them a direct action against the commission to test the validity or fairness of such rates, no reason can be perceived why council-made rates shall not be made binding on gas utilities, unless and until such utilities appeal to the commission. At any rate, if the Legislature has provided an adequate legal remedy whereby gas utilities can secure redress for rates of which it is claimed that they are imposed retroactively, or that they are confiscatory or are-otherwise invalid, the gas utilities have-no right to invoke injunctive relief which courts of equity will give only where-there is no adequate legal remedy. The-legal remedy afforded by the Legislature against council-made rates of an appeal; to the R, R. Commission, and a trial dé-novo before that body to establish rates-that will be fair and just, is no more burdensome than is an application for a. writ of injunction. From the standpoint of public welfare, it is much more desirable that fair and just rates be established by a competent rate-making body, than that rates be struck down as void ab initio by an injunction, so as to leave the old. rates. *138in. effect, rates which the city council in any particular instance must be taken to have deemed oppressive. ⅝
Appellant’s motion for rehearing refused.