Court Opinion

ID: 5448842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-08 18:15:48.218354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:32:18.287352
License: Public Domain

HARRISON, J.,
concurring. I concur in the reversal of the judgment and order of the superior court. In finding the value as well as the cost of the plant the court included many items which were not proper to be considered for that purpose, and which are mentioned in the opinion of Mr. Justice Van Fleet as improperly constituting a part of the cost of the plant. While the cost of the plant may be properly considered as an element of evidence in ascertaining its value, I am clearly of opinion that it sho-uld not form the basis of estimating the revenue which the water company is entitled to receive. The value of the plant may change from year to year as materially as may the cost of operating the works, and there is good reason fox holding that *587tbe constitution requires the rates to be fixed each year, in order that they may be adjusted to this changing oí value. It is not necessary here to lay down a rule which shall be applicable to all conceivable conditions, since the conditions governing in one municipality, or attending the supply of water to its inhabitants, will hardly ever be the same elsewhere, and it is only proper in the present ease to consider the circumstances attending the water company and the municipality now before the court.
In designating the city council as the body to fix these rates the constitution has clearly indicated that they are not to be fixed by the courts. The water company has the right to protection by the judiciary from the enforcement of such rates as will deprive it of compensation for furnishing the water; but if the rates fixed by the council afford compensation to the water company, the question of the reasonableness of this compensation is a question of fact which is not open to review by the courts. If the courts are authorized to determine the amount of compensation which will be reasonable, the rates will be fixed by them, rather than by the city council; and, for the same reason, the city council, and not the courts, are authorized to determine whether the rates, to be reasonable, shall be fixed at such amount as will yield to the water company any definite rate of interest.
Even if it should be conceded that reasonable rates would be such as will yield to the water company a return equal to the lowest current rate of interest on the value of its property, it appears from the findings of the court that the rates fixed herein yielded a return of more than three per cent upon the value of the plant, and it is a matter of general notoriety that this is more than is on an average received by capitalists from permanent or fixed investments with the guaranty of the government as their security. What may be the lowest current rate of interest upon an investment depends upon so many circumstances that no particular rate can be predicated in advance of any particular investment, but it is in all instances a question of fact and not of law, and is not to be determined by the judiciary. After it has been determined by the city council, the judiciary are not authorized to set aside its determination on the ground that in its judgment it is too small, any more than it could set aside *588the rates on the ground that the income yielded thereby would be too great.