Potomac Edison Co. v. Public Service Commission

Pabke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The question at bar is whether or not a public service corporation has a right of appeal to a court of common law jurisdiction from an order of the Public Service Commission that determined, in its statutory sense, the final valuation of the property of the public utility. The Public Service Commission of Maryland made a valuation of the property of the Potomac Edison Company and its three subsidiary public utility corporations, and passed a provisional ‘order on November 29th, 1932, determining the fair value of the corporate property for rate-making purposes as of June 30th, 1931. The corporations embraced in the order duly filed a protest against the passage of a final order confirming the valuation.

The ground of the protest was that the valuation was unreasonable and unlawful. After a hearing, the commission rejected the protest and determined that the valuation made was the fair value of the corporate property, and, accordingly, on March 1st, 1933, the commission passed an order confirming the order of November 29th, 1933. Upon the. theory that this valuation was unreasonable and unlawful, the Potomac Edison Company and its three subsidiary corporations instituted a suit in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City to have the commission’s valuation vacated and set aside. The bill of complaint was amended, and a demurrer on the part of the commission raised the question of the right of the plaintiff's to have the order of the commission reviewed and, ⁴⁶⁴ therefore, of the jurisdiction of the court to entertain an appeal.

The solution of the problem presented by the demurrer is to> be found within a sound construction of the provisions of the statute with reference to the right of review and of appeal. The first section of the Public Service Commission Statute which treats of the matter is section 11 of the original act of 1910, ch. 180, as modified by chapter 354 of the Acts of 1927. Omitting the preliminary paragraphs, which relate to a rehearing and the service of orders of the commission, the two concluding paragraphs of the section are pertinent, and will be quoted: “All orders of the Commission shall take effect within such reasonable time as it shall prescribe, and shall continue in force until its further order, or for a specified period of time according as shall be prescribed in the order, unless the same shall be suspended, or modified, or set aside by the Commission, or be suspended or set aside by a court of competent jurisdiction. “Any company, corporation, association, person or partnership subject to any of the provisions of this sub-title, or other person or party in interest, shall have the right to proceed in the courts to vacate, set aside- or have modified any •order of said Commission on the grounds that such order is unreasonable or unlawful, as hereinafter more particularly .set forth.” Code (Supp'. 1929), art. 23, sec. 359. It is clear from the context of the section that the order within the meaning of the language used is not an interlocutory, or procedural order passed in the course of a matter .before the commission and not determining any right or controversy involving a justiciable question under the enactment, but one decisive of some subject-matter of which the commission has jurisdiction which it has the power to enforce against any party interested.

Such a construction is consistent with the spirit of the law and contributes to its efficient and orderly administration. The soundness of the construction given is attested by such provisions, for instance, ⁴⁶⁵ as these found in the first two unquoted paragraphs of. section 359: (a)^ “After an order has. been made by the Commission, any party interested therein may apply for a rehearing in respect to any matter determined therein, * * * if a rehearing shall be granted, the same shall be determined by the Commission within thirty days after the same shall be finally submitted. Any application for such a rehearing shall not excuse any common carrier, railroad corporation, or street railroad corporation, or any other corporation, or company or person, stibject to any of the provisions of this subtitle, from complying with or obeying any order, or any requirements of any order of the Commission, or operate in any manner to stay or postpone the enforcement thereof, except as the Commission may by order direct” (first paragraph); and (b) every order shall be served on the person or corporation affected thereby, and within a time specified in the order, and such person or corporation must, if so required in the order, notify the commission whether the terms of the order are accepted and will be obeyed (second paragraph). T'rom the third paragraph, which has been quoted in this opinion, it is seen that all orders shall take effect at the time prescribed, and shall continue in force until further order from the commission, or for the time specified, unless the order bo suspended, or modified, or set aside by the commission, or be suspended or set aside by a court of competent jurisdiction.

These illustrations are convincing that a procedural or interlocutory order incident to the course of the proceedings is not the subject-matter of the section under consideration. By the explicit terms of section 359 (11), any company, corporation, association, person, or partnership subject to any of the provisions of the statute or other person or party in interest shall have the right to> proceed in the courts to t acate, set aside, or have modified any order, within the contemplation of the statute, on the grounds that such order is unreasonable or unlawful So, it cannot be denied that the legislative intent has been plainly expressed and that it com- ⁴⁶⁶ pretended and designedly embraced any order of any kind which is within the meaning of the section. The commission, however, contends that the general and comprehensive term “any order” is limited in its application by the clause “as hereinafter more particularly set forth,” with which the last paragraph of section 359 is concluded. In other words, the clause is to apply to the right instead of the remedy.

So, instead of having reference to the procedure whereby the party aggrieved could, as in the statute thereafter more particularly set forth, enforce his right to apply to the courts to vacate, set aside, or have modified any order of the commission on the ground that such order is unreasonable or unlawful, this'final clause, the commission asserts, so governs the meaning of the text that the right to proceed in the courts is not in respect to any rmreasonable or unlawful order, but only to those orders as thereinafter in the act are more particularly set forth. If this argument of the commission should prevail, a right of review and appeal would not be given in every case where the order was unreasonable or unlawful, but would be confined to a more circumscribed class of unreasonable or unlawful orders. It is difficult to ascribe an intention to the Legislature to' exclude any unreasonable or unlawful order from the operation of the act, in the absence of an unmistakable expression of legislative will. The commission relies upon section 404 of article 23 of the Code as the section to which the quoted concluding clause of section 359 of article 23 refers.

These two sections were, respectively, sections 43 and 11 of thé original act, and are now practically in the same form as when the Act of 1910, eh. 180, was passed. The two sections are to be construed together and both given effect, if the principles of construction permit. In the original law of 1910, the fifty-six sections of the act were-grouped with reference to their nature under bold headings or captions, and section 43 (now section 404 of article 23 and unchanged) was the first section under its caption, and, although long, must be quoted: ⁴⁶⁷ Procedure in the Courts. “404. Any corporation subject to this sub-title, or any of the provisions of this sub-title, and any person in interest being dissatisfied with any order of the commission, fixing any rate or rates, tolls, charges, schedules, joint rate or rates, or any order fixing any regulations, practices, acts or service, may commence any action in the circuit court for any county, or before any judge of the supreme bench of Baltimore City, in any court of Baltimore City of appropriate jurisdiction which may be adopted for the purpose, against the commission as defendant to vacate and set aside any such order on the ground that the rate or rates, tolls., charges, schedules, joint rate or rates, fixed in such order is unlawful, or that any such regulation, practice, act or service fixed in such order is unreasonable, in which action a copy of the complaint shall be served with the summons. “The answer of the commission to the complaint shall be served and filed within twenty days after service of the complaint, whereupon said action shall be at issue and stand ready for trial upon fifteen days’ notice to either party. “All such actions shall have precedence over any civil cause of a different nature pending in such court, and the said courts shall always be deemed open for the trial thereof, and the same shall be tried and determined as other civil actions. “Every proceeding, action or suit to set aside, vacate or amend any determination or order of the commission, or to enjoin the enforcement thereof or to prevent in any way such order or determination from becoming effective, shall be commenced, and every appeal to the courts or right or recourse to the courts shall be taken or exercised within sixty days after the entry or rendition of such order or determination, and the right to commence any such action, proceeding or suit, or to take or exercise any such appeal or right of recourse to the courts, shall determine absolutely at the end of such sixty days after such entry or rendition thereof. “Mo injunction shall issue suspending or staying any order of the commission, except upon application to one of the ⁴⁶⁸ judges of the supreme bench of Baltimore City, or to the circuit court- of one of the