PUBLIC UTILITIES - RATES - CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTES PROHIBITING MINIMUM OR SERVICE CHARGES

An Oklahoma statute required that the consumer should be charged only for the gas he used as registered on a meter. The inhabitants of a certain town supplied with gas by petitioner were predominantly small consumers so that on a straight-line meter rate they did not pay for the cost of service. An increase in the rate would not solve the difficulty. The company petitioned the commission for authority to impose either a service charge or a minimum charge.

The commission denied the petition. Held, that as applied to this particular case, the statute was unconstitutional and the petition should have been granted. Avant Gas Service Co. v. Corporation Commission, (Okla. 1939) 89 P. (2d) 291.