e, even when it is an appropriate element to be included in a rate
base, must be separately stated and appraised as such * * * valuations
for rate purposes of a business assembled as a whole * * * [have often
been] sustained without separate appraisal of the going concern element.
* * * When that has been done, the burden rests on the regulated company
to show that this item has neither been adequately covered in the rate
base nor recouped from prior earnings of the business." Franchise value
and good will, on the other hand, have been consistently excluded from
valuation; the latter presumably because a utility invariably enjoys a
monopoly and consumers have no choice in the matter of patronizing it.
The latter proposition has been developed in the following cases:
Willcox _v._ Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U.S. 19 (1909); Des Moines Gas
Co. _v._ Des Moines, 238 U.S. 153, 163-164 (1915); Galveston Electric
Co. _v._ Galveston, 258 U.S. 388 (1922); Los Angeles Gas & E. Corp. _v._
Railroad Commission, 289 U.S. 287, 313 (1933).

(6) Salvage Value.--It is not constitutional error to disregard
theoretical reproduction cost for a plant which "no responsible person
would think of reproducing." Accordingly, where, due to adverse
conditions, a street-surface railroad has lost all value except for
scrap or salvage, it was permissible for a commission, as the Court held
in Market St. R. Co. _v._ Comm'n., 324 U.S. 548, 562, 564 (1945), to use
as a rate base the price at which the utility offered to sell its
property to a citizen. Moreover, the Commission's order was not invalid
even though under the prescribed rate the utility would operate at a
loss; for the due process cannot be invoked to protect a public utility
against business hazards, such as the loss of, or failure to obtain,
patronage. On the other hand, in the case of a water company whose
franchise has expired (Denver _v._ Denver Union Water Co., 246 U.S. 178
(1918)), but where there is no other source of supply, its plant should
be valued as actually in use rather than at what the property would
bring for some other use in case the city should build its own plant.

(7) Past Losses And Gains.--"The Constitution [does not] require that
the losses of * * * [a] business in one year shall be restored from
future earnings by the device of capitalizing the losses and adding them
to the rate base on which a fair return and depreciation allowance is to
be earned." Power Comm'n. _v._