Oklahoma City v. Corporation Commission

Citations

• 195 P. 498
• 80 Okla. 194
• 1921 OK 35
• 1921 Okla. LEXIS 30

Syllabus

<p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p> <p>1. Prohibition — Inferior Tribunals Exceeding Powers.</p> <p>Prohibition is the proper remedy; where an inferior tribunal assumes to exercise judicial power not granted by law, or is attempting to make an unauthorized application of judicial force, and the writ will not be withheld because other concurrent remedies exist; it not appearing that such remedies are equally adequate and convenient.</p> <p>2. Corporation Commission — Jurisdiction Over Public Utilities.</p> <p>By chapter 93, Session Laws 1913, jurisdiction is conferred upon the Corporation Commission over all public utilities, with the power to fix and establish rates and prescribe rules, requirements, and regulations affecting their services and operation and the management and conduct of their business. and under the powers thus conferred the commission is vested with authority to make all valid and lawful orders prescribing rates which the state, in the exercise of its sovereign capacity, could prescribe or make.</p> <p>3. Same — “Rate” — Constitutional Definition.</p> <p>Section 34, art. 9, of the Constitution defines the word “rate” as follows: “The term ‘rate’ shall be construed to mean rate of charge for any service rendered or to be rendered.”</p> <p>4. Gas — Increase in Rates — Purpose—Authority of Corporation Commission.</p> <p>The Corporation Commission has no authority to require consumers of gas in a city, who purchase gas from a local company that owns a franchise in the city, to pay an additional sum or rate for the use of any other public service corporation, simply because the other public service corporation furnishes gas to the local company under contract and receives in payment a certain per cent, of what the local company collects from the consumers.</p> <p>5. Judgment — Validity—Essentials.</p> <p>A judgment is void when it affirmatively appears from an inspection of the judgment roll that either of the three following elements is absent, to wit: (1