SOUTHERN FREIGHT ASSOCIATION AND MUNICIPAL DOCKS TERMINAL RAILWAY COMPANY, PETITIONERS,

v.

EDWIN L. MASON ET AL., AS MEMBERS OF AND CONSTITUTING THE FLORIDA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, RESPONDENTS

DREW, Justice.

The petition for writ of certiorari in this case controverts an order of the-Florida Public Service Commission denying, a petition for a ten percent increase in intrastate switching rates. '

The commission found, upon the record evidence, “that the rates being charged for switching services are not high enough to pay for the cost of the performance of the-service. * * * Even the requested increase would not make the present rates compensatory.” The increase was denied, however, because of the apparently good financial condition of the applicants in their overall operation.

Petitioners’ first contention is that the commission, under the statutory mandate to establish just and reasonable rates,1 erred in rejecting the compensatory basis for rate determination and concluding that the rate prescribed for the class of service in question need not be related to the cost of performance of that service. In the situation presented that conclusion was in our opinion improper and not within the ambit of the decisions cited in the order.2

We think the better reasoned precedent is to the effect that the principle applied by the commission exceeded “the flexible limit of judgment which belongs to the power to fix rates, that is, transcended the limits of just classification and amounted to the creation of favored class or classes whom the carrier was compelled to serve at a loss,' to the detriment of other class or classes upon whom the burden of such loss would fall, [and] that such legislation would be so inherently unreasonable as to .constitute a violation of the due process and equal protection clauses. * * * ” 3 With *319reference to the analogous problem of freight classification for rate purposes, this Court recognized in the case of State ex rel. Railroad Com’rs v. F.E.C. Ry. Co., 72 Fla. 379, 73 So. 171, that a reasonable return on total earnings of a carrier “would not justify an order requiring it to carry one class of freight * * * for less than a reasonable rate.”

In the absence of any showing of a contravening public necessity, we conclude that upon the record before us the writ should issue, the order of the commission be quashed and the cause remanded with directions that the application be granted.

It is so ordered.

THORNAL, C. J., and THOMAS, O’CONNELL and ERVIN, JJ., concur.