White v. Louisiana Public Service Commission
| Decision Date | 28 June 1971 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 50950,50951,s. 50950 |
| Citation | 250 So.2d 368,259 La. 363 |
| Parties | Billie WHITE d/b/a Telephone Answering Bureau of Lafayette, Louisiana, v. LOUISIANA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION. (Consolidated) |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
Voorhies, Labbe, Fontenot, Leonard & McGlasson, Patrick A. Juneau, Jr., Lafayette, for plaintiff-appellant.
Joseph H. Kavanaugh, Marshall B. Brinkley, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellee.
Kibbe, Cooper & Sonnier, Charles R. Sonnier, Abbeville, for intervenor.
This is an appeal, under Louisiana Constitution Article 6, Section 5, and Article 7, Section 10(3), by Telephone Answering Bureau of Lafayette, Louisiana, from judgments of the Nineteenth Judicial District Court affirming orders of the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
The Public Service Commission was granted authority to regulate radio common carriers by acts of 1968, now R.S. 45:1500--1504. Pursuant to that authority the Commission in 1968 issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity to Telephone Answering Bureau of Lafayette, Louisiana, authorizing domestic public land mobile radio service. Telephone Answering Bureau began operating radio common carrier service under this authorization in an area around the City of Lafayette for a radius of approximately 30 miles. Included in and near the outer limits of this area were the cities of Opelousas, Crowley, Abbeville, and New Iberia.
The matters before the district court and before us involve two 'applications' to and two orders by the Commission. Telephone Answering Bureau's suits and its appeals here involve both orders.
In the Commission's record, Docket No. 10359, the first filing is a letter received by the Commission on November 12, 1968, on the stationery of 'Radiofone', which states:
'We would like to apply for an amendment to our Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity number RCC--5 to include base stations 1 on the 450 mc Band to be placed in New Iberia, Abbeville, Crowley, and Opelousas, Louisiana, which will be controlled in Lafayette, Louisiana.
'These base stations are within our existing service area which is an addition to our present system which will enable us to better serve our existing customers in these areas.
'We propose to give our existing and future customers local telephone intraconnection in these areas.
'Sincerely
s/d 'C. J. Singler
'C. J. Singler'
The next filing is a copy of a notice of hearing issued by the secretary of the Commission styled as follows:
No petition, no application, no similar pleading can be found in this record. Moreover, the letter to the Commission does not name Telephone Answering Bureau as an applicant or a party to any proceeding before the Commission. Although four opponents appeared at the Commission's hearing under its Docket No. 10359, only one opposition is filed in the record, that by Vermilion Mobil, Inc. The letter, the copy of the notice of hearing, and the one opposition are the entire record, all the pleadings, which initiated and apparently controlled the hearing later conducted.
In the record of the Commission under its Docket No. 10372, there is a letter received on December 2, 1968, by the Commission on the stationery of Vermilion Mobil, Inc., which states:
'We respectfully request to be placed on the docket of the next hearing before the Commission for the purpose of showing the need for a mobil two-way radio system in Vermilion Parish with a control point in Abbeville, Louisiana.
'Your consideration of our request and reply at your earliest convenience will be greatly appreciated.
'Very truly yours,
s/d 'Patricia A. Thomas
'Patricia A. Thomas
'President'
The next filing under that docket number is a notice of hearing issued by the secretary, which is styled as follows:
There is no petition, no application, no other similar pleading in the record. It will be noted that no facts are set forth in the letter which would support a request for a certificate of convenience and necessity for a radio system and that no proposal is made for the site of the transmitter. It is the location of the transmitter which largely controls the extent of the