Greensburg v. Public Service Commission

Citations

• 73 Pa. Super. 75
• 1919 Pa. Super. LEXIS 177

Syllabus

<p>Public Service Company Law — Public service companies — Water companies — Bates—Valuations.</p> <p>Establishing a schedule of rates or tolls that a public service company may lawfully demand is one of the most complicated and important' of all the many important tasks imposed by the legislature upon the Public Service Commission. The proper determination of such questions necessarily involves the consideration of many matters and things far removed from the atmosphere of an appellate court of law. It is, therefore, to be regarded as a settled principle that under such legislation, in an appeal from the order of the Public Service Commission, the inquiry of the court is not, whether the order is such as the court would have made in the exercise of administrative function, but whether the order was .a reasonable exercise of the discretion conferred upon the commission by the Statute.</p> <p>Where, on a complaint as to the reasonableness of the rates to be charged by a water company, there is ample evidence to support the findings of the commission, and where the rates complained of are fully warranted by the testimony of expert witnesses of the complainant, the Superior Court will not disturb the finding of the commission.</p> <p>Where the commission has determined a rate to be charged by a water company, an order of reparation will not be awarded to a municipality where the rate to be charged it has not been declared to be unjust and unreasonable by the commission although the rate charged individual consumers has been declared excessive. In such case the municipality is not entitled to reparation on its own rate. The mere fact that some of its inhabitants have paid a rate, in excess of that found to be just and reasonable by the commission does not give the right to the municipality to consider such excess payments as ground for refusing to pay the amounts due and owing by it to the water company. The question of reparation is not to be determined by the commissi