Southwestern Motor Carriers Corp. v. State

1942 OK 179, 125 P.2d 760, 190 Okla. 491, 1942 Okla. LEXIS 128
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMay 5, 1942
DocketNo. 30415.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 1942 OK 179 (Southwestern Motor Carriers Corp. v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southwestern Motor Carriers Corp. v. State, 1942 OK 179, 125 P.2d 760, 190 Okla. 491, 1942 Okla. LEXIS 128 (Okla. 1942).

Opinion

GIBSON, J.

This is an appeal by a protestant from an order of the Corporation Commission granting to a common carrier a certificate of convenience and necessity extending its class “A” motor carrier passenger service beyond its present operations as heretofore authorized.

The defendant in error Oklahoma Transportation Company filed its amended application for certificate of public convenience and necessity with the commission “extending its present operations from Lawton, Okla., via State Highway 36 to Fort Sill Military Reservation. Seeking to render service between Ft. Sill and all points it now serves; particularly Oklahoma City and Duncan, Oklahoma.” Plaintiff in error, Southwestern Motor Carriers Corporation, and certain others appeared in protest,. challenging the commission’s jurisdiction on the ground that it was without power to grant a certificate authorizing passenger service into a military reservation, and that the contemplated service was not between fixed termini as required by law.

After a hearing pursuant to 47 O. S. 1941 § 166, the commission entered its order granting the application to the following extent:

“For the transportation of passengers between Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, on the one hand, and all points now served under Amended Certificate No. 755 at and beyond Duncan, Marlow and Gerónimo, on the other hand, and in reverse order.”

And a portion of the application was denied as follows:

“It is the further order of the Commission that insofar as said amended application seeks authority to transport passengers between Lawton and Ft. Sill, as purely local movements, be, and the same is hereby dismissed for want of jurisdiction.”

The appeal brings here for review the action of the commission in overruling the objection to the jurisdiction as aforesaid; and protestant also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to show the existence of public convenience, and necessity justifying the commission’s order.

Under a former certificate, the applicant is now operating a passenger service through the city of Lawton with Marlow on the northeast, Duncan on the southeast, and Gerónimo on the south, as so-called gateway towns on its route leading into Lawton; that is, they are the first incorporated towns served by petitioner in all directions out of Lawton. Petitioner’s bus route as formerly established runs due west into Lawton, thence due south. Fort Sill lies north of Lawton and some four or five miles off this route. The order on review would permit applicant to run its busses off its established route at Lawton north to Fort Sill on State Highway 36, and back on said highway to Lawton for the purpose of transporting passengers to Fort Sill from or beyond the gateway towns aforesaid, or from Fort Sill to or beyond said gateway towns.

As above said, the protestant asserts that by reason of certain statutes (80 O. S. 1941 §§ 1, 2, 4) the commission was without power to authorize passenger service to and from a military reservation. But the commission in its *493 brief interprets the order not as authorizing service inside the reservation but only to and from the,point where State Highway 36 terminates at the south boundary of the reservation. We accept that interpretation, and will therefore give no further consideration to that particular jurisdictional question.

Protestant says the authority applied for and granted was not between fixed termini as defined by law, and the order was therefore without the jurisdiction of the commission.

Whether the boundary line of the reservation was a proper place for taking on and discharging passengers to and from incorporated towns beyond Lawton and points further on, and within the power of the commission to so order, must be determined from the statutes dealing with the particular subject. The general powers conferred upon the commission by the Constitution are not in dispute here.

The controlling sections are 47 O. S. 1941, §§ 161-166.

Applicant is a motor carrier within the definition of that term as contained in said section 161 (b), which reads in part as follows:

“(b) The term ‘motor carrier,’ when used in this Act, means any person, firm, business, trust, or corporation, lessee or trustee or receiver, operating any motor vehicle upon any public highway for the transportation of passengers or property for compensation or for commercial purposes, doing an intercity business and not operating exclusively within the limits of an incorporated city or towns within this state.”

It also' falls within the definition of a class “A” motor carrier as expressed in said section 161 (1), as follows:

“(1) Class ‘A’ carriers shall include all motor carriers operating as common carriers, of persons or property between fixed termini or over a regular route, even though there be periodic or irregular departures from said termini or route.”

By section 162 the Corporation Commission, as to motor carriers, is vested with full authority as now existing in it by virtue of the Constitution and statutes with reference to transportation and transmission companies, and the duty is enjoined upon it, “to supervise and regulate every motor carrier doing an intercity business, whether operating between fixed termini or over a regular route or otherwise and not operating exclusively within the limits of an incorporated city or town in this state; . . .’”

It is not disputed here that the commission has general powers to authorize class “A” motor carrier service on the highways, if the carrier is to operate an intercity business, where the public convenience and necessity may demand, or for like reason, extend any such service theretofore authorized. Section 166, supra, provides in part as follows:

“It is hereby declared unlawful for any motor carrier heretofore defined as a class ‘A’ carrier, to operate or furnish service within this state without having obtained from the Corporation Commission a certificate declaring that public convenience and necessity require such operation. The Corporation Commission shall have power, and it shall be its duty after public hearing, to issue said certificate as prayed for, or to refuse to issue the same, or to issue it for the partial exercise only of said privilege sought, and may attach' to the exercise of the rights granted by such certificate, such terms and conditions as in its judgment the public convenience and necessity may require. The Corporation Commission may at any time after a hearing and for good cause, suspend, alter, amend or revoke any such certificate.”

And the same section requires the carriers to “operate and furnish service in strict conformity with the current existing terms and provisions of their respective certificates of convenience and necessity.”

Under the above statutes the commission is authorized to grant to any suitable party a certificate of convenience and necessity as a class “A” motor car *494

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Bluebook (online)
1942 OK 179, 125 P.2d 760, 190 Okla. 491, 1942 Okla. LEXIS 128, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southwestern-motor-carriers-corp-v-state-okla-1942.