V. & S. Bottle Co. v. Public Service Commission

Citations

• 70 Pa. Super. 308
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 237

Syllabus

<p>Public Service Commission — Appeals—Review—Discretion.</p> <p>There is nothing in the legislation relating to the Public Service Commission to warrant the conclusion that the legislature intended the appellate court to act as a second administrative commission. The function of the court is to decide whether or not a company complaining of an order of the commission has discharged the duty cast upon it by the legislature. The inquiry by the court is not whether the order is such as the court would have made in the exercise of administrative functions, but whether it was a reasonable exercise of the discretion conferred upon the commission by the statute; the court is not to substitute its judgment as to the expediency of a determination for that of the commission. The legislature did not intend thaf the courts should interfere with the commission to review its determination further than is necessary to keep them within the law, and protect the constitutional rights of individuals and the corporations over which the commission is given control.</p> <p>An order of the Public Service Commission approving a contract for the sale and transfer of the property and franchises of one natural gas company to another natural gas company will not be reversed where it appears that the company’s territories were contiguous, that the first company had an abundant supply of gas, but practically no service lines, while the second company had a full equipment of pipe and lines, but an insufficient supply of natural gas, and that the order was reasonable and did not involve a manifest abuse of discretion on the part of the Public Service Commission.</p> <p>In such a ease a person has no standing to object to the contract where it appears that he had a contract for gas with a corporation which had become insolvent, and whose bondholders after purchasing its property and franchises had organized the first company. The contract with the objector was thus wiped out.</p>