Chap. 375.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 1 of an act entitled an act
imposing public duties on heat, light, power, water and telephone companies
and providing for the control and regulation of such companies by the State
corporation commission, approved March 27, 1914, as amended by an act
approved March 23, 1918. S B 374

Approved March 20, 1924.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
one of an act entitled an act imposing public duties on heat, light.
power, water and telephone companies, and providing for the contro.
and regulation of such companies by the State corporation commis-
sion, approved March twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and fourteen.
as amended by act approved March twenty-third, nineteen hundred and
eighteen, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. (a) Isvery public utility shall be required to file with
the State corporation commission and to keep open to public inspection.
schedules showing rates and charges, either for itself, or joint rates and
charges between itself and any other public utility or utilities. Every
public utility shall file with, and as a part of, such schedules, all rates
and regulations that in any manner affect the rates charged or to be
charged. No change shall thereafter be made in any schedule, includ-
ing schedules of joint rates, so filed, except after thirty days’ notice to
the commission and to the public in such manner as the commission
may require, and all such changed rates, tolls, charges, rules, and regu-
lations shall be plainly indicated upon existing schedules, or by filing
new schedules in lieu thereof not less than thirty days prior to the time
the same are to take effect; provided, that the commission may, in par-
ticular cases, authorize or prescribe a less time in which changes may be
made; and further provided, that the commission, either upon complaint
or on its own motion, may suspend the enforcement of any or all of the
proposed rates, tolls, charges, rules or regulations, for a period not ex-
ceeding sixty days during which time it shall investigate the reason-
ableness or justice of the proposed rates, tolls, charges, rules and regu-
lations and thereupon fix and order substituted therefor such rates,
tolls, charges, rules and regulations as shall be just and reasonable.
Notice of the suspension of any proposed rate, toll, charge, rule or regu-
lation shall be given by the commission to the public utility, prior to the
expiration of the thirty days’ notice to the commission and the public,
heretofore provided for.

If the commission, in exceptional cases, is unable to conclude its
investigations and hearings within the aforesaid period of sixty days,
the commission may, for good reasons shown and spread upon the
record, further suspend from time to time the operation of the proposed
rates, tolls, charges, rules or regulations for such moderate and reason-
able periods as may be requisite and necessary to complete the investi-
gation; provided, however, such periods of further suspension shall not
exceed six months.

The public utility whose schedules shall have been so filed may ap-
peal to the supreme court of appeals from such decision or order as the
commission may finally enter, and in case of such appeal the public
utility shall enter into a bond in the penalty and with security approved
by the commission, payable to the Commonwealth and sufficient in
amount and security and adequate in form and conditions, to insure the
prompt refund by the public utility to those entitled thereto, of all
amounts which such public utility may collect or receive in excess of
such rates, tolls and charges as may be fixed and determined by the
final decision of the court of appeals. Upon the filing of such bond the
commission shall approve the same as promptly as possible, or direct
such changes in said bond.or in the security offered thereon as may to
the commission seem just and proper. Upon the execution and filing
of such bond, satisfactory to the commission, the suspension shall im-
mediately cease and determine, and the said proposed schedule of rates,
tolls, charges, rules and regulations shall thereupon become effective.
And in such case the commission may require the public utility to keep
such accounts and make such reports from time to time as may in the
judgment of the commission suffice to show the amounts being charged
or received by the public utility pending the appeal, together with the
names anc addresses of persons to whom the overcharges will be re-
fundable in case the schedule filed by the public utility be not finally
approved and sustained by the court of appeals. Upon the final de-
cision of such appeal, all amounts which the appealing public utility
may have collected in excess of the rates, tolls and charges authorized by
such final decision, shall be promptly refunded by the public utility to
the parties entitled thereto, in such manner and through such method
of distribution as may be. prescribed by the commission. The com-
mission may in its discretion at any time after the filing of said bond re-
quire additional security, or the filing of a bond in a larger amount, as in
the judgment of the commission the interest of the parties may reason-
ably require. But this paragraph is subject to the following qualifica-
tion, that if any public utility furnishing water to any city having a
population of more than fifty thousand according to the last census or
the inhabitants thereof shall desire to put into effect such rate, pending
such appeal, then upon application to the Commission, made after such
notice to such parties as the commission may direct, the commission
may enter an order permitting such public utility to put into effect the
rate filed, pending such appeal.

Unless the commission so suspends said schedule of rates, tolls,
charges, rules and regulations, or changes thereof, the same shall go into
effect as originally filed by the public utility, upon the date specified in
the schedule, subject, however, to the power of the commission, upon
investigation thereafter, to fix and order substituted therefor such rate
or rates, tolls, charges, rules, or regulations as shall be just and reason-
able, as provided in section seven, chapter three hundred and forty,
act approved March twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and fourteen.

(b) It shall be the public duty of every public utility to furnish
reasonably adequate service and facilities at reasonable and just rates
to any person, firm or corporation along its lines desiring same and not
engaged in a similar business, and to charge uniformly therefor all per-
sons or corporations using such product under like conditions, and not
in competition with such furnishing company.

But nothing herein contained shall be construed as applicable to
schedules of rates, or contracts for service rendered by any such com-
pany, to any municipal corporation, or to the State or Federal govern-
ment. .

(c) From any action of the commission in prescribing rates,
charges, rules and regulations or changes thereof, an appeal may be
taken by the corporation whose rates, tolls, charges, rules and regula-
tions or changes thereof are affected, or by any person deeming himself
aggrieved by such action or if allowed by law by the Commonwealth in
the manner prescribed in section one hundred and fifty-six of the Con-
stitution of nineteen hundred and two, for appeals from actions of the
commission prescribing rates, charges or classifications of traffic affect-
ing transportation and transmission companies. The power of the cor-
poration commission over the rates of telephone companies shall be as
defined by an act approved March thirteenth, nineteen hundred and
fourteen, entitled an act to provide for the supervision and control of
telephone companies by the State corporation commission.