Central Maine Power Co. v. Public Utilities Commission

• Decision Date: 09 January 1978
• Citation: 382 A.2d 302
• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Parties: CENTRAL MAINE POWER COMPANY v. PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION et al.

Page 302

382 A.2d 302

CENTRAL MAINE POWER COMPANY v.PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 9, 1978.

Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen, Smith & Lancaster by Gerald M. Amero(orally), George J. Marcus, Portland, Seward B. Brewster, Augusta, for the Central Maine Power Co., appellant.

Fitzgerald, Donovan, Conley & Day by Mark L. Haley(orally), Bath, for Maine Oil Dealers Ass'n, intervenor, appellant.

H. Cabanne Howard(orally), Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, for Attorney General, intervenor, appellant.

Horace S. Libby(orally), Thomas R. Gibbon, Public Utilities Commission, Frederick S. Samp, Augusta, for the Public Utilities Commission, appellee.

Collins & Crandall, P. A. by Wayne R. Crandall(orally), Rockland, for Martin Marietta Corp., intervenor, appellant.

Perkins, Thompson, Hinckley & Keddy by Thomas Schulten(orally), Portland, for St. Regis Paper Co., intervenor, appellant.

Verrill & Dana by Roger A. Putnam(orally), Portland, for Scott Paper Co. and Prime Tanning Co., intervenors, appellants.

V. Louise McCarren(orally), New England Regional Energy Project, Burlington, Vt., for Bruce M. Reeves, intervenor, appellant.

Southard, Hunt & Hebert by Frank E. Southard, Jr.(orally), Augusta, for Keyes Fibre Co., intervenor, appellant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and GODFREY, JJ.

WERNICK, Justice.

On December 1, 1975 Central Maine Power Company(Central Maine) filed with the Public Utilities Commission(Commission) revised schedules of rates.Acting pursuant to 35 M.R.S.A. §§ 64, 69, the Commission commenced investigation of the justness and reasonableness of the proposed rate revisions.Several persons were permitted to intervene in the investigation.By appeals pursuant to 35 M.R.S.A. § 303, and complaints under § 305, Central Maine and most of the intervenors claim errors in various of the Commission's orders during the course, and upon completion, of the investigation.

While we cannot say that the challenged Commission actions are entirely free of error, we conclude that the errors we discern require neither reversal nor modification of the Commission's rulings or orders.We therefore sustain the Commission's determinations against the attacks here made by Central Maine and the intervenors.

I.The History of the Proceedings.

I-A.The Rate Case Before the Commission.

After Central Maine had filed its revised schedules of rates calculated to generate an increase in annual revenue of approximately $21 million, the Commission, seeking to ensure a thorough investigation of the justness and reasonableness of the revised rates, utilized its suspension power under § 69.By an initial and second order of suspension the Commission undertook to prevent the proposed rates from becoming effective by operation of law, pursuant to § 64 from, and after, January 1, 1976 until, and including, September 1, 1976.

During the months of April through August, 1976, the Commission held hearings and accepted briefs.On September 1, the Commission issued a "principal" decree in which it disallowed the rates Central Maine had proposed and authorized Central Maine to file, as just and reasonable, substitute rates which would yield an annual increase in revenue of $11.4 million.These substitute rates were to be embodied in schedules which, after being approved by the Commission, would become effective as the Commission would subsequently prescribe.The decree also ordered Central Maine to submit to the Commission three alternative schedules covering the classes designated "residential" and "GS-1", preparatory to a hearing on rate design fixed for September 20, 1976.Central Maine complied, filing on September 14 schedules effectuating the substitute rates as well as the requested three alternatives as to rate design.

After it had completed the September 20 hearing on residential and GS-1 rate design, the Commission, on September 28, issued a document titled "Supplemental OrderNo. 1."It approved the schedules of substitute rates filed by Central Maine on September 14, except for the residential rates, and the approval included selection of one of the alternative GS-1 schedules submitted on September 14.The Commission ordered the rates thus approved to be in effect for the billings to customers reflecting meter readings made on or after October 12(and thus for services rendered before that date).

As to the residential rates excepted from the September 28 approval, the Commission waited until October 7 before taking action.It then issued "Supplemental OrderNo. 2" approving one of the alternative residential rate schedules Central Maine had submitted on September 14.The residential rates thereby found just and reasonable were ordered to become operational on October 21(again, for services rendered before that date).

