Citizens Electric Illuminating Co. v. Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Power Co.

Citations

• 255 Pa. 145

Syllabus

<p>Corporations — Public service corporations — Electric companies-r-Sphere of operation — Contracts with similar companies — Act of March 19,1903, P. L. 8k — Equity—Injunction.</p> <p>1. When the charter of an electric company indicates where the company may he located, the company can exercise its franchise only in the municipal division in which it is located, or territory adjacent thereto.</p> <p>Bly v. White Deer Mt. Water Co., 191 Pa. 80, followed.</p> <p>2. Implied repeals of statutes are not favored.' If two statutes can stand together the later does not abrogate the earlier.</p> <p>3. The Act of March 19, 1903, P. L. 34, authorizing electric companies to enter into contracts with each other for the use of the same poles, wires and conduits or for the purchase and. sale of electrical current, or for the operation of each other’s plants upon such terms and conditions as they may agree upon, does not authorize an electric company to supply another company occupying nonadjacent territory with electric power. The said act authorizes such contracts only between companies, both of which are authorized to supply the territory in question.</p> <p>4. Where an electric company authorized to supply a certain territory with electricity attempts without authority of law to supply electricity in another territory, an electric company authorized to supply that territory with electricity has standing in equity to maintain a bill to restrain such invasion of its territory, although' its franchise is not an exclusive one.</p> <p>5. An electric company authorized to supply a certain territory with electricity entered into a contract with another company, chartered to supply a nonadjacent territory with electricity but without plant of its own,, to supply such company with electric current. A third company, having a nonexclusive franchise to supply the same territory with electric current and having a plant located therein, brought a bill in equity to enjoin the first company f