197 P. 582 | Nev. | 1921
By the Court,
The petitioners are engaged in farming lands irrigated by waters diverted solely from the Truckee River and delivered to them through the Steamboat canal, owned and operated by the Steamboat Canal and Irrigation Company, one of the respondents.
On the 27th day of February, 1920, and before the commencement of the irrigation season, the respondent company filed with the respondent Public Service Commission of Nevada a schedule of rates to be by it charged
On March 19, 1920, the petitioners and others filed with the Public Service Commission a protest against the rate. Thereupon the commission suspended the proposed rate, and after a hearing of all the evidence submitted to it and a consideration thereof, on November 27, 1920, and after the irrigation season for the year 1920, had closed, made and entered the following order:
“Ordered: That the rate of fourteen ($14) dollars per inch filed with this commission by the Steamboat Canal Company for irrigation service for the season of 1920 is hereby disapproved and the application thereof denied, on the ground that it is unjust, unreasonable and excessive; and, it is further ordered, that the Steamboat Canal Company shall file with this commission a rate of $9 per inch, which is hereby found to be the just and reasonable rate to be charged for irrigation service for the irrigation season of 1920 and each succeeding year, or until changed or modified by the commission.”
Prior- to the making and entering of the foregoing order, the Steamboat Canal Company, the predecessor in interest of the respondent, Steamboat Canal and Irrigation Company, filed with said Public Service Commission, on the 28th day of May, 1918, a schedule of proposed rates to be by it charged to and collected from petitioners and others for water to be delivered by it to petitioners, of $10 per inch. The Public Service Commission, under the authority given it by statute, suspended the proposed rates, and on June 15, 1918, petitioners and others filed with the commission a complaint against the proposed rate of $10 and after a hearing the commission, on December 14, 1918, ordered that the application for a rate of $10 per inch be denied, and further ordered that the Steamboat Canal Company make a charge of $7.50 per inch for water for irrigation
The respondent, Steamboat Canal and Irrigation Company, or its predecessor in interest, did not file with the commission any further schedule of rates until the 27th day of February, 1920, and the order of December 14, 1918, remained unchanged until the commission made its order of November 27, 1920.
To the petition showing the foregoing facts, the respondents filed separate demurrers, and also moved to dismiss the proceedings.
It is contended by counsel for petitioners that the Public Service Commission in making and entering said order of November 27, 1920, exceeded its jurisdiction in the exercise of a judicial function. in making the order retroactive so as to embrace within its operation the irrigation season of the year 1920, which irrigation season had closed at the time of the making and entering of said order; that petitioners have no right of appeal from said order; that they have no plain, speedy, or adequate remedy at law. We are of the opinion that the petition does not present a proper case for the issuance of a writ of certiorari, and that the motions to dismiss must be granted.
“The power to make rates is legislative rather than judicial.” 4 R. C. L. p. 608.
“The history of the legislation of the entire country,” said the court in Nebraska Tel. Co. v. State, supra, “shows that the power to determine what compensation public service corporations may demand for their services is a legislative function and not a judicial one.”
“Certiorari will not lie merely because there is no other adequate or speedy remedy by which to review the proceedings, where it is otherwise not a proper case for the writ, as when the proceedings are not judicial in their nature.” 11 C. J. 101; State v. Clough, 64 Minn. 378, 67 N. W. 202.
The application for the writ must be dismissed, and it is so ordered.