Rocha v. State Public Utilities Com'n

• Decision Date: 09 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-112-M,96-112-M
• Parties: Ken ROCHA et al. v. STATE of Rhode Island PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION et al. P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 722

694 A.2d 722

Ken ROCHA et al. v. STATE of Rhode Island PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION et al.

No. 96-112-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 9, 1997.

Lauren E. Jones, Kevin M. Brill, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Paul J. Roberti, Providence, for Defendant.

Present: WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, and FLANDERS, JJ.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This matter came before this Court pursuant to an order directing the parties to appear and show cause why the issues raised in the state's petition for certiorari should not be summarily decided. After reviewing the parties' briefs and hearing oral arguments thereon we conclude that cause has not been shown and that the issues raised in the petition for certiorari should be summarily decided at this time.

The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission, Division of Public Utilities and Carriers (the division), asks this Court to review and quash a judgment entered in the Superior Court whereby a justice of that court reversed a division order that had revoked the towing license of Ken Rocha Automotive, Inc. (Rocha Automotive). The division contends that its revocation order was based on competent legal evidence and that the Superior Court justice exceeded his reviewing authority in reversing the administrative decision. Conversely, Rocha Automotive and Ken Rocha (Rocha) contend that the Superior Court judgment should be affirmed because the division lacked sufficient competent evidence upon which to revoke the towing license.

Case Travel

This litigation finds its genesis in April of 1992 when the division issued a Notice of Hearing to Rocha Automotive, a company authorized by the division to transport motor vehicles by tow-away method. The notice specified that the division sought to revoke the towing license of Rocha Automotive on the basis of two criminal charges pending at that time against Rocha personally for possession of stolen motor vehicles, in violation of G.L.1956 § 31-9-2, and driving a motor vehicle without consent of the owner, in violation of § 31-9-1.

A hearing before the division was convened on April 27, 1992. Although this was the first time that Rocha would appear before the division on the basis of those criminal allegations, this was not Rocha's first encounter with disciplinary proceedings before the division. Previously, in January 1992, the division and Rocha entered into a stipulation in which Rocha pleaded nolo contendere to twenty-four separate consumer complaints and agreed either to pay a $20,000 penalty within six months or have his towing license suspended for seventy-five days. The criminal charges then pending against Rocha were known to the division at the time the stipulation was agreed to according to Rocha, but the stipulation makes no mention of those charges.

Rocha, who was the president and vice-president of Rocha Automotive, appeared at the April 27 hearing on behalf of Rocha Automotive but claimed then that he had not received notice of the hearing. Before the hearing officer was able to explore this alleged notice deficiency, however, Rocha left the hearing during a brief recess and did not return. The following day, April 28, the hearing officer revoked Rocha Automotive's towing license on the basis of the nature and the seriousness of the criminal charges and Rocha's failure to substantiate his claim regarding lack of notice of the hearing.

Rocha Automotive timely appealed the revocation order to the Superior Court. While the appeal was pending, a Superior Court justice dismissed the criminal charges against Rocha. Thereafter, on January 12, 1994, a Superior Court justice issued an order that remanded the revocation matter back to the division in order for it to hold a hearing on the merits of the original notice of charges it made.

In accordance with the Superior Court order, the division scheduled and held public hearings on January 24 and 25. Two of the police officers involved in the investigation that gave rise to the criminal charges that had been filed against Rocha testified. Their testimony indicated that a search warrant executed at a storage lot owned by Rocha uncovered three vehicles reported stolen, a 1990 Nissan 300ZX, a 1990 Chevrolet IROC and a 1984 Audi 5000. Further testimony from the police indicated that Rocha had been stopped on two separate occasions for speeding in a 1987 Ford Tempo, a car that one of Rocha's companies had towed from Providence and that belonged to Orion, a Florida-based insurance company.

In a twenty-seven-page decision the division detailed Rocha's towing history and concluded that in order to protect the rights and property of the public, the towing license of Rocha Automotive should be revoked. The decision detailed numerous public complaints made against Rocha that had resulted in the previously agreed-upon January 1992 stipulation and fine and then proceeded to focus on the conduct that gave rise to the previously dismissed criminal charges. The division found that Rocha, at minimum, had been driving the Ford Tempo without permission of its owner. The division further found with respect to the Ford Tempo, the Chevrolet IROC, the Audi, and the Nissan, that Rocha had failed to notify the owners of those vehicles of the tows as required by a division regulation. Additionally the division found that Rocha had violated the probationary period agreed upon in his earlier January 1992 stipulation, and finally that Rocha had used one of his Massachusetts-based companies to tow the Ford Tempo in order to circumvent the jurisdiction of the division. The division concluded that Rocha had violated G.L.1956 § 39-12-35 by his willful and continued failure to comply with orders, rules, and regulations of the division and had failed to perform his licensed business in a manner conducive to the public interest. Accordingly the division reaffirmed its earlier order and revoked the license of Rocha Automotive.

Once again Rocha Automotive and Rocha appealed to the Superior Court. In that court Rocha attacked the factual findings of the division, asserting that the evidence did not support them. A Superior Court trial justice agreed that the evidence before the division did not support its findings that Rocha had used an out-of-state company to tow the Ford Tempo in an effort to avoid division authority and that the record evidence did not support the division's finding that the owners of the Audi and the Ford Tempo had not been notified as required by division regulations. The Superior Court trial justice then remanded the matter back to the division for reconsideration, limiting its consideration to the earlier division hearing evidence.

Complying with the direction of the Superior Court, the division then proceeded, without taking additional evidence, to decide from its earlier hearing record whether the towing license of Rocha Automotive should be revoked.

In June of 1995 the division affirmed its previous decision and ordered the towing license of Rocha Automotive to be revoked. This time acting in compliance with the trial justice's remand directions, the division premised its conclusion on what it termed four "joint and severable" violations committed by Rocha, all of which constituted new findings but were based upon the earlier hearing evidence as prescribed by the trial justice in his remand order. The Division found (1) that Rocha had been in possession of and was driving the Ford Tempo without consent of the owner, (2) that he had failed to notify the owners of the Chevrolet and the Nissan as required by a division regulation, (3) that he had failed to pay the $20,000 fine imposed by the earlier...