Emporia Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Commission

Citations

• 97 Kan. 136
• 154 P. 262
• 1916 Kan. LEXIS 243

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Telephone Rates — Not Compensatory — Findings of Court. Findings of fact made by the district court in an action against the public utilities commission, respecting the cost of service, examined and held to be supported by the evidence.</p> <p>2. Telephone Franchise — Charges Payable to City — Not Unreasonable. Under the statute relating to cities of the second class, providing that the grantee of a franchise shall pay to the city such fixed charge as may be prescribed, a requirement that one hundred dollars a month shall be paid, by a telephone company is not so excessive as to warrant the interference of a court.</p> <p>3. Telephone Rates — Courts No Power to Fix Rates. A court, having no power to fix a rate to be charged by a public utility for services to be rendered in the future, can not accomplish that result indirectly by enjoining interference with a rate which it finds to have been unassailable in the past.</p> <p>4. Telephone Rates • — • insufficient to Pay Cost of Service —■ Power of Courts — Injunction. Where a statute fixes the rate to be charged by a public utility, and forbids its increase except with the consent of the utilities commission, in an action brought to set aside an order of the commission denying an application for an increase the court may, if the existing rate is found to be confiscatory because insufficient to pay the cost of service, adjudge the part of the statute fixing such rate to be inoperative, and enjoin the enforcement of the penalties provided for its violation.</p> <p>5. Telephone Rates — When Utility May Establish Its Own Rate. Where a court having jurisdiction determines that a rate fixed by the statute and approved by the utilities commission is confiscatory, the utility is left free to operate under such rate as it may establish until a new one has been fixed by the commission.</p>