79 Pa. Super. 528 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1922
Opinion by
This is an appeal by the St. Clair Coal Company from an order of the Public Service Commission determining that the wholesale power rates charged under Schedule C-l of Supplement No. 1 of Tariff No. 6, and Schedule C of Tariff No. 7 of the Eastern Pennsylvania Light, Heat & Power Company, intervening appellee, are not un reasonable and unjustly discriminatory.
The St. Clair Coal Company, hereinafter called the Coal Company, is a large coal operator with collieries located near the Borough of St. Clair in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and one of the largest wholesale power consumers of the Eastern Pennsylvania Light, Heat & Power Company, a public service company supplying light, heat and power in Schuylkill and Columbia Counties, and hereinafter called the Power Company. The Coal Company entered into a contract with the Power Company for electric service at its Silver Creek colliery on November 20, 1917, but did not begin to receive the service until October 24, 1918. The electric service from the Power Company for the St. Clair mine was contracted for on April 17,1918. As a result of the latter contract, the steam power plant theretofore used by the Coal Company was scrapped, thus precluding the
The complaint having been filed before the rates had become effective, the burden of proof was on the Power Company to sustain them. The question before this court is whether there is sufficient evidence in the record to sustain the order of the commission. The able counsel for appellant urges that, under the peculiar circumstances of this case, a special burden rests upon the Power Company to prove, not by the mere weight of the evidence but by evidence which is positive, unequivocal and convincing, that the rates under the contracts between the Power Company and the Coal Company were too low, and that the new rate is fully justifiable. He urges further that the new schedule impairs the obligation of the contracts between the companies. The question is not, however, whether the new rates under the tariffs involved will result in a substantial increase in power costs over the contract rates, nor whether the contracts were entered into under the persuasive influence of the Power Company’s manager, nor because, in reliance upon the contracts, the Coal Company scrapped its steam plant and went to large expense in installing electric equipment. These matters are entirely outside the issue. The contracts are not a material or the important factor in the determination of the case. If they stipulate for a lower rate than that set forth in the schedule filed with the Public Service Commission, they are unlawful and discriminatory. A change of rates fixed by contract for the performance of service by a public utility company does not impair the obligation of the contract under the Constitution of the United States, and if it did the change would be unlawful: Suburban Water Co. v. Oakmont Borough, 268 Pa. 243. The power to re
The appellant urges that the Power Company should have been compelled to furnish a statement of the revenue operating expenses and taxes for the years 1914 to 1919 inclusive, asserting that this data alone would have given the commission information as to whether the results of operation for the years 1918, 1919 and 1920 were less than those of prior and more normal years by reason of the increased operating expenses. The answer to this contention would seem to be that this information would have shed little or no light upon the operations of the company from the time that it took on the wholesale consumers in 1918. No service was rendered to the Coal Company under its contracts until late in the year 1918, and never at the contract rate. Appellant contends also that a valuation was a necessary and essential part of the Power Company’s case, and that without going into a valuation the Power Company could not and did not prove its case. The answer to this contention may be found in the language of the Supreme Court in New Street Bridge Company v. Public Service Commission, 271 Pa. 19, as follows: “It is true, as the commission states, it is not necessary to make a valuation in every rate case; so also it is undoubtedly true a specific rate may be complained against and a just rate fixed without valuation. But there should be some reasonably scientific method which, in itself, bears some relation to fixed and operating charges and all services to justify the
The order of the commission is affirmed, the costs of this appeal to be paid by plaintiff.