Opinion
No. 39973
Decided May 25, 1966.
Motor transportation companies — Contract carrier seeking permission to add shipper — Duty to show deficiency in subsisting service — Disparity in rates, in itself, insufficient — Section 4923.07, Revised Code — Finding and order of commission not disturbed, when.
APPEAL from the Public Utilities Commission.
The appellant, Montgomery Trucking Company, the holder of a contract motor carrier permit, filed with the Public Utilities Commission an application for authority to add another shipper to the list of shippers now authorized by its permit.
The commission found that the shipper named in appellant's application is in need of transportation service; that the protesting and subsisting common carrier is presently capable of rendering reasonable adequate service to such shipper; that the only evidence of possible deficiency relates to the disparity in rates between those charged by the subsisting carrier and those contracted for by appellant, which results in the payment of higher rates to the subsisting carrier, but, due to the amendment of Section 4923.07, Revised Code, the commission, in making its decision, will not be governed solely by the matter of rates; and that the appellant has failed to establish a deficiency in the subsisting common-carrier service.
The commission denied the application.
An appeal from the order of the Public Utilities Commission brings the cause to this court for review.
Messrs. Power, Griffith, Jones Bell and Mr. James F. Bell, for appellant.
Mr. William B. Saxbe, attorney general, Mr. Theodore K. High and Mr. J. Philip Redick, for appellee.
This court held, in the case of Wooster Freight Lines, Inc., v. Pub. Util. Comm. (1955), 163 Ohio St. 11, that "inability of a carrier to provide service to his shipper at rates substantially equivalent to that of other proffered carrier service constitutes a deficiency in service within the purview of the applicable statutes."
Since that decision, the General Assembly has amended Section 4923.07, Revised Code (130 Ohio Laws 1163, effective October 14, 1963), relative to granting contract carrier permits, by adding the provision that "the commission in making its decision shall not be governed solely by the matter of rates." Thus, the General Assembly expressed an intention that lower rates, standing alone, should not be sufficient to support a finding of a deficiency in service that would justify the issuance of a permit.
Thus, the court is of the opinion that the order of the commission is neither unreasonable nor unlawful, and it is affirmed.
Order affirmed.
TAFT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, MATTHIAS, O'NEILL, HERBERT, SCHNEIDER and BROWN, JJ., concur.