PUBLIC ACTS, 1913-No. 206. SEC. 3. The Auditor General shall incorporate in the State tax for the year nineteen hundred thirteen, the sum of ninetysix thousand three hundred dollars, which when collected shall be credited to the general fund to reimburse the same for the money hereby appropriated. This act is ordered to take immediate effect. [No. 206.] AN ACT to declare telephone lines and telephone companies within the State of Michigan to be common carriers, to regulate the business of the same, provide for the consolidation thereof and prescribe a penalty for the violation of this act. The People of the State of Michigan enact: SECTION 1. All persons, corporations and associations operating telephone lines or exchanges doing a telephone business within the State of Michigan, are hereby declared to be common carriers; and all laws so far as applicable now in force or that may be hereafter enacted, regulating the transportation of persons or property by railroad companies within the State, shall apply with equal force and effect to telephone companies. SEC. 2. The Michigan Railroad Commission, hereinafter to styled "the commission," shall have the general control of all telephones, telephone lines and telephone companies within the State, and shall investigate any alleged neglect or violation of the laws of the State by any person, copartnership or corporation doing a telephone business within the State, or by the officers, agents or employes thereof. SEC. 3. All persons, copartnerships or corporations doing a telephone business within this State are required to furnish reasonably adequate service and facilities for the use of their lines by the public. All charges made for any service rendered, furnished or performed, or to be rendered, furnished or performed within the State by any telephone company shall be reasonable and just, and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful; and the commission shall have power to make, alter, amend or abolish any rate or charge for any service, and may regulate by rules or orders any service or facility; and it shall likewise prescribe the standard of construction and equipment that shall be maintained by any person, copartnership or corporation maintaining a physical connection between the lines and facilities of any such person, copartnership or cor poration, and the lines and facilities of any other person, copartnership or corporation. crimination SEC. 4. If any telephone company doing business within Unjust disthis State shall directly or indirectly by any special rate, unlawful. rebate, drawback or other device, charge, demand, collect or receive from any person or persons, copartnership or corporation a greater or less compensation for any service rendered, furnished or performed than it charges, demands, collects or receives from any other person or persons, copartnership or corporation for rendering, furnishing or performing for him or them a like contemporaneous service, such telephone company shall be guilty of unjust discrimination which is hereby prohibited and declared to be unlawful. It Rebating shall further be unlawful for any person, copartnership or unlawful. corporation directly or indirectly to ask, demand or accept any rebate, drawback or other device whereby he shall obtain telephone service for any less rate than that charged others in like circumstances. SEC. 5. It shall be unlawful for any telephone corporation Preference doing business within this State to make or give any prefer- unlawful. ence or advantage to any person, copartnership, corporation or locality, or subject any person, copartnership, corporation or locality to any prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatever. connections SEC. 6. Whenever the commission, after a hearing had on Physical its own motion or upon complaint of any party in interest, may order. shall find that a physical connection can reasonably be made between the lines of two or more persons, copartnerships or corporations operating telephone lines, whose lines by such connection can be made to form a continuous line of communication, and that public convenience and necessity will be subserved thereby, or shall upon like motion or complaint find that two or more persons, copartnerships or corporations so operating telephone lines have failed to establish joint rates, tolls or charges for service by or over their said lines, the commisison may by its order require that such physical connection be made, and may prescribe through lines and joint rates, tolls and charges to be made and to be used and observed in the future. If such persons, copartnerships or corporations so operating telephone lines and telephone facilities do not agree upon the division between them of the cost of installing of such physical connection or connections, or the division of any joint rate, tolls or charges established by the commission over such through line, the commission shall have authority, after hearing to establish such division. SEC. 7. All persons, copartnerships or corporations re- Switching quired by an order of the commission to provide for the service. physical connection of telephone lines and facilities, and to establish joint rates, tolls and charges, are hereby required to perform switching service for the transmission of messages between the lines and facilities operated by such persons, copartnerships or corporations without favor or discrimination. Sale, con ing. Hearing. The person, copartnership or corporation on whose line or lines messages originate shall be responsible to and make settlement with the person, copartnership or corporation owning or operating the terminal line or lines for the share of said person, copartnership or corporation in the joint toll rate or charge for such message. SEC. 8. In case any telephone company shall desire to sell ditions govern- or lease its lines or facilities, or any part thereof, to any other telephone company in this State, such sale or lease shall be lawful only upon compliance with the following conditions, that is to say: The company or companies desiring to sell or lease any telephone line, lines or facilities, shall join with the company or companies desiring to purchase or lease the same in an application to the commission, setting forth a general description of the property, together with the price and conditions under which it is proposed that the same shall be taken. Upon the receipt of such application the commission. shall fix a date of hearing, which shall be not less than ten days from the date of the filing of such application. If upon the hearing of such application it shall be made to appear to the commission that such sale, lease, merger or consolidation is in furtherance of public convenience and necessity, and that the property to be sold or leased is of at least the value at which it is to be taken, the commission shall by its order authorize such sale, lease, merger or consolidation, and by its order determine the terms and conditions upon which such sale, lease, merger or consolidation may be made, and the connections, joint rates, tolls and charges that shall be accorded by the purchasers or leasers of such property to any and all persons, copartnerships and corporations, owning or operating telephone lines and facilities over and through the lines and facilities of said