203 Wis. 20 | Wis. | 1930
Sec. 196.01 (1) and (4), Stats., classifies telephone companies among public utilities and provides that the broadest and most inclusive sense shall be given to the term “service.” Sec. 196.02 (1) and (2) vests the railroad commission with power to regulate and supervise public utilities and to fix rates for service according to classifications made by the commission and to require public utilities to conform thereto. The jurisdiction and powers conferred by the latter section “are broad, comprehensive, and all-inclusive.” Commonwealth Tel. Co. v. Carley, 192 Wis. 464, 213 N. W. 469.
“The railroad commission is a public agency, created by the legislature to effectuate the public policy of the state. Within its jurisdiction it has power to issue orders which*24 have the effect of public law. To challenge an order of the railroad commission, lawfully made, is to challenge the authority of the state itself, and it therefore becomes a matter of state-wide concern and publici juris.” State ex rel. Reynolds v. Appleton, 197 Wis. 442, 444, 222 N. W. 244.
We are of opinion that the- statute, under its terms and the construction given by the cases cited, authorizes the commission to fix the five-cent rate for the use of public phones, and also authorizes the commission, pursuant to its power to regulate and supervise, to require disconnection with a hotel or other keeper of a public phone unless the hotel or other keeper shall conform to the rates lawfully fixed by the commission.
The plaintiff contends that the defendant has no right to disconnect its system from the hotel because the hotel is not a public utility and the railroad commission is therefore without power to regulate the charge for the service the hotel renders to its guests over its private system. It is quite true, of course, that the hotel is not a public utility. But even so it may, like any other corporation or private person, be the agent of the company in aiding it to perform its service to the public. The recital in the contract that the payments by the company to the hotel are “as commission” bears out this idea of the relations between the parties. The commission only concerns itself with the public telephone service performed by the hotel, as distinguished from the service to its guests performed through its private system. There is no attempt to regulate the charge the hotel may make to its guests for the intra-hotel service it performs for them. It may charge and collect for this service by adding to its room charge to guests or by making a charge for every call from one room to another within the hotel. That is its own affair, with which neither the telephone company nor the railroad commission has right or power to interfere.
The commissions or boards of other states that have considered the precise or similar matters have uniformly held as held by our own commission. Connoley v. Burleson, N. Y. P. U. R. 1930 C, 243; In re Hotel Marian Co. Ark. Corp. Comm. P. U. R. 1920 D, 466; Re Hotel Tel. Ser. & Rates, Mass. P. S. Comm. P. U. R. 1919 A, 190; In re Hotel Sherman Co. v. Chicago Tel. Co. Ill. P. U. C. 1915 F, 776. No court decision upon a similar matter has been called to our attention.
■ The above, we believe, sufficiently covers the points raised by the appellant.
By the Court. — The judgment is affirmed.