{
  "id": 3586404,
  "name": "INDEPENDENT COIN PAYPHONE ASSOCIATION, Petitioner-Appellant, v. THE ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION et al., Respondents-Appellees",
  "name_abbreviation": "Independent Coin Payphone Ass'n v. Illinois Commerce Commission",
  "decision_date": "1988-05-13",
  "docket_number": "No. 87\u20140966",
  "first_page": "958",
  "last_page": "961",
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    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
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  "jurisdiction": {
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    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
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    {
      "cite": "131 Ill. App. 3d 376",
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      "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d",
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        3436412
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      "year": 1972,
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T14:52:57.912624+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "INDEPENDENT COIN PAYPHONE ASSOCIATION, Petitioner-Appellant, v. THE ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION et al., Respondents-Appellees."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "JUSTICE MURRAY\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThis is a judicial review of a January 21, 1987, order of Illinois Commerce Commission approving a tariff filed by the Illinois Bell Telephone Co. The review is taken by the Independent Coin Payphone Association (Association). In addition to the Illinois Bell Telephone Company and the Illinois Commerce Commission, a corporation known as Phone Programs of Illinois, Inc., are respondents.\nThe parties are all engaged in the telephone industry except the Illinois Commerce Commission. As a result, the briefs are filled with initials and numbers rather than words. For example, the petitioner calls itself I.C.P.A.; the Illinois Commerce Commission is I.C.C.; the Illinois Bell Telephone Company is I.B.T.; the case involves Public Announcement Service referred to in the briefs as P.A.S. The area being serviced is Chicagoland and is called M.S.A. in the briefs. The involved telephone number has a prefix of 976. In telephone jargon I.C.P.A. is appealing from an order of the I.C.C. approving a tariff for P.A.S. in M.S.A. over 976. In addition to I.C.C. and I.B.T., P.P.I, which supplies P.I. (Public Information) to I.C.P.A. and others is a respondent in the case.\nThe court will attempt to use words and phrases rather than letters and numbers to explain the case hoping, at least, to delay the day computers fully take over the judiciary.\nThe case started when the telephone company filed a tariff with the Commission restructuring its local exchanges offering of Public Announcement Service in the Chicago area. Public Announcement Service includes telephone calls over a prefix of 976 to obtain information, such as time, weather, and other information. To those of the readers that were babies 50 years or so ago, the information as to weather could be gotten by asking the, now extinct, telephone operator for the number \u201cWeather 1212\u201d or the time by the number \u201cCathedral 8000.\u201d Since the telephone operator has been replaced by a computer, the telephone industry has to use letters and numbers in place of words like Midway, Beverly, Englewood, Yards, Hyde Park and other familiar Chicago names.\nThe Association intervened in the tariff case contending that the telephone company\u2019s proposed tariff violated the Universal Telephone Service Protection Law of 1985 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 111\u2154, par. 13 \u2014 100 et seq.). The Association\u2019s members, the Association claims, were discriminated against by the proposed tariff in violation of the cited law. The Association\u2019s members competed with the telephone company in rendering the Public Information Service in the Chicago area. The Phone Programs of Illinois, Inc. (The Phone Corporation), programs information that is conveyed to the consumer over the Public Announcement Service.\nSubsequent to January 21, 1987, the telephone company filed with the Commission a request to block access to the Public Announcement Service from Illinois Bell Telephone payphones over its prefix 976. The stated reason for this action was objections by some of its customers to the information emanating from the Service. On February 28, 1988, the Illinois Commerce Commission approved this request. Illinois Bell Telephone Company has now moved to dismiss the Association\u2019s appeal as moot. They are joined in this motion by the other respondents. We have taken the motion with the case because of the objections of the petitioner, Association.