consolidated property; all of which terms and conditions shall be binding upon the purchasers or leasers of said property until the further order of the commission. Certificate of public convenience, application. Map, etc. SEC. 9. Any person, copartnership or corporation desiring to obtain a franchise to construct a telephone system in any municipality in the State of Michigan, shall apply to the commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, and the commission may grant or withhold said certificate after a public hearing and investigation upon the merits of the application in the manner provided herein for holding of public hearings and investigations on complaint, and no such person, copartnership or corporation shall be granted a franchise in any municipality in the State of Michigan to construct a telephone system until they have received a certificate of public convenience and necessity herein provided for. Every application under this section shall be in substantial compliance with a form to be furnished by the commission; it shall be accompanied by a map or plat showing the proposed line or lines which it is desired to construct and the line or lines of any person, copartnership or corpora tion serving the same territory. Such application shall like Schedule of wise be accompanied by a schedule of the rates, tolls, rents rates, etc. and charges which it is proposed to charge for service in the event of the construction of said line or lines. In the granting of any certificate of public convenience and necessity under the provisions of this section, the commission shall fix the rates, tolls, rentals and charges to be imposed in the event of the construction of such telephone line or lines, which shall continue to be the lawful rates, tolls, rentals and charges of such person, copartnership or corporation until changed under and by virtue of the provisions of this act. SEC. 10. No person, copartnership or corporation, owning Increase of telephone lines and facilities and rendering telephone service when made. within this State shall increase any rate, toll, rental or charge, or so alter any classification, contract, practice, rule or regulation as to result in any increase in any rate, toll, rental or charge under any circumstance whatsoever, except upon an application to the commission, and a finding by the commission that such increase is justified. Every such appli- Notice, proof cation shall be accompanied by a notice and proof of publica- of publication. tion thereof for at least one insertion in some newspaper of general circulation in the territory served by the line or lines of such applicant, which said notice shall state the What to state. increase of rate, toll, rental or charge proposed, and the date when the application will be presented to the commission for the fixing of a date of hearing thereon. Upon receipt of any such application, the commission shall fix a date of hearing, which shall be not more than twenty days from the receipt of such application. SEC. 11. The commission shall, acting upon its own motion Complaints, and likewise upon the complaint of any person, copartner. hearing, etc. ship, association, corporation, body politic or municipal corporation, have authority to hear and determine all complaints against the practices, rates, tolls, rentals or charges, or services rendered, or facilities furnished, or complaints as to service withheld or refused to be rendered, furnished or performed by persons, copartnerships or corporations within the terms of this act. Upon the filing of any complaint against any Notice of practice, rate, charge or service rendered or facility furnished, hearing. or against any service withheld or refused to be rendered, furnished or performed under and by virtue of the provisions. of the preceding section, the commission shall give the person, copartnership or corporation against which complaint is made, at least twenty days' notice of the time and place when and where a hearing will be given said person, copartnership or corporation upon the matters in such complaint alleged. The commission shall have power to administer oaths, certify to all official acts and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of papers, books, accounts, documents and testimony as in cases arising under act number three hundred of the public acts of nineteen hundred nine. May adopt rules, etc. Action to set aside order. Answer. When injuncion shall issue. Stay of proceedings. SEC. 13. The commission shall have the power to adopt rules to govern its proceedings, and to regulate the mode and manner of all investigations and hearings of telephone companies and other companies before it in the establishment of rates, facilities, charges, service and other acts required of it under this act, which rules shall as near as may be, conform to the practice heretofore established under act number three hundred of the public acts of nineteen hundred nine. SEC. 14. Any telephone company or other party in interest, being dissatisfied with any final order of the commission made in any proceeding under this act, may within thirty days from the issuance of such order and notice thereof, commence an action in the circuit court in chancery against the commission as defendant to vacate and set aside any such order on the ground that the certificate granted or withheld is not in accordance with the rights of the parties, that the rate or rates, charges, joint rate or rates fixed are unlawful or unreasonable, or that any such regulation, practice or service fixed in such order is unreasonable; in which suit the commission shall be served with a subpoena and a copy of the complaint. The commission shall file its answer and on leave of court any interested party may file an answer to said complaint. Upon the filing of the answer of the commission said cause shall be at issue and stand ready for hearing upon ten days' notice by either party. All suits brought under this section shall have precedence over any civil cause of a different nature pending in such court, and the circuit court shall always be deemed open for the hearing thereof, and the same shall proceed, be tried and determined as other chancery suits. Any party to such suit may introduce original evidence in addition to the transcript of evidence offered to said commission, and the circuit courts in chancery are hereby given jurisdiction of such suits and empowered to affirm, vacate or set aside the order of the commission in whole or in part, and to make such other order or decree as the courts shall decide to be in accordance with the facts and the law. SEC. 15. No injunction shall issue suspending or staying any order of the commission, except upon application to the circuit court in chancery or to the judge thereof, notice to the commission having been given and hearing having been had thereon. SEC. 16. If upon the trial of said action evidence shall be introduced by the complainant which is found by the court to be different from that offered upon the hearing before the commission or additional thereto, the court before proceeding to render judgment, unless the parties in such action stipulate in writing to the contrary, shall transmit a copy of such evidence to the commission, and shall stay further proceedings in said action for fifteen days from the date of |