1. (a) This section does not apply to service rendered or commodities furnished:

   1. (1) to the officers, employees, pensioners, and immediate family members of the officers, employees, and pensioners of a public service company;
   2. (2) to the United States, the State, or a local government;
   3. (3) to provide relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence, flood, or other similar calamity;

   4. (4) in the case of common carriers, to transport:

      1. (i) personnel of another common carrier that reciprocates for personnel of the transporting common carrier;
      2. (ii) hospital patients;
      3. (iii) indigent, destitute, and homeless individuals;
      4. (iv) persons exclusively engaged in charitable work;
      5. (v) residents of federal or State veterans homes, including those about to enter a home or those returning from a home;
      6. (vi) railway mail service employees and baggage agents;
      7. (vii) post office, customs, and immigration inspectors;
      8. (viii) newspaper vendors;
      9. (ix) property for exhibition carried to or from fairs and expositions;
      10. (x) employees of sleeping car companies, express companies, telegraph companies, and telephone companies doing business along the line of the common carrier;
      11. (xi) persons and property incident to or connected with contracts for construction, operation, or maintenance of the plant of the transportation company, to the extent provided in the contracts;
      12. (xii) individuals injured in accidents and physicians, nurses, or other necessary caretakers attending the injured individuals in transit;
      13. (xiii) children under the age of 5 years for no charge;
      14. (xiv) children under 12 years for half fare; or
      15. (xv) persons at free or reduced rates that are otherwise authorized by law;
   5. (5) in the case of common carriers, for the issuance of mileage, excursion, or commuter tickets;
   6. (6) to free steamboat excursion transportation from May through August of each year, from Baltimore City to any place in the State, in exchange for services rendered in advertising the excursion business;
   7. (7) to obtain essential data by a method that uses a limited sample of customers, in connection with a rate structure study conducted under formal proceedings before the Commission;
   8. (8) to telephone lifeline service provided to eligible subscribers under § 8-201 of this article; or
   9. (9) to electricity or gas service provided to eligible limited-income customers through an approved limited-income mechanism under § 4-308 of this title.

2. (b) For any service rendered or commodity furnished, a public service company may not directly or indirectly, by any means, including special rates, rebates, drawbacks, or refunds:

   1. (1) charge, demand, or receive from a person compensation that is greater or less than from any other person under substantially similar circumstances;
   2. (2) extend a privilege or facility to a person, except those privileges and facilities that are extended uniformly to all persons under substantially similar circumstances;
   3. (3) discriminate against a person, locality, or particular class of service; or
   4. (4) give undue or unreasonable preference to or cause undue or unreasonable prejudice to a person, locality, or particular class of service.

Added by Acts 1998, c. 8, § 2, eff. Oct. 1, 1998. Amended by Acts 2021, c. 638, § 1, eff. May 30, 2021; Acts 2021, c. 639, § 1, eff. May 30, 2021.

Formerly Art. 78, § 26.