\nThe petitioner Association now contends that there is nothing to stop the phone company from unblocking the 976 prefix on its coin service and reenter the field with the discriminatory rate and, even though they do not, the case falls within the \u201cpublic interest\u201d exception to the mootness doctrine.\nWe disagree and grant the motion to dismiss.\nAn issue on appeal relating to orders of the Illinois Commerce Commission becomes moot when events occur which make it impossible for the reviewing court to grant effective relief. (People ex rel. Hartigan v. Illinois Commerce Comm\u2019n (1985), 131 Ill. App. 3d 376, 378, 475 N.E.2d 635.) Events occurring during the pendency of litigation which dissipate the controversy on which the litigation was founded may render a case moot. People ex rel. Newdelman v. Weaver (1972), 50 Ill. 2d 237, 278 N.E.2d 81.\nThe February 28, 1988, order approving the telephone company\u2019s request to block access to its Public Announcement Service from Illinois Bell Company payphones prevented its customers from placing Public Announcement calls from Illinois Bell\u2019s pay-coin phones. This action eliminated any question of discrimination in rates with respect to that service. It also precludes any order from this court reversing the January 21, 1987, order and remanding the cause to the Commission with directions to structure a fair and equitable rate.\nNo tariff now exists for the service by reason of the February 28, 1988, Commission action. Before the telephone company may renew its 976 prefix service and make charges for that or any other Public Information Service, it would be required to file a new tariff. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, eh. 111\u2154, par. 9 \u2014 102.) In such case, the provisions of the Public Utility Act relating to nondiscriminatory charges and the Illinois Universal Telephone Protection Law of 1985 would have to be complied with. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 111\u2154, par. 13 \u2014 100 et seq.\nDuring oral argument the attorney for the Commission stated to the court that the telephone company would be required to file a new tariff if it attempted to reenter the field. Thus, any fears by the Association or its members that \u201cMa Bell\u201d is going to change her mind and reenter the field with a discriminatory rate at this juncture are groundless.\nAlthough Illinois courts have held that the public interest is an exception to the mootness doctrine, the petitioner has not suggested just what public interest is involved in the case. At best, petitioner\u2019s appeals suggest that the telephone company may, after dismissal of this appeal, reenter the field with a discriminatory rate. Given the broad powers of the Illinois Commerce Commission over utility rates and this court\u2019s broadened jurisdiction over Illinois Commerce Commission orders, this court cannot and does not assume that future discriminatory rate would be countenanced by the Commission or approved by this court.\nAccordingly, the motion to dismiss the appeal on the grounds of mootness is allowed and the appeal is dismissed.\nTo put it in language that even a computer can understand, I.C.P.A.\u2019s petition to review an order of the I.C.C. involving the I.B.T. and P.P.I. concerning P.A.S. and P.I. on 976 in the M.A.S. is dismissed as moot and hopefully will R.I.P. (Rest in peace.)\nDismissed.\nSULLIVAN and PINCHAM, JJ., concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "JUSTICE MURRAY"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "John F. Ward, Jr., and Michael W. Ward, both of O\u2019Keefe, Ashenden, Lyons & Ward, of Chicago, for petitioner.",
      "Neil F. Hartigan, Attorney General, of Springfield (Kathleen Nolan, Special Assistant Attorney General, of Chicago, of counsel), for respondent Illinois Commerce Commission.",
      "Alan L. Unikel, of Alexander, Unikel, Zalewa & Tenenbaum, Ltd., of Chicago, and Margolis, Chase, Kosicki, Aboyoun & Hartman, P.A., of Verona, New Jersey (Eric L. Chase, of counsel), for respondent Phone Programs of Illinois, Inc."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "INDEPENDENT COIN PAYPHONE ASSOCIATION, Petitioner-Appellant, v. THE ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION et al., Respondents-Appellees.\nFirst District (5th Division)\nNo. 87\u20140966\nOpinion filed May 13, 1988.\nJohn F. Ward, Jr., and Michael W. Ward, both of O\u2019Keefe, Ashenden, Lyons & Ward, of Chicago, for petitioner.\nNeil F. Hartigan, Attorney General, of Springfield (Kathleen Nolan, Special Assistant Attorney General, of Chicago, of counsel), for respondent Illinois Commerce Commission.\nAlan L. Unikel, of Alexander, Unikel, Zalewa & Tenenbaum, Ltd., of Chicago, and Margolis, Chase, Kosicki, Aboyoun & Hartman, P.A., of Verona, New Jersey (Eric L. Chase, of counsel), for respondent Phone Programs of Illinois, Inc."
  },
  "file_name": "0958-01",
  "first_page_order": 980,
  "last_page_order": 983
}