76 Pa. Super. 504 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1921
This is one of a number of appeals involving the question of the extent and character of the jurisdiction to be exercised by this court, in reviewing appeals from the determination of the Public Service Commission, which question was involved in the case of Ben Avon Boro. v. The Ohio Valley Water Company, pending in the Supreme Court of the United States when this appeal was argued. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania having recently remitted the case of Ben Avon Boro. v. The Ohio Valley Water Company to this court, with direction to determine, upon our own independent judgment as to the law and the facts, whether the order of the Public Service Commission was confiscatory, and this court having disposed of that appeal in accordance with their instructions, it now becomes our duty to apply the same principles in disposing of this case.
This company supplies water to the small borough of Highspire, the water being conducted from springs through a gravity system of pipage. The commission found the value of the property of the appellant, used and useful for the service of the public, to be not in excess of $28,000; that the operating expenses of the company should not exceed $250 per year, that $100 per year will cover all the tax charges of the company, and that the company was entitled to an allowance for depreciation of its property in the amount of $250 per year. The commission ordered the water company to cancel the tariff which it had filed and file a new tariff of rates which would produce a gross income of not more than $2,600 per annum. The gross income which the company would thus be allowed to collect would, after
This company was incorporated in 1902 and was controlled, and for all practical purposes owned, by three men who resided in the neighborhood. Those three gentlemen, having organized the corporation, proceeded on behalf of the company to make a contract with themselves, as a partnership, under the provisions of which they undertook to furnish the real estate, water supply, necessary rights of way, and construct the entire system of the company, furnishing all the materials required, and, as the consideration for all this, they were to receive the entire stock of the company and the entire bond issue of $25,000. This contract was fully complied with, the three men who had organized the company received all the stock and the bond issue of $25,000 and they acquired for the company all the land and water rights which it now owns, they furnished all the pipe and other supplies and performed all the work in constructing the plant which had been contemplated by the contract, and which constituted the entire property of the company
The appellant called as a witness an engineer who appears, from his own testimony, to have been intimately associated in this and other transactions with the parties Who secured control of this company in 1910 and made the bond issue of $100,000 which swamped the company. That witness testified that the reproduction cost, new, of appellant’s property was $31,774.48, and that its value as a going concern was $56,636.89. We have carefully considered the testimony of this witness, in connection With all the other evidence in the case and are not con-yinced that it is worthy of serious consideration. His testimony as to the reproduction value of $31,774.43 is based upon a list of items, the value of many of which is, in the light of the other evidence in the case, manifestly overestimated. It is not necessary to specify these items, but we will refer to the following which are typical. He values the real estate and water rights at $2,000. He confessedly knew nothing about the value of lands in that neighborhood. He may have assumed that the spring located upon this land was the only source from which a supply of water could be obtained, but Mr. Fletcher, who was familiar with the vicinity testified that there were other springs from which water could
The appeal is dismissed at the cost of the appellant.