279 Mass. 38 | Mass. | 1932
These consolidated proceedings are petitions to review certain rulings and orders of the department of
The facts as they appear in the pleadings are as follows: The Boston Consolidated Gas Company, hereinafter called the Gas Company, on February 28, 1929, filed with the department of public utilities, hereinafter called the department, a schedule of the rates, prices and charges for gas to be sold by it after April 1, 1929. Prior to the filing of said schedule the rate then being charged for ordinary domestic consumption was $1.20 per one thousand cubic feet. The new schedule contained classification number 1, available to all customers, under which the charge was to be fifty cents per month per customer (hereinafter referred to as a service charge) plus ten cents per one hundred cubic feet for the first one hundred thousand cubic feet per month, and eight cents thereafter, with a provision for billing gas consumed at the rate of one cent in excess of the foregoing prices, and a discount of one cent on bills paid within fifteen days from billing. After public hearings were held at which protestants and the company were represented and presented their testimony, the department suspended the taking effect of said schedule of rates and entered an order, on August 7, 1929, with accompanying findings of fact, permitting said schedule to become effective on October 1,1929. Thereafter, upon petition of the mayor of Boston and certain customers for a rehearing the department entered an order on September 27, 1929, modifying classification number 1 by striking out the provision for billing at one cent per one hundred cubic feet in excess of the schedule prices with- the discount for payment within fifteen days from billing, and authorized the schedule as so modified to become effective on October 1, 1929.
On or about December 31, 1930, the Gas Company acquired by consolidation the property and business of the Charlestown Gas and Electric Company, and thereupon commenced supplying the consumers of gas who had formerly been customers of said Charlestown company. On
On April 7, 1931, the petitioners in the Grant case filed with others a petition with the department requesting the commission to revoke its order of September 27, 1929; to declare that portion of the schedule filed January 14, 1931, providing a charge of fifty cents per customer per month illegal, null and void; to require the Gas Company to make an accounting of all money collected under said schedules by virtue of the provision of the service charge; to make an order requiring the Gas Company to pay back to said customers all moneys so received; to enjoin the Gas Company from any further collecting of money by virtue of said service charge under classification number !;• and for such other orders as the commission might determine to be equitable.
At a public hearing before the department held on June 9, 1931, the petitioning customers and the mayors of Boston and Somerville, as intervenors, joined in certain requests for rulings of law, and for the issue of several orders as contained in the customers’ petition. On July 1, 1931, the department dismissed the petition, and granted two rulings requested by the petitioners in their supplemental requests for rulings “In so far as these two requests may be material.” These requests were as follows: (1) “That the portion of the said two schedules marked ‘A’ and ‘B’ which reads as follows: ‘Rate: 50¡é per month per customer’ has no application to gas consumed as shown by meter reading”; (2) “That the portion of said two schedules marked ‘ A ’ and ‘ B ’ which reads as follows: ‘Rate: 50¡é per month per customer’ is in addition to the consumption of gas as shown by meter reading.” The department found as a fact that “The cost of reading the meter and mailing and collecting the bills and the record
The petitions to this court are brought under G. L. c. 25, § 5, under which there is jurisdiction in equity in the Supreme Judicial Court “to review, modify, amend or annul any ruling or order of the commission . . . but only to the extent of the unlawfulness of such ruling or order.” The prayers of the petitioners are in substance that “this Honorable Court will review, modify, amend or annul said rulings and orders and each of them and will enter a decree” declaring them to be “illegal, null and void.” In a word, the petitioners contend that the department has no authority to approve a service charge or any charge not incurred by the amount of gas consumed.
The causes assigned by the department and the gas company for their demurrers represent the contentions of the respondents. These causes are as follows: “1. Said petitions set forth no ruling or order of the commission of the department of public utilities which is unlawful. 2. That the schedules of rates, prices and charges filed by the Boston Consolidated Gas Company as alleged in said petitions are not unlawful. 3. That St. 1927, c. 316, § 2, does not prohibit the respondent Boston Consolidated Gas Company from including in the schedules of its rates, prices and charges filed as therein prescribed, classification number 1 of the schedule filed February 26, 1929, which became effective October 1, 1929, as amended by order of said department of public utilities, dated September 27, 1929. 4. That St. 1927, c. 316, § 2, does not prohibit the Boston Consolidated Gas Company from including in the schedules of its rates, prices and charges classification number 1 of the schedule of rates, prices and charges filed by it January 14, 1931, which became effective February 1, 1931. 5. That if said St. 1927, c. 316, § 2, prohibits the respondent Boston Consolidated Gas Company from including in its schedule of rates, prices and charges, any rate, price or charge which is not entirely based upon the amount of gas consumed
An examination of the legislative history of the sections under consideration is important as an aid in their interpretation. In 1920 the Legislature, by Res. 1920, c. 26, directed the department of public utilities “to investigate the expediency of a service charge by gas and electric light companies” doing business in this Commonwealth. Pursuant to the resolve, the department made a report, pointing out that G. L. c. 164, § 119, as it had been construed by the department, prohibited any service charge “which in any twelve months would require a customer who during that period uses more than seven dollars’ worth of gas or nine dollars’ worth of electricity at the established rates to pay more than the maximum rate or price for the same,” and expressed the opinion that the “section so interpreted is an effectual bar to the introduction of service charges in gas rates or in sales of electricity for lighting purposes.” The department recommended the enactment of a bill which provided for the repeal of § 119 of G. L. c. 164 and the amendment of § 93 by adding the words, “and may pass such other orders relative to the rates for and service rendered by said company as it deems just and reasonable.” The Legislature did not adopt this bill but in substitution therefor enacted St. 1921, c. 404, as an amendment to § 119, by inserting before the commencement of the section the words, “Unless approval therefor is secured from the department.”
On January 17, 1927, the House of Representatives adopted an order requiring the department to “tabulate the maximum or lighting rates now charged by the several gas and électric companies and municipal plants serving communities within the Commonwealth; and that the department consider whether, taking into account present earnings and any other pertinent factors, reductions in rates, with particular reference to the maximum or lighting
The respondents contend that nothing “in the report of the commission contains any reference to a service charge”; that G. L. c. 164, § 94, as amended, does not prohibit a
The respondents first draw the attention of the court to the comprehensive form of § 94, as amended by St. 1927, c. 316, § 2, particularly to the fact that it requires all gas and electric companies to file with the department “all rates, prices and charges to be thereafter charged or collected . . . for the sale and distribution of gas or electricity, together with all forms of contracts thereafter to be used in connection therewith”; and prohibits the charging of any rates different from those in the schedules on file; and that it further provides that upon the filing of a schedule it shall not become effective “until the first day of the month next after the expiration of fourteen days from the filing thereof.” The petitioners, however, contend that St. 1927, c. 316, § 2, prohibits the approval of any charge not measured by consumption as shown by the meter readings.
The statute last referred to contains the provision that “The department may investigate the propriety of any proposed rate, price or charge and may, pending such investigation and decision thereon, by order served upon the company affected thereby, suspend the taking effect thereof, but not for a period longer than six months beyond the time when such rate, price or charge would otherwise become effective.” When the Legislature passed this statute it had before it a report of the department, together with a bill amending §§ 93 and 94 of G. L. c. 164, The said re
A consideration of all the facts and the statutes quoted leads to the conclusion that there is nothing in said § 94 which in any way prohibits a gas or electric company from including a service charge as an element in its rate schedule. We find no ruling or order of the department unlawful.
Petitions dismissed.