Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce v. Public Utilities Com'n

• Decision Date: 17 November 1982
• Docket Number: No. 80-236-M,80-236-M
• Citation: 452 A.2d 931
• Parties: BLACKSTONE VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE et al. v. PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION. P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 931

452 A.2d 931

BLACKSTONE VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE et al. v. PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION.

No. 80-236-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Nov. 17, 1982.

James F. McCoy, Pawtucket, Sullivan & Worcester, Robert G. Bleakney, Jr., David

A. Fazzone, Alicia R. Lopez, Boston, Mass., for petitioners

Dennis J. Roberts II, Atty. Gen., John R. McDermott, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Carl Ira Freedman, Rhode Island Legal Services, Inc., Providence, for intervenor, The Coalition for Consumer Justice.

OPINION

SHEA, Justice.

These matters come before the court on a statutory petition for certiorari issued pursuant to the terms of G.L.1956 (1977 Reenactment) § 39-5-1. The Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce (the chamber) filed the petition seeking review of actions by the Public Utilities Commission (the commission). Specifically, the chamber contends that the commission's order replacing the declining block residential rate structure with a flat rate structure lacks a sufficient evidentiary basis and violates statutory law.

On December 1, 1979, the commission consolidated for hearing and decision three pending dockets involving the Blackstone Valley Electric Company (the company). Docket No. 1439 related to the company's request for a general rate increase, and docket Nos. 1184 and 1185 involved cases whose records were reopened and supplemented as a result of this court's decision in Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce v. Public Utilities Commission, R.I., 396 A.2d 102 (1979). In that case, the chamber challenged the commission's order exempting the first 300 kilowatt hours (KWH) consumed per month by residential users from a general rate increase. The challenged action altered the revenue responsibility of each customer class. ¹ This court held that the exemption to residential users lacked a sufficient evidentiary basis and remanded the case to the commission for further proceedings.

On May 13, 1980, the commission issued an order on the three pending dockets involving the company. The order provided for an across-the-board rate increase in revenue allocations among classes and in the rate structure within classes. It also changed the structure of residential rates from a declining block rate to a flat rate. ² The chamber's petition challenges only the alteration of the residential rate structure. Neither the company nor the Coalition for Consumer Justice, an intervenor below, challenged this order. Only the chamber applied to this court for relief.

The threshold question raised by this petition concerns whether the chamber has alleged facts that entitle it to obtain judicial review of the challenged action. Section 39-5-1 provides that,

"[a]ny person aggrieved by a decision or order of the commission may, within seven (7) days from the date of such decision or order, petition the supreme court for a writ of certiorari to review the legality and reasonableness of said decision or order."

In other words, § 39-5-1 confers standing only on persons "aggrieved by a decision or order of the commission."

Standing is an access barrier that calls for the assessment of one's credentials to bring suit. "It is what entitles one to obtain an adjudication and thus confers a right to review but not necessarily to relief." Albert, Standing to Challenge Administrative Action: An Inadequate Surrogate for Claim for Relief 83 Yale L.J. 425, 427 (1974). In other words, standing involves a threshold inquiry into the parties' status before reaching the merits of their claims. The essence of the question of standing is whether the party seeking relief has alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to ensure concrete adverseness that sharpens the presentation of the issues upon which the court depends for an illumination of the questions presented. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663, 678 (1962).

This court has, on rare occasions, overlooked the question of standing and proceeded to determine the merits of a case because of substantial public interest in having a matter resolved before the question presented became moot. Sennott v. Hawksley, 103 R.I. 730, 732, 241 A.2d 286, 287 (1968). Because petitioner has failed to show that there is a substantial public interest in the resolution of this matter or that a delay may render the issue moot, we are not faced with a situation in which review should be granted without a preliminary inquiry of standing. Also, this case arose under a specific statutory scheme relating to the setting of utility rates, which provides for review only when an "aggrieved" party petitions for certiorari. ³ We are unwilling to alter this statutory scheme without a showing that our failure to do so would result in substantial harm to the public at large.

The Rhode Island rule of standing requires that the person seeking review merely show "injury in fact, economic or otherwise," resulting from the challenged order. Rhode Island Ophthalmological Society v. Cannon, 113 R.I. 16, 26, 317 A.2d 124, 129 (1974). "The line is not between a substantial injury and an insubstantial injury. The line is between injury and no injury." Matunuck Beach Hotel, Inc. v. Sheldon, R.I., 399 A.2d 489, 494 (1979) (quoting Davis, Administrative Law of the Seventies § 22.02-10 at 507 (1976)). Although this court has liberalized standing requirements to the point of allowing certain suits to protect the public interest, petitioner must still allege a personal stake in the controversy--his own injury in fact--before he will have standing to assert the broader claims of the public at large. See Berberian v. Solomon, R.I., 405 A.2d 1178, 1180 (1979); East Greenwich Yacht Club v. Coastal Resources Management Council, 118 R.I. 559, 376 A.2d 682 (1977).

"[M]ere 'interest in a problem,' no matter how longstanding the interest and no matter how qualified the organization is in evaluating the problem, is not sufficient by itself to render the organization 'adversely affected' or 'aggrieved' * * *." Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 739, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1368, 31 L.Ed.2d 636, 645 (1972). ⁴

Although the record is devoid of any reference to the membership or the purpose of the chamber, it is generally recognized that the chamber represents the interests of business enterprises. However, the aspect of the order it challenges, the commission's flattening of residential rates, only affects residential users. The order does not alter the revenue responsibility of each customer class. Thus, the chamber's petition does not present any facts that demonstrate that it or any of its members are adversely affected by the commission's order flattening residential rates. The petition merely contains a conclusory statement that the chamber is aggrieved by the order of the commission. Such a statement is insufficient to entitle petitioner to maintain this litigation.

The petitioner contends that it has standing because it intervened in docket Nos. 1184 and 1185 before the commission and petitioned the original order in those dockets which resulted in this court's decision in Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce v. Public Utilities Commission, R.I., 396 A.2d 102 (1979). The case at bar differs from the chamber's previous petition which involved a situation where the commission's 300...