Tacoma Railway & Power Co. v. City of Tacoma

Citations

• 79 Wash. 508
• 140 P. 565
• 1914 Wash. LEXIS 1220

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Streets—Electricity ■— Franchises— Conditions — Forfeiture—Powers of City. Under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 7507, subd. 7, empowering cities of the first class to control the use of streets and to authorize or prohibit the use of electricity at, in, or upon any of the streets, and to prescribe the times and conditions upon which the same may be used, a city of the first class, in granting a franchise to transmit and sell electric current furnishing power and heat and lighting for street cars, has power to insert the condition that the grantee shall not furnish electricity for lighting purposes and that breach of the condition should work a forfeiture of the franchise; especially where the charter adopted by the people intended to reserve to themselves the exclusive right to furnish light to the city and its inhabitants, to the extent of the ability of the city to do so.</p> <p>Electricity — Franchises—Conditions—Abrogation. The public service commission law, 3 Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 8626-8, 8626-30, and 8626-33, dealing with the questions of the safety, efficiency, rates, and equality of public service, did not abrogate or affect a prior city franchise granting the right to transmit and furnish electric current for the purposes of furnishing heat and' power and lighting for street cars on condition that the grantee should not furnish electricity for lighting purposes.</p> <p>Electricity — Franchises—Forfeiture. Where a franchise ordinance for furnishing electricity for heat and power prohibited the furnishing of electricity for lighting purposes after the city should be able to supply the same, and provided for a forfeiture of the franchise and all property not removed from the streets within sixty days, on failure of the grantee to comply with any of its conditions after thirty days notice to d'o so, the grantee cannot complain of the forfeiture of the franchise and property, where it furnished electricity for lighting purposes under a revocable