I-B.Resort to this Court.

While the proceedings before the Commission were still in process, Central Maine took steps in this Court to attack particular actions already taken by the Commission.On September 30 Central Maine complained under § 305 alleging confiscation and other legal error.As to orders already issued which it deemed "final", Central Maine also instituted a § 303 appeal.After the Commission, on October 7, filed its last order Supplemental OrderNo. 2 Central Maine, on October 8, filed an amended § 305 complaint in this Court.

The same day Central Maine also moved, pursuant to § 305, to stay the effect of all Commission orders insofar as they prevented collection of the authorized substitute rates from and after October 1.By an order dated October 8, the Chief Justice (then Armand A. Dufresne, Jr.) stayed the effect of the September 1 decree and Supplemental OrderNo. 1 in manner permitting Central Maine to collect the substitute rates (found just and reasonable by the Commission's September 1 decree) from and after October 1, (for services rendered from and after September 1), instead of from October 12 as the Commission had ordered.As to the substitute residential rates which had not been approved until October 7, the Chief Justice left intact the Commission's order authorizing collection of the substitute residential rates from and after October 21(for services rendered prior thereto).

I-C.The Intervenors.

In addition to the above-described proceedings involving Central Maine and the Commission, several of the persons permitted to participate as intervenors at the Commission level (each referred to hereinafter as "intervenor") appear before this Court in various procedural postures.We place the intervenors in two groups, according to the type of rates they contest: (1) those attacking the rate structure applicable to certain heavy industrial users, notably GS-3 (a rate class different from the GS-1 to which the Commission sought to give special consideration), this group being comprised of St. Regis Paper Company, Martin Marietta Corporation, Scott Paper Company, Prime Tanning Company and Keyes Fibre Company; and (2) those contesting the residential rate structure: the Maine Oil Dealers Association(MODA), the Attorney General of Maine and Bruce M. Reeves.

The concern of the intervenors is, fundamentally, with rate design rather than revenue level.All except one ¹ appear before this Court as both § 305complainants and § 303appellants, or cross-appellants.The exact status of each is described in more detail as necessary in the ensuing discussion.

II.The Nature of the Issues.

For convenience, the issues raised by Central Maine and the various intervenors may be placed in two classes: (1) questions which we may loosely call "preliminary", involving the timeliness of actions, contents of pleadings and "standing" of various of the intervenors; and (2) issues concerned with the "merits", as subdivided into (a) the claims of Central Maine that the Commission erred in determining the justness and reasonableness of rates as concerned with the level of revenue to be allowed and (b) the contentions of Central Maine and also the intervenors that the Commission was wrong in its approach to particular rate designs.

III.The "Preliminary" Issues.

III-A.The Section 69

Suspension Period.

Central Maine contends that the Commission failed to adjudicate concerning the justness and reasonableness of its proposed $21 million increase during the period the Commission was empowered to keep the proposed increase suspended.As its premise for this contention, Central Maine asserts an interpretation of § 69 like that of New England Telephone and Telegraph Company in the recent case of New England Telephone and Telegraph Company v. Public Utilities Commission, Me., 376 A.2d 448(1977).Relying on such interpretation, Central Maine argues that its proposed increase in rates had become effective by operation of law under § 64 because, says Central Maine, the maximum time allowable for suspension of the rates "proposed" by Central Maine had expired prior to September 1, 1976, the date of the Commission's " principal" decree.

In New England Telephone, supra, we rejected the interpretation of § 69 which Central Maine makes the foundation of its present argument, and that decision is controllingly dispositive of the issue as here raised by Central Maine.

III-B.Section 305

Jurisdiction of Claims Other Than Those of

Constitutional Deprivation.

In a threshold attack on the status of the intervenors, Central Maine asserts that we must construe § 305 to require dismissal of all § 305 complaints which allege only non-constitutional errors.

We disagree.

This issue was reserved in Lewiston, Greene and Monmouth Telephone Company v. New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, Me., 299 A.2d 895, 905(1973).However, we stated in dictum in New England Telephone & Telegraph Company v. Public Utilities Commission, Me., 354 A.2d 753, 766(1976), that § 305 confers jurisdiction on this Court as to two kinds of legal error, not one.²We now give that...