ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY v. STATE

ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY v. STATE
1957 OK 318
319 P.2d 592
Case Number: 37856
Decided: 12/17/1957
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

 
ST. LOUIS-SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR,
v.
STATE OF OKLAHOMA, DEFENDANT IN ERROR.

Syllabus by the Court

¶0 1. Under the provisions of the Constitution, this Court on appeal from an order of the Corporation Commission, is required to review the evidence for the purpose of determining whether the order appealed from is supported by substantial evidence, and when there is such evidence reasonably tending to support the order of the Commission, such order must be sustained; and, conversely, if the order is not so sustained the Commission's order will be reversed.
2. Record examined, and held: Commission's order denying appellant permission to discontinue its passenger trains Nos. 709 and 704 on the ground that there existed a public necessity as distinguished from a public convenience for the continued passenger train service supplied by said trains must be reversed because not supported by substantial evidence reasonably tending to sustain the order.

Appeal from an order of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission denying application of plaintiff in error to discontinue passenger trains 709 and 704 between Cedars, Oklahoma and Grant, Oklahoma. Reversed and remanded with directions.

John E. McCullough, St. Louis, Satterfield, Franklin & Harmon, Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.

James Bounds, Hugo, George Windham, Poteau, F.L. Welch, Antlers, of counsel.

James G. Welch, Gen. Counsel, Oklahoma City, William L. Anderson, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Norman, T. Earl Curb, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Corp. Commission, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error.

JOHNSON, Justice.

¶1 This case is here on appeal from an order of the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma refusing permission and authority to appellant and denying it the right to discontinue operation in Oklahoma of its passenger trains Nos. 704 and 709, operating between the Arkansas-Oklahoma State Line near Cedars, Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma-Texas State Line south of Grant, Oklahoma.

¶2 Other than that the appellant showed that its entire passenger system, as well as these branch line passenger trains, were being operated at a constant, continuous and substantial loss, and that such losses had to be made up by increased freight rates (as raising passenger rates would be useless as there were no passengers) and the further fact that a bus company was ready to take over the passenger service in the small villages not now served by bus, the factual situation is substantially the same as in the recent cases of St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company v. State of Oklahoma, Okl., 301 P.2d 228; St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. State of Oklahoma, Okl., 262 P.2d 168, 172, and St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. State, 204 Okl. 432, 230 P.2d 709.

¶3 The case reported in 262 P.2d 168 was followed in the later cases of Missouri, Kansas and Texas R. Co. v. State, Okl., 266 P.2d 642, and Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Ry. Co. v. State, Okl., 275 P.2d 274, wherein we, upon a state of facts substantially the same as in the Frisco cases, supra, reversed the Commission's orders on the authority of those cases, and remanded with directions to enter orders granting the applications.

¶4 In the instant case we adopt the syllabus of the last mentioned case as the syllabus herein.

¶5 For the reasons given in Missouri-Kansas Texas Ry. Co. v. State, Okl.Sup., 319 P.2d 590, and the reasons given herein, and on the authority of those cases, the cause is reversed and remanded with directions to enter an order granting the application.

¶6 CORN, V.C.J., and HALLEY, WILLIAMS, JACKSON and CARLILE, JJ., concur.