Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Highway, Inc. v. Public Utilities Commission

169 Ohio St. (N.S.) 195
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedMay 6, 1959
DocketNos. 35610, 35611, 35612 and 35613
StatusPublished

This text of 169 Ohio St. (N.S.) 195 (Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Highway, Inc. v. Public Utilities Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Highway, Inc. v. Public Utilities Commission, 169 Ohio St. (N.S.) 195 (Ohio 1959).

Opinion

Weygandt, C. J.

Section 4921.26, Revised Code, reads:

“Where industrial plants or other enterprises are located in a district which is outside but commercially a part of any municipal corporation, the Public Utilities Commission, on its own motion or on petition of any interested common carrier by motor vehicle or shipper, may, after investigation, notice, and hearing, determine and fix the limits of a zone surrounding such municipal corporation, and may include in such zone any adjacent territory, incorporated or únincorporated, which it finds commercially a part of such municipal corporation. Upon and after the effective date of an order establishing any such commercial zone, all common carriers by motor vehicle transporting property over regular or irregular routes and authorized to serve such municipal corporation as a point of origin and destination of shipments shall, by virtue of and in accordance with such order, serve such commercial zone in the same manner and to the same extent as they are authorized by their respective certificates to serve such municipal corporation. The commission may attach such conditions to any such order as, in its judgment, the public convenience and necessity requires. The commission shall give to all such carriers so authorized to serve such municipal corporation at least 10 days’ written notice of the time and place of any hearing had under this section. The commission may prescribe appropriate forms and rules for the administration of this section.”

Also involved is Rule 28 of the Public Utilities Commission, reading as follows:

“Commercial zones will be established or enlarged in accordance with the provisions of Section 4921,26 of the Revised [197]*197Code. In accordance with such section, proceedings for the creation of a commercial zone may be instituted by:

“ (1) Any interested common carrier.

“ (2) Any shipper affected.

“ (3) This commission on its own motion.

“All applications requesting the establishment or enlargement of a commercial zone shall be accompanied by an adequate and sufficient map setting forth the area in which a zone is requested to be established. On such map the location of each common carrier shall be noted, together with the location with the principal industries and/or shippers in the area. Such map shall correctly and adequately set forth the metes and bounds proposed for said commercial zone. In the case of an enlargement of a zone, both the boundaries of the existing zone and those of the proposed extension shall be portrayed.

“The test for the establishment of a commercial zone shall be:

“ ‘Is the area affected “commercially a part of” the city? If so, a zone will be established and all carriers in the area encompassed by the zone will be ordered by this commission to serve the newly created zone in the same manner and to the same extent as they are authorized by their respective certificates to serve such municipal corporations.’

“Reciprocal rights to serve each commercial zone created by this commission shall be extended to all carriers holding authority at any point in the zone as well as to those carriers holding authority within the municipality about which a zone is being created.

“No restrictions of any kind shall be imposed upon the authority of carriers located in a commercial zone to serve that zone other than those restrictions and limitations already contained in their specific certificates. No restrictions contained in existing certificates shall be removed or changed by virtue of the establishment of a commercial zone.

“Orders establishing a commercial zone shall not specifically require carriers to file new tariffs but shall simply state that the affected carrier shall serve the newly created zone. If such carriers do not file new tariffs after the establishment of [198]*198such zone they shall be required to serve the newly created zone at their presently existing tariff ratés.

“To the extent they are applicable, the other Buies of Practice before the Public Utilities Commission shall apply to the establishment of commercial zones.”

The appellants leave nothing to inference in urging their disapproval of the commission’s order when they emphatically insist that it is “arbitrary, unreasonable, unlawful and unconstitutional.”

This court finds itself unable to share these strenuous objections of the appellants.

Illustrative of these difficulties is the appellants’ first contention that the Public Utilities Commission is without authority to create a commercial zone in the absence of a showing and a finding of public convenience and necessity. This court unanimously held to the exact contrary in the second paragraph of the syllabus in the case of Beiter Line, Inc., v. Public Utilities Commission, 165 Ohio St., 1, 133 N. E. (2d), 135. It reads as follows:

“2. In establishing a commercial zone surrounding a municipal corporation, under the provisions of Section 4921.26, Revised Code, the Public Utilities Commission is not obligated, as a condition precedent to making an order creating such a zone, to make a specific finding that there is public convenience and necessity as to extended motor carrier service within such zone. ’ ’

And in the opinion Hart, J., employed the following rationale :

“By the terms of the foregoing statute, there appear certain indicia from which this court concludes that the commission is not required to make a specific finding of convenience and necessity as to such previously certificated motor carrier within the municipality in establishing such commercial zone. In the first place, the commission may, under the statute, sua sponte establish such zones without application or without hearing. In such a case its determination to establish the zone is sufficient without going into the issue of convenience and necessity, and, if the commission has such power on its own motion, that power [199]*199can not be lessened by tbe fact that an application has been filed and considered as a basis of its action.

“In tbe second place, tbe issue as to convenience and necessity has already been determined in granting certificates to the carriers already serving the corporations themselves, since the zone extensions authorized under the statute must be commercially a part of the corporations. In other words, when the commission makes the finding that the zone is ‘commercially a part of such municipal corporation,’ it, in effect, finds that there is convenience and necessity which is the very object of such zone extension. Furthermore, the commission has the power under the statute to attach through its order for such zone ‘such conditions * * * as, in its judgment, the public convenience and necessity requires.’

“Finally, the same result may be effected by the municipality itself by the extension of its boundaries by annexation of the territory comprehended by the zone, although under Sections 4921.02 and 4921.04, Revised Code, a municipality is precluded from supervising motor transportation companies within its territorial limits.”

Thp appellants’ second contention relates to the so-called reciprocity provision of the commission’s order. In conformity with its rule 28, supra, the commission lifted certain restrictions previously limiting six irregular-route carriers to the unincorporated area of Trumbull County.

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Bluebook (online)
169 Ohio St. (N.S.) 195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cleveland-columbus-cincinnati-highway-inc-v-public-utilities-ohio-1959.