(a) It shall be the duty of every common carrier of passengers by motor carrier to provide safe and adequate service, equipment, and facilities for the transportation of passengers and to establish, observe, and enforce just and reasonable rates, fares, and charges, and just and reasonable regulations and practices relating thereto, and to the issuance, form, and substance of tickets, the carrying of personal, sample, and excess baggage, the facilities for transportation, and all other matters relating to or connected with the transportation of passengers.
lawyer at desk

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

Terms Used In Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-20

  • Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
  • Certificate: means a certificate of public convenience and necessity issued under this chapter to common carriers by motor vehicle. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Commission: means the public utilities commission. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Common carrier by motor vehicle: means any person that holds itself out to the general public to engage in the transportation by motor vehicle of passengers or property or any class or classes thereof for compensation. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • Motor carrier: includes both a common carrier by motor vehicle and a contract carrier by motor vehicle. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Motor vehicle: means any vehicle, machine, tractor, trailer, or semitrailer propelled or drawn by mechanical power and used upon the highways in the transportation of passengers or property, or any combination thereof determined by the commission, but does not include any vehicle, locomotive, or car operated exclusively on a rail or rails or a trolley bus operated by electric power derived from a fixed overhead wire, furnishing local passenger transportation similar to street-railway service. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Rates: includes rates, fares, tolls, rentals, and charges of whatever kind and nature unless the context indicates otherwise; provided that for transportation by motor vehicle of passengers, where the provision of transportation is part of a package that may include air fare, meals, attractions, and other services, "rates" shall only include the charges for the provision of transportation by motor vehicle. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
  • Transportation of property: includes every service in connection with or incidental to the transportation of property, including in particular its receipt, delivery, elevation, transfer, carriage, ventilation, refrigeration, icing, dunnage, storage in transit, handling, and consolidation for the purposes of forwarding within the State. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 271-4
(b) It shall be the duty of every common carrier of property by motor vehicle to provide safe and adequate service, equipment, and facilities for the transportation of property and to establish, observe, and enforce just and reasonable rates, charges, and classifications, and just and reasonable regulations and practices relating thereto, and to the manner and method of presenting, marking, packing, and delivering property for transportation, the facilities for transportation, and all other matters relating to or connected with the transportation of property.
(c) All charges made for any service rendered by any common carrier by motor vehicle in the transportation of passengers or property or in connection therewith shall be just and reasonable, and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service or any part thereof, is prohibited and declared to be unlawful. It shall be unlawful for any common carrier by motor vehicle to make, give, or cause any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, locality, region, district, island, or description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever; or to subject any particular person, locality, region, district, island, or description of traffic to any unjust discrimination or undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever; provided that this subsection shall not be construed to apply to discrimination, prejudice, or disadvantage to the traffic of any other carrier of whatever description.
(d) Any person, organization, or body politic may make complaint in writing to the public utilities commission that any such rate, fare, charge, classification, rule, regulation, or practice, in effect or proposed to be put into effect, is or will be in violation of this section or of § 271-21. Whenever, after hearing, upon complaint or an investigation of its own initiative, the commission shall be of the opinion that any individual rate, fare, or charge, demanded, charged, or collected by any common carrier or carriers by motor vehicle for transportation, or any classification, rule, regulation, or practice whatsoever of the carrier or carriers, affecting such rate, fare, or charge or the value of the service thereunder, is or will be unjust or unreasonable, or unjustly discriminatory or unduly preferential or unduly prejudicial, it shall determine and prescribe the lawful rate, fare, or charge or the maximum or minimum or maximum and minimum rate, fare, or charge thereafter to be observed, or the lawful classification, rule, regulation, or practice thereafter to be made effective.
(e) Whenever there is filed with the commission any schedule stating a new rate, fare, charge, or classification for the transportation of passengers or property by a common carrier or carriers by motor vehicle, or any rule, regulation, or practice affecting such rate, fare, or charge, or the value of the service thereunder, the commission may upon complaint of any interested person or upon its own initiative at once and, if it so orders, without answer or other formal pleading by the interested carrier or carriers, but upon reasonable notice, enter upon a hearing concerning the lawfulness of the rate, fare, or charge, or the rule, regulation, or practice, and pending the hearing and the decision thereon the commission, by filing the schedule and delivering to the carrier or carriers affected thereby a statement in writing of its reasons for such suspension, may from time to time suspend the operation of the schedule and defer the use of the rate, fare, or charge, or the rule, regulation, or practice, but not for a longer period than five months beyond the time when it would otherwise go into effect, and after hearing, whether completed before or after the rate, fare, charge, classification, rule, regulation, or practice goes into effect, the commission may make such order with reference thereto as would be proper in a proceeding instituted after it had become effective. If the proceeding has not been concluded and an order made within the period of suspension, the proposed changed rate, fare, or charge, or classification, rule, regulation, or practice, shall go into effect at the end of such period; provided that this subsection shall not apply to any initial schedule or schedules filed by any carrier in bona fide operation when this section takes effect. At any hearing involving a change in a rate, fare, charge, or classification, or in a rule, regulation, or practice, the burden of proof shall be upon the carrier to show that the proposed changed rate, fare, charge, classification, rule, regulation, or practice, is just and reasonable.
(f) In any proceeding to determine the justness or reasonableness of any rate, fare, or charge of any carrier, there shall not be taken into consideration or allowed as evidence or elements of value of the property of the carrier, either goodwill, earning power, or the certificate under which the carrier is operating; and in applying for and receiving a certificate under this [chapter] any carrier shall be deemed to have agreed to the provisions of this subsection on its own behalf and on behalf of all transferees of the certificate.
(g) In the exercise of its power to prescribe just and reasonable rates, fares, and charges for the transportation of passengers or property by common carriers by motor vehicle, and classifications, regulations, and practices relating thereto, the commission shall give due consideration, among other factors, to the effect of rates upon the movement of traffic by the carrier or carriers for which the rates are prescribed; to the need, in the public interest, of adequate and efficient transportation service by the carriers at the lowest cost consistent with the furnishing of the service; and to the need of revenues sufficient to enable the carriers, under honest, economical, and efficient management, to provide the service.
(h) Nothing in this section shall be held to extinguish any remedy or right of action not inconsistent herewith.

  Previous
Next  
 Chapter 271 Contents