Celina & Mercer County Telephone Co. v. Union-Center Mutual Telephone Ass'n

Citations

• 102 Ohio St. (N.S.) 487

Syllabus

<p>Public utilities commission — Jurisdiction — Telephone companies — Sections 614-2 and 614-20, General Code — Partnership association organized not for profit — ■Certificate of public convenience— Section 614-52, General Code — Constitutional law — Sections 1 and 19, Article I, Ohio Constitution — Section 1, Article XIV, Amendments to U. S. Constitution — Private property rights, equal protection and due process.</p> <p>1. A group of persons, denominating themselves a partnership association, organized for the purpose of erecting and maintaining a telephone plant in a village and surrounding territory, having been granted and having accepted a franchise to erect, place and maintain on the streets and public ways of the village, wires, cables and fixtures necessary to supply communication by telephone to the citizens of said village and the public, and having applied to the county commissioners for the right to erect poles in the public highways, becomes, upon doing any act in furtherance of the purpose or purposes, a telephone company under Section 3 of the Public Utilities Act (Section 614-2, General Code), and thereby one “engaged in the business of transmitting to, from, through, or in this state, telephonic messages,” and a common carrier; and as such is included in the term “public utility,” used in Section 4 of the Public Utilities Act (Section 614-2o, General Code).</p> <p>2. A telephone company when engaged in the business of transmitting telephone messages to, from, through, or in this state, is doing a business, the character and nature of which is public, as distinguished from private business; and such company, even though organized “not for profit,” having the attendant duty and responsibilities of furnishing indiscriminately its service, as a common carrier, cannot operate the kind and character of business contemplated in the exception provided in Section 4 of the Public Utilities Act (Section 614-2o, General Code).</p> <p>3. The provisions of Secti