Mayor of Crisfield v. Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co.

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company by purchase succeeded to the rights of the Potomac Telephone Company in the City of Crisfield, and since the purchase of the plant by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company it has operated the lines in that city and the adjacent parts of Somerset County. In 1910 by Chapter 180, the Public Service Commission of this State was created, and its powers, and duties defined. At the same session of the Legislature, by Chapter 529 (p. 1078), a municipal charter was granted to Crisfield, which was repealed and re-enacted with certain amendments in 1916, but the amendments then made in no way affected the provisions of section 87 of the charter as originally enacted in 1910.

By the terms Of the Charter the City of Crisfield was given the power to “grant and regulate franchises to electric light companies, power companies, telephone companies, telegraph companies, street railway companies, water companies, sewer and drain companies, and any other which they may deem advantageous and beneficial to said city or the inhabitants thereof,” and to regulate the charges by the municipality for the service of such companies as then possessed or thereafter obtained franchises in the city. In the exercise, or attempted exercise, of the power thus granted, the Mayor and Council of Crisfield assumed to regulate the charges to be made where the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company have connections, and service was rendered by that company. The present case is an application for an injunction directed against the Mayor and Council of Crisfield, and certain officials of that city, to enjoin them from carrying into effect the provisions of that ordinance as against the ⁴⁴⁶ Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company. • The theory of the plaintiff (appellee here) is that certain portions of the charter are void, as being special laws coming within the inhibition of the Constitution, Art. 3, sec. 33, which prohibits the passage of a special law in a case already provided for by a general law. There is no- question of conflict upon the facts of this case.

The sole question now presented is as to the validity of that portion of the charter of Crisfield which empowers the municipal corporation to regulate the charges of the Telephone Company, and if such provision is invalid, it necessarily follows that the ordinance passed in the supposed exercise of this power must also fall. The appellant strongly contends for the validity of the charter with reference to this, upon the ground that the Act in question is not a special law, but a public local law, and that as such it is valid, though in derogation of the general laws of the State. It has been settled by numerous decisions that a public local law is perfectly good though opposed to a public general law. The distinction between special acts and public local acts is to some extent shadowy, and while various courts have attempted to draw a line of. demarcation between them, there -still- remains a twilight zone within which it is not always easy to place a particular act in one class or the other.

In the present case material assistance will be derived from the consideration of that which was predominant in the mind of the Legislature of 1910, by which both the Public Service Commission law and the Charter of Crisfield,were enacted. The Legislature of 1910 took up-, and for the first time in this State, enacted a law for the purpose of regulating in various ways the class of corporations or firms conducting public utilities. The grant of power as contained in-the Act, while in general language, was intended to be extremely comprehensive. There was a specific jurisdiction given to it over telephone lines and telephone companies; provision was made for the making of complaints, either by individuals or cor ⁴⁴⁷ porations, and also the