Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission

211 A.D. 253, 207 N.Y.S. 599, 1925 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 10610
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedJanuary 7, 1925
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 211 A.D. 253 (Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission, 211 A.D. 253, 207 N.Y.S. 599, 1925 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 10610 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1925).

Opinion

Hinman, J.:

The numerous issues now presented are to a large extent .the issues presented upon the former review. The main reason assigned for such repetition is the renewed contention of petitioner, not expressly passed upon in our former opinion, that it is entitled to raise the question of confiscation of its property under the rate fixed by the Commission; that upon the determination of that question in a certiorari proceeding it is entitled to the independent judgment of the court upon the facts as well as the law; and that if this court does not possess the power in this proceeding to exercise its own independent judgment upon both the law and the facts, the statute under which the determination of the Commission was made is unconstitutional and void. To provide for the contingency that this court may find justification for assuming this broader power in determining the weight of evidence, under a broader interpretation of section 1304 of the Civil Practice Act than that heretofore assigned to it by our highest court, the petitioner has again presented the alleged errors not corrected by this court on the former review. It seems important that we should present our views on this issue at the outset because it underlies our determination of the errors assigned.

The petitioner claims that the order and determination of the Public Servicé Commission confiscate its property, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and that, therefore, the petitioner is entitled to have that question [257]*257determined by a court exercising its own independent judgment as to both the facts and the law. It has been settled that an order of a State Public Service Commission prescribing a schedule of maximum future rates is legislative in character; and that in such cases, if the owner claims confiscation of his property will result, the State must provide a fair opportunity for submitting that issue to a judicial tribunal for determination upon its own independent judgment as to both law and facts; otherwise the order is void because in conflict with the due process clause, Fourteenth Amendment.” (Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U. S. 287, 289.) On the strength of this decision of the Supreme Court we are asked to reconsider the limits of our judicial authority in a certiorari to review such a determination. It is practically conceded, however, that in the exercise of its power finally to construe laws of this State, the Court of Appeals has definitely indicated that in such a certiorari proceeding the courts! of this State have no power to substitute their own independent!' judgment upon the facts for that of the Commission. (People ex rel. N. Y. & Queens Co. Gas Co. v. McCall, 219 N. Y. 84; 245 U. S. 345.) It does not follow, however, that the above decision in Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough necessarily condemns the New" York practice and interpretation in certiorari. The very fact that the practice of New York State has received substantial approval by the United States Supreme Court in as recent a case as People ex rel. N. Y. & Queens Co. Gas Co. v. McCall (supra) leads us to scrutinize the more carefully its more recent decision. In Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough (supra) the United States Supreme Court was considering the law of Pennsylvania as construed by its highest court. The real underlying question in that case was whether the Supreme Court of that State had ruled as a matter of statutory interpretation that the sole method of challenging the validity of such legislative order under the Pennsylvania statute was by the appeal had in that case, to the exclusion of a bill in equity to enjoin enforcement, the unrestricted remedy commonly pursued in such cases. Taking into consideration certain opinions by the State Supreme Court which seemed to indicate that “ all objections to the Commission’s orders must be determined upon appeal,” and taking into consideration the State statute as a whole, the United States Supreme Court was unable to say that a certain other specified section of the local statute “ offered an opportunity to test the order so clear and definite that plaintiff in error was obliged to proceed thereunder or suffer loss of rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.” Since [258]*258the State Supreme Court had in such circumstances ruled, in effect, that in such exclusive remedy of “ appeal ” the jurisdiction of the court “ stopped short of what must be plainly entrusted to some court in order that there may be due process of law,”'— “ an adequate judicial hearing as to confiscation,” the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was reversed and the cause was remanded there with instructions to take further action not inconsistent with the opinion of the United States Supreme Court. The action suggested was that the State court, in the exercise of its power finally to construe laws of the State, should re-examine the local statutes; and the holding was that the challenged order was invalid only in the event that the court below failed to definitely' indicate a construction of the local law which would make available an adequate judicial hearing as to confiscation. No such condition of statute or statutory construction exists in New York State so far as we can see. There has been no statute or decision of the Court of Appeals prescribing that certiorari is the exclusive remedy in this State whereby the Commission’s orders may be challenged because confiscatory. There is no statute or decision in this State which we can find which does not leave open to the company, besides the limited review by certiorari, the right to resort to a suit for injunction either in the State or Federal court. The fact is that no difficulty has been experienced in the past in pursuing such a suit in either State or Federal court when challenging the validity of a legislative act or order of this nature, to enjoin its enforcement. (Public Service Comm. v. Brooklyn Borough Gas Co., 189 App. Div. 62; Prendergast v. New York Telephone Company, 262 U. S. 43; Belt Line R. Corp. v. Newton, 273 Fed. 272.) We have no doubt that this common practice, giving an unrestricted remedy, is and has been available to the company in this State in addition to the limited review by certiorari, which distinguishes the decision in Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough (supra). We conclude it to be our duty to follow the practice approved in People ex rel. N. Y. & Queens Co. Gas Co. v. McCall (supra) which we have adopted in our previous decision in this ease and in cases of a like nature. In such cases we do not substitute our judgment upon the facts for that of the Commission but we exercise the power to review questions of law and we do not examine the facts further than to determine whether there was substantial evidence to sustain the order. In the present case we may examine the facts to see whether there is substantial evidence on which the valuation of petitioner’s gas lands fixed by the Commission could reasonably have been found to be the present value of those lands. The company is entitled to a reasonable return on the value of the [259]*259property used in the public service at the time it is being so used.

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Bluebook (online)
211 A.D. 253, 207 N.Y.S. 599, 1925 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 10610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pennsylvania-gas-co-v-public-service-commission-nyappdiv-1925.