184 N.E.2d 88
No. 37318Supreme Court of Ohio.
Decided July 5, 1962.
Telephone companies — Intrastate toll service jointly rendered by two companies — Division of joint revenue derived therefrom — Methods of apportioning property and related expenses — In ascertaining cost of rendering joint service — Order of commission not unreasonable or unlawful — Court will not substitute its judgment for that of commission.
APPEAL from the Public Utilities Commission.
This cause is here on appeal from an order of the Public Utilities Commission entered in a complaint proceeding brought by the General Telephone Company of Ohio under authority of Section 4905.50, Revised Code, to determine the division of joint revenue derived from intrastate message toll telephone service jointly rendered by the General Telephone Company of Ohio, hereinafter called General, and The Ohio Bell Telephone Company, hereinafter called Bell.
General sought from the commission an order requiring that Bell make such payments to General as will adequately cover all costs to General involved in the originating, terminating, operating and hauling of interchanged message toll telephone traffic, including an adequate and reasonable return on the value of General’s plant and facilities devoted to that purpose; that the basis for making such payments shall be studies to determine General’s expenses and plant value required to furnish joint toll telephone traffic; and that the methods and procedures used in such studies shall be those recommended by the United States Independent Telephone Association, of which General is a member. Bell, in its answer to the complaint, requested the commission to enter an order declaring the portion of the joint rates, received from message toll telephone traffic interchanged between the parties, to which each of the parties is entitled.
The ultimate issue before the commission was the determination of the methods to be applied in apportioning the property and related expenses of General for the purpose of ascertaining
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the value of the property used and General’s aggregate cost in rendering joint Bell-General intrastate message toll telephone service.
Determinative of the ultimate issue were answers to the following questions:
(1) Should General’s “exchange circuit plant” be apportioned between state B-I business (i. e., message toll telephone traffic between an exchange of an independent company and an exchange of Bell or between two independent company exchanges, which is the joint responsibility of independent and Bell companies and for which the facilities of both independent and Bell companies are used) and other business on the basis of (a) minutes of holding time for all telephone connections established or (b) the minutes of holding time, weighted with a mileage factor, for all telephone connections established?
(2) Should General’s “interchange circuit plant” devoted to state B-I business be apportioned on the basis of (a) conversation minute miles or (b) another method of apportionment?
(3) Should that “digit absorbing equipment” which is provided primarily to implement 2-5 numbering in order to conform with the nationwide numbering plan for the benefit of the toll system where five digits or less are adequate for local switching be assigned to “other toll dial switching equipment-category 5” or assigned to “local dial switching equipment-category 6?”
After extensive hearings, the commission found that both General and Bell provide equipment and facilities to render joint B-I state business; that the commission has prescribed, pursuant to law (in case No. 27400), a joint rate schedule for state B-I message toll telephone service; that relative minutes of use is a practical and proper method of apportioning General’s exchange circuit plant between state B-I business and other business, in view of the evidence presented in this proceeding, the minutes of use being the minutes of holding time for the area under study for all telephone connections established within the various exchanges in providing the operations involved; that relative state B-I conversation minute miles is not an inappropriate method of apportioning General’s interexchange circuit plant between state B-I business and other business
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on the basis of the record of this proceeding; that the commission should approve the construction accorded the separations methods, delineated in paragraph 24.7, “Other Toll Dial Switching Equipment-Category 5,” as set forth in the October 1959 United States Independent Telephone Association’s Separation Manual, in apportioning digit absorbing equipment between state B-I business and other business; that official notice should be taken of General’s rate base and the annual depreciation accrual rates as determined by the commission (in case No. 28168) as of December 31, 1958, for the purposes of this proceeding; that a 6% rate of return on the value of General’s plant and property apportioned to state B-I business is not an unreasonable return, with due regard being given to the type and nature of the service involved in this proceeding; and that the revenues received by both General and Bell from the joint rate prescribed by the commission for state B-I business should be divided between Bell and General for settlement purposes so that General will receive that portion of the revenues from such joint rate as will compensate General for its allocable costs to be determined pursuant to ascertained methods of apportionment.
The commission ordered that settlement arrangements by and between Bell and General for state B-I business be made forthwith, consistent with the foregoing determinations, and with equitable provisions for interest on balances due one from the other.
Mr. Ashley M. Van Duzer, Mr. Edwin N. Strand, Mr. Charles B. Ballou and Mr. Latham W. Murfey, Jr., for appellant.
Mr. Mark McElroy, attorney general, Mr. Herbert T. Maher an Mr. Andrew R. Sarisky, for appellee Public Utilities Commission.
Messrs. Power, Griffith Jones, for intervening appellee General Telephone Company of Ohio.
Per Curiam.
Appellant contends that the order of the commission is unlawful, unreasonable, not supported by any evidence, manifestly against the weight of the evidence, and prejudicial to appellant.
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Ordinarily this court will not substitute its judgment on questions of fact for that of the commission. City of Marietta v Public Utilities Commission, 148 Ohio St. 173; City of Cincinnati v. Public Utilities Commission, 161 Ohio St. 395, 399; Toledo Terminal Rd. Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 173 Ohio St. 251.
It does not appear from an examination of the record that the order of the commission is against the manifest weight of the evidence or is otherwise unlawful or unreasonable. The order is, therefore, affirmed.
Order affirmed.
WEYGANDT, C.J., ZIMMERMAN, MATTHIAS, BELL, BRYANT and O’NEILL, JJ., concur.
TAFT, J., concurs in the judgment for the reasons stated by the commission on pages 78, 79, 80, 82, and 88 in its opinion as reported in General Telephone Co. v. Ohio Bell Telephone Co.
(1961), 39 P.U.R. (3d), 65.
BRYANT, J., of the Tenth Appellate District, sitting by designation in the place and stead of HERBERT, J.