State ex rel. Public Service Commission v. Spokane & Inland Empire Railroad

Citations

• 89 Wash. 599

Syllabus

<p>Electricity — Power Companies — Public Service Corporation— Private Business. Companies furnishing electrical energy may or may not be public service corporations, since a sale of surplus power for private purposes is not an engaging in a public business.</p> <p>Same — Power Companies — Private Business — Sale oe Surplus Power — Right to Regulate. 'The contracts of a public traction company by which it sells to private individuals its surplus electrical power pertain to its private business in which the state can claim no concern, and disclosures as to such contracts are not essential to an intelligent exercise of the state’s function to regulate the company’s traction business.</p> <p>Constitutional Law — Police Power — Legislative Questions. It is the province of the. legislature to define the objects of the police power, and for the courts to determine whether the act is reasonably within the legislative power and the thing sought to be done fairly within the act.</p> <p>Electricity — Power Companies — Private Business — Power to Regulate — Police Power. The courts will not declare the right of the state, under the police power, to regulate and control the price to be- charged for electrical power sold to private individuals, in the absence of express legislative authority therefor.</p> <p>Same — Power Company — Regulation — Rates — Private Business — Power oe Commission — Statutes. The public service commission is given no power to inquire into the private contracts of a public traction company whereby it sells its surplus electrical power to private individuals, by 3 Rem. & Bal. Code, § 8626-1, declaring all companies selling electricity for light, heat or power for hire, to be public service companies, subject to regulation by the public under the jurisdiction of the public service commission; since the entire context of the act, providing for equality of service, physical valuation of property “used for the public convenience in the state,” and that the co