122 N.E. 260 | NY | 1919
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *400 The Pennsylvania Gas Company is a Pennsylvania corporation which supplies natural gas to the inhabitants of the city of Jamestown. Its gas fields and wells are in Pennsylvania, and its gas is conveyed to Jamestown through pipe lines. About forty-five miles of line are in Pennsylvania and about five in New York. It has a branch office in Jamestown, and its mains and pipes are in the city's streets. Formerly its rates for gas were thirty cents a thousand. Recently it attempted to raise its rates to thirty-five cents, and filed a schedule with the public service commission accordingly. A citizen of Jamestown, alleging that the new rates were exorbitant, lodged a complaint with the commission. *402 The gas company was directed to answer the complaint. It filed with the commission a demurrer to the jurisdiction which the commission overruled. Thereupon the company sued out a writ of prohibition. Its petition alleges that the attempted regulation of its rates is an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce. The writ was granted at Special Term, and vacated at the Appellate Division. An appeal to this court followed.
(1) We think the petitioner's business is interstate commerce. There is no doubt that the transportation of oil or gas from state to state through the medium of pipe lines is commerce between the states (West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co.,
Subjected to that test, the transactions of the petitioner's business have the unity and directness of interstate commerce. There is no break in the continuity of the transmission from pumping station in *404
Pennsylvania to home and office and factory in Jamestown. A different question would arise if gas transmitted from Pennsylvania should be stored in reservoirs in New York, and then distributed to consumers as their needs might afterwards develop. The quantity stored or the period of storage might require us to hold that interstate commerce was at an end when the place of storage had been reached (Kehrer v. Stewart,
(2) The question remains whether, in default of action by Congress, the attempted regulation is within the police power of the state.
The petitioner is a public service corporation. Its rates are subject to regulation by some agency of government. Congress has never occupied the field of regulation, as it has done with railroads, the telegraph and telephone lines, and even the oil companies (Act to Regulate Commerce, as amended June 29, 1906, ch. 3591, and June 18, 1910, ch. 309). Gas and water companies are expressly *405
excepted. In such circumstances, there is no implied exclusion of the police power of the states. The exercise of that power is, indeed, subject to conditions. It must not impose upon interstate commerce burdens new and direct rather than remote and incidental (Leisy v. Hardin, supra; Minnesota Rate Cases,
We think the line must be drawn here so as to bring the attempted regulation within the power of the state. It is important to keep before us just what the state has *406 tried to do. The rule is stated in section 65 of the Public Service Commissions Law: "Every gas corporation, every electrical corporation and every municipality shall furnish and provide such service, instrumentalities and facilities as shall be safe and adequate and in all respects just and reasonable. All charges made or demanded by any such gas corporation, electrical corporation or municipality for gas, electricity or any service rendered or to be rendered, shall be just and reasonable and not more than allowed by law or by order of the commission having jurisdiction. Every unjust or unreasonable charge made or demanded for gas, electricity or any such service, or in connection therewith, or in excess of that allowed by law or by the order of the commission is prohibited."
This gas company occupies the streets of Jamestown with its mains. Even without any statute, it would be under a duty to furnish gas to the public at fair and reasonable rates. The statute might be repealed, and still the courts would have the power, if exorbitant charges were made, to give relief to the consumer (1 Wyman, Public Service Corporations, secs. 111, 113;Gibbs v. Baltimore Gas Co.,
In thus holding, we do not forget that the state, in the exercise of its police power, must not introduce diversity and conflict in spheres where there is need of uniformity and harmony. That is the reason why, irrespective of any occupation of the field by Congress, it may not fix the rates of interstate transportation. It may not do this, even though it confines its action to that part of the interstate journey within its own limits. The law in that respect has been undoubted since the decision in Wabash, St. L. P.R. Co. v. Ill. (
We deal here with a different situation. There is here no regulation of transportation (Mfrs.' Light Heat Co. v. Ott,
215 Fed. Rep. 940, 944). There is no regulation of a duty owing equally to two states. There is regulation of a duty owing to one of them alone. The seller of most things has the right to sell at whatever price he will. This petitioner has lost that right by the acceptance of a public franchise in consideration of a public service (Gibbs v. Baltimore Gas Co., supra; New Orleans GasCo. v. Louisiana Light Co.,
The case comes, then, to this: We have a sale of a *410 single commodity. We have a pre-existing duty to sell it at fair rates. We have a transaction where conflicting regulations by the states are impossible, for the public duties regulated are fulfilled in one state only. We have a statute which declares a duty that would exist without it, and establishes a new agency of government to insure obedience. The silence of Congress cannot be interpreted as a declaration that public service corporations, serving the needs of the locality, may charge anything they please (County of Mobile v. Kimball, supra; TransportationCo. v. Parkersburg, supra; Covingtom Bridge Case, supra, p. 222). The local regulation stands until Congress occupies the field.
The order should be affirmed with costs.
HISCOCK, Ch. J., CHASE, HOGAN, POUND, McLAUGHLIN and ANDREWS, JJ., concur.
Order affirmed.