Shubert v. Public Service Commission

Citations

• 77 Pa. Super. 167
• 1921 Pa. Super. LEXIS 231

Syllabus

<p>Public Service Company Law — Public Service Commission — Electric light companies — Regulations—Administrative questions —Extension of services — Financing—War time emergencies.</p> <p>When an electric company is asked to extend its lines to serve a particular customer it is proper to take into consideration the amount of the expenditure involved and the revenue reasonably to be expected in return. It is entirely proper, in such case, that an agreement be entered into providing that the proposed customer shall furnish (assistance in the investment according to suitable rules filed with the Public Service Commission.</p> <p>The reasonableness of regulations requiring a customer of an electric lighting company to finance or assist in financing an extension of the company’s electric service to a theatre building, during the emergency period of the late war, was an administrative question and the ruling of the Public Service Commission thereon will be affirmed, in the absence of evidence that it was illegal or unreasonable.</p> <p>It was neither illegal nor unreasonable to require the owner of a theatre to pay one-third of the cost of an extension to his building, and to loan the electric company the balance as a condition precedent to the extension of the service during the war, when the company was bending all its energy to the assistance of essential industries under the direction of the federal government, and had no capital for other uses.</p>