This annotated edition of the Public Service Commission Law of Maryland is not intended to cover anything except the reports of the Public Service Commission and any construction placed upon the law by the courts of this State. In other words is it purely a Maryland book. The general subject of public service law is most admirably treated in Wyman on Public Service Corporations. Abstracts have been made of the opinions of General Counsel to the Commission as well as of the opinions of the Commission and placed under that section of the law where it has been thought they are most applicable The Commission has said that they feel themselves bound by their Counsel's advice on legal questions.' Citations are as follows: The report of the Public Service Commission for 1910 is cited as "I Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps." and each succeeding year as 2 and 3 respecively. If a point, passed on, is from an opinion of the General Counsel to the Commission the citation is "Opinions General Counsel, 1 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps."; if the point is from an opinion of the Commission, the name of the case is given and the volume of the report, e. g. "In re Northern Central Railway Company, 2 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps. 108". The index is so arranged as to be an index of the act and of the notes. The italicized numbers refer to the notes, and the plain numbers to the Act itself, thus facilitating the finding of rulings of the Commission and its Counsel. JOHN PHILIP HILL, 1. In re Northern Central Railway Company, 2 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps., 108, III. The control of public utilities by the State is not a new departure. The authority of the Legislature of the State to regulate and control, within reasonable limits, public employments and property used in connection therewith can no longer be doubted.1 "Legislation of this sort has existed from time immemorial and is therefore always due process of law abstractly. It is a special branch of the general police power inherent in the legislative branch." So the Court of Appeals of Maryland, in the case of Gregg et al. vs. Laird et al., has upheld the Act passed by our Legislature in 1910, creating a Public Service Commission, in an opinion filed April 30, 1913, and reported in the Daily Record, May 2, 1913. Many of the States have passed laws creating commissions to control and regulate public employments. These Acts are similar or substantially similar to our law. In fact our Public Service Commission Law is a copy of the New York Law with few changes. The copy is so faithful in parts that section 311⁄2 provides for the filing of sliding scale charges with the "proper commission" as if we had more than one commission as is the case in New York. Besides New York the following states have Commission Acts, Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin. A reference to the decisions of these several states will be of importance to those construing our Act. 1 C. & P. Tel. Co. vs. B. & O. Tel. Co., 66 Md. 399, 415. 2 Wyman, Public Service Corporations, Section 1401. 3 In re N. Cent. Railway Company, 2 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps. 108, III. Freeman on Public Utilities page 77 et seq. The Maryland Act applies not only to bodies corporate, but also to individuals engaged in public employment. "It is the nature of the service undertaken to be performed that creates the duty to the public and in which the public have an interest and not simply the body that may be invested with power." Our Act, however, does not cover all public employments. The innkeeper" and sewerage companies' are both in public service, but neither is covered by the Act. What is the nature of our Public Service Commission? It has no judicial function and hence is not a court. Nor has it in the strict sense the power to make laws; the power to regulate cannot be said to be the exercise of a legislative function. Some difficulty, however, is experienced when the rate-making power of the Commission is in issue. Our Court of Appeals in the case of Gregg et al vs Laird et al, supra, has held that an order of the Commission establishing a rate is a legislative Act. Professor Wyman in his excellent book on Public Service Corporations, Section 1403, says: "But while the power to fix rates may be exercised directly by the legislature, it is not, strictly speaking, a legislative power; but rather the so-called administrative function." It is, however, absolutely necessary to place the Public Service Commis 5C. & P Tel. Co. vs. B & O. Tel. Co., 66 Md. 399, 414. Webster vs. Pole Line Company, 112 Md. 416, 427. • Wyman, Public Service Corporations, Sections 12 and 106. 7 Ibid., Section 68. 8 Opinions General Counsel, 2 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps. 513; opinion filed January 21, 1913. • Gregg et al. vs. Laird et al. Reported Daily Record May 2, 1913. sion within one of the three departments into which our scheme of government is divided. The Commission is undoubtedly an administrative body, a branch of the executive department.10 The legislature simply establishes rules and principles, leaving the execution and details to other officers, a commission. Judge Stockbridge in Gregg et al vs Laird et al, supra, states this very clearly as follows: "It has been urged that the effect of the Act, if it has any effect at all, is to invest the Commission with the power of repeal of an Act of the Legislature, and that this is beyond the power of the Legislature to do. The all-sufficient answer to this contention is, that the Legislature itself has repealed the prior enactments, only leaving it to the Commission to fix the time when such repeal shall become operative." The Hon. W. Cabell Bruce, the learned counsel to the Commission, has very aptly described the Commission as follows: "The Public Service Commission is not a court. The members are not judges, or, if they were in some narrower sense, they are independent investigators as well. They, Section 10 of our Act expressly declares, shall not be bound by the technical rules of evidence. Neither are they tied down to the rigid principles of common law pleading. They constitute, as it is sometimes said, not altogether incorrectly, a sort of People's Court, where justice is not to be strained in favor of either complainant or respondent, but where nevertheless the voice of the citizen is to find its way impeded by as few artificial forms and fictitious obstacles as possible."11 10 Opinions General Counsel, 3 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps. 444. 11 Opinions General Counsel, 3 Pub. Serv. Comm. Reps. 423. |