In Re Engelhard & Sons Co.

Citations

• 231 U.S. 646
• 34 S. Ct. 258
• 58 L. Ed. 416
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1436

Syllabus

<p>In a suit by á public utility corporation to enjoin, enforcement of rates claimed to be confiscatory, the municipality is the proper party to be made defendant,.and as such it can represent all parties interested.</p> <p>The only mode of judicial relief against unreasonable rates is by suit against the governmental authority which established them or is charged with the duty of enforcing them.</p> <p>It is not competent for each individual having dealings with a regulated public utility corporation to raise a contest in the courts over questions which can be settled in a general and conclusive manner. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. v. Minnesota, 134 U. S. 418.</p> <p>Where a telephone.company has sued the municipality to enjoin rates as confiscatory and an injunction has been granted upon the company paying into a fund the excess collected from the subscribers, the municipality is the proper party to represent all the subscribers on a reference to determine the amount of refund to which each is entitled after the rates have been held not confiscatory and the injunction dissolved.</p> <p>Under such conditions a single subscriber cannot represent all the subscribers as a class and the court is not compelled under Equity Rule 38 to allow him to. intervene.</p> <p>In this case, the court below having acted within its discretion in refusing a petition for leave to intervene, mandamus to compel it to grant the petition is refused.</p>