Bethlehem City Water Co. v. Public Service Commission

Citations

• 70 Pa. Super. 499
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 286

Syllabus

<p>Public Service Commission — Jurisdiction — Chartered powers — Water companies.</p> <p>An appeal from an order of the Public Service Commission, either granting or refusing a certificate of public convenience, cannot be made a substitute for a writ of quo warranto or other legal proceeding in which it may be judicially determined what franchises, claimed by any chartered company, are active and in full force. In granting a certificate of public convenience the commission confers no new chartered powers on any company. It takes away from no company any right or power then legally existing. As it is not a judicial body but an administrative one, its order, made from the standpoint of the public convenience solely, cannot be made the foundation for the judicial determination of what franchises do or do not belong to any corporation interested. Such matters must be determined as heretofore in a legal proceeding properly instituted in the courts for that purpose.</p> <p>A certificate of public convenience permitting a water company to extend its pipes into a neighboring township will not be reversed at the instance of another water company having the chartered, but not exclusive right, to serve such township with water, where there is nothing to show that the franchises of the latter company were encroached upon in any unreasonable manner by the order of the Public Service Commission.</p>