Ten Ten Lincoln Place, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co.

190 Misc. 174, 73 N.Y.S.2d 2, 1947 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2913
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 22, 1947
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 190 Misc. 174 (Ten Ten Lincoln Place, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ten Ten Lincoln Place, Inc. v. Consolidated Edison Co., 190 Misc. 174, 73 N.Y.S.2d 2, 1947 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2913 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1947).

Opinion

Powers, J.

Plaintiff owns a multitenanted apartment house in the borough of Brooklyn and is a customer of the defendant for electricity used for public light and power, i.e., for operating elevators, hall lights and other general building purposes. The defendant supplies electric service through individual meters directly to the residential tenants in the apartment house at the residential rates set forth in Service Classification No. 1 — Residential of the defendant’s electric rate schadule. Under date of December 18, 1946, the plaintiff informed the defendant that the plaintiff desired to submeter electricity to its tenants, i.e., to purchase electricity from the defendant at wholesale rates and resell to its tenants their requirements at retail rates, and requested a new contract with the defendant to effectuate this arrangement. Under date of December 27, 1946, the defendant informed the plaintiff by letter that, under its rate schedule, defendant’s electric service would be supplied to residential premises in the borough of Brooklyn only on condition that such service was for the customer’s own use and not for resale or submetering to others.

[176]*176In this action, plaintiff attacks the legality of the provisions in the various service classifications contained in the defendant’s rate schedule under which the defendant supplies electric service only for a customer’s own use and not for resale and submetering by such customer for the use of others.

This attack is based upon a comparison of the provisions relating to resale and submetering contained in various of the rates and the classifications in the defendant’s rate schedule and is embodied in allegations that, under the terms and provisions of those classifications, the defendant (a) extends more favorable treatment to apartment house owners in the boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, where submetering is permitted, than to apartment house owners in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, where suhmetering is not permitted; (b) extends more favorable treatment to owners of industrial and commercial buildings in all boroughs than to apartment house owners in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, and (c) accords different treatment to apartment house owners who submeter and resell electricity to their tenants and to apartment house owners who furnish electricity to their tenants without specific charge therefor separate from the rent.

The gravamen of plaintiff’s nine alleged causes of action is unlawful discrimination, in the respects above indicated, between the owners of multitenanted buildings. Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment that - such discrimination violates obligations, duties and liabilities imposed upon the defendant by the common law, the Public Service Law and the Federal and State Constitutions.

Defendant’s answer admits that the plaintiff is a customer of the defendant for electric service for general building uses at the premises in question and that defendant supplies electric service to apartment house owners and their customers throughout its territory under and pursuant to the terms and conditions of the service classifications mentioned in the complaint, but the answer otherwise denies generally the allegations of the complaint.

The answer also sets forth four separate and distinct defenses to each of the nine alleged causes of action and a fifth defense to the first and fourth alleged causes of action".

Defendant moves to dismiss the complaint upon the ground that the court has not jurisdiction of the subject of the action; that the court should decline jurisdiction of the subject of the action; that the complaint does "not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action; that the court in the exercise of its [177]*177discretion should decline to pronounce a declaratory judgment in this action; and under rule 113 of the Buies of Civil Practice on the ground that the defenses, including the denials, are founded on facts established prima facie by documentary evidence or official records and are sufficient as a matter of law to establish that plaintiff’s action has no merit.

Plaintiff has no right at common law to sue for the relief herein sought for the reason that the statute creating the Public Service Commission was intended to supersede all common-law remedies. (Purcell v. New York Central R. R. Co., 268 N. Y. 164.) There the court said at page 171: “ The statute creating the Public Service Commission and empowering it to supervise rates and charges was intended to cover the whole subject of rates and supersede all common law remedies.”

Nor has plaintiff any vested right to utility service or to any particular rate except to the extent that the Public Service Law grants it such right; and it is not entitled to invoke its constitutional guaranties of “ due process ” or “ equal protection ” under such circumstances. (United States Light & Heat Corp. v. Niagara Falls G. & E. L. Co., 47 F. 2d 567.) There the court said at pages 569-570: “ Except for this provision of law, there is no duty or obligation on the part of the gas company to furnish service to any applicant. Tismer v. N. Y. Edison Co., 170 App. Div. 647, 156 N. Y. S. 28; People ex rel. N. Y. Edison Co. v. Public Service Comm., 191 App. Div. 237, 181 N. Y. S. 259, affirmed 230 N. Y. 574, 130 N. E. 899. * * * A consumer or prospective consumer of gas in the territory has only such right as the Public Service Law gives him to complain of charges or service. As a general rule, a seller may fix the price of his product at what he pleases or dispose of it at any price, but the courts have determined that, where property is affected with a public interest, it is no longer juris privati; it becomes clothed, with a public interest when used and sold in a community under a franchise grant. Thus the gas company’s business becomes subject to the Public Service Law by réason of the interest which the public has. It must submit to the control by the Public Service Commission for the common good to the extent which it has clothed its property with public interest. But a citizen has no vested rights in statutory privileges or exemption. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th Ed.) 792. This gas company became bound to furnish gas within the city of Niagara Falls by reason of the Public Service Law. The consumer was not obliged to purchase gas; he was privileged to do so. A private right may be interfered with so long as it [178]*178is not vested (Cooley, Constitutional Limitations [8th Ed.] 749), and a right is'not vested unless it is something more than a mere expectation- as may be based upon an anticipated continuation of the present general laws (Brooklyn Union Gas Co. v. City of New York, 50 Misc. Rep. 450, 100 N. Y. S. 570). * * * The plaintiff and the intervener Hamann have no property rights which are affected by subdivision 6 of section 65 forbidding service charge. Their right to service exists only because of the statute referred to. It is not such property right as may form the basis of a claim for confiscation or discrimination. " If there be an exercise of arbitrary power against the consumer and wrongful enforcement by the commission of the Public Service Law, a remedy is afforded under the provisions referred to for the consumer to lodge his complaint, obtain. a hearing and redress. City of Rochester v. Rochester Gas Co., 233 N. Y. 39, 134 N. E. 828.”

Of similar import is the case of People ex rel. Pub. Service Comm. v. New York Telephone Co. (262 App. Div.

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Bluebook (online)
190 Misc. 174, 73 N.Y.S.2d 2, 1947 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2913, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ten-ten-lincoln-place-inc-v-consolidated-edison-co-nysupct-1947.