279 F. 869 | S.D. Ill. | 1922
The complainant seeks to enjoin the Illinois Commerce Commission, its members, and the Attorney General of Illinois, from enforcing penalties provided in the Illinois Com.merce Commission Act, for collecting water rates in excess of those allowed by the Commission.
The Water Company, on November 30, 1920, as required by the'law in force-at that time, filed its schedule of rates to go into effect January 1, 1921. After due notice the matter was heard by the Commission, and on December 20, 1920, the Commission passed an order suspending the effective date of the schedule until April 30, 1921. On April 26, 1921, a further extension until October 30, 1921, was made. October 26, 1921, the Commission entered a permanent suspension order.
■ The' Commission made no finding that the rates contained in the schedule submitted by the Water Company were unreasonable, nor did it attempt to fix a schedule of reasonable rates.
The Illinois statute (Daws 1921, p. 722, § 36) provides:
“The period of suspension of such rate or other charge, classification, contact, practice, rule or regulation shall not extend more than one hundred and swenty days beyond the time when such rate or other charge, classification, contract, practice, rule or regulation would otherwise go into effect unless :he Commission, in its discretion, extends the period of suspension for a lurther period not exceeding six months. On such hearing the Commission shall establish the rates or other charges, classifications, contracts, practices, rales or regulations proposed, in whole or in part or others in lieu thereof, which it shall find to be just and reasonable.”
It is claimed that the action of the Commission with reference to the order permanently suspending the rates was without authority and void; that the suspension of the rates amounted to an order against the complainant to continue to charge the rates in force .at the time of the filing of the schedule in November, 1920, which ranged considerably less than the rafes sought to be charged to the extent that it amounted to a confiscation and the deprivation of the complainant of its property without due process of law.
Upon the hearing it developed that the present fair cash value of complainant’s property in question was $1,177,935; that its gross earnings for 1919, 1920, and 1921 were, 1919, $110,781.56; 1920, $110,460.47; 1921, $105,339.82; that the net revenues for these three years were, 1919, $25,273.43; 1920, $9,916.21; 1921, $3,340.24; that the net revenues available for return on investment for 1921 was a trifle more than one-half of 1 per cent, upon the present fair cash value of the property. The Commission contends that the revenues should be limited to such rates as will produce a reasonable return upon the original cost of the property. It was shown by the testimony of the engineers of the Commission that the original cost of the property was $538,196. During the years in question the net returns of which are
This case turns upon two questions: (1) Did the Commission have the power to permanently suspend the effective date of complainant’s schedule of rates filed November 30, 1920? (2) Is the present fair cash value of the property to be considered in determining what the rates shall be in order to be reasonable, or must the calculation be made upon the basis of the actual cost or the original cost of the property and its appurtenances available for use in its service?
“The period of suspension of such rate * * * shall not extend more than one hundred and twenty days beyond the time when such rate » * * would otherwise go into effect unless the Commission, in its discretion, extends the period of suspension for a further period not exceeding six months. On snch hearing the Commission shall establish the rates * * * proposed, in whole or in part, or others in lieu thereof, which it shall find to be just and reasonable.” Illinois Commerce Commission Act, Laws 1921, § 36, p. 722.
Following the above excerpt of the statute, it is further provided, in the same section:
“All such rates * * * not so suspended shall, on the expiration of thirty days from the time of filing the same with the Commission, or of such lesser time as the Commission may grant, go into effect and be the established and effective rates, * * * subject to the power of the Commission, after a hearing had on its own motion or upon complaint, as herein provided, to alter or modify the same.”
To permit a situation such as is here presented to exist would be to allow a continuing menace to a utility company furnishing many Ihousands of people with one of .the absolute necessaries of life, to say nothing of the service it renders to numerous industrial plants, and is inequitable and unjust. We are not here concerned with the question of reasonableness of the rates sought to be charged. That is a question addressed to the administrative body of the state, if it regards the rates sought to be charged in the schedule filed by the complainant to be in any respect unreasonable.
The relief to which the complainant is entitled upon the face of this record is security from prosecution for the collection of the rates provided in the schedule of November, 1920, until such time, and only until then, when different rates may be fixed according to law. If the rates provided in the schedule are unreasonable and therefore unlawful
■ The equities are clearly with the complainant, and a decree may be ■prepared in harmony with these views and the prayer of the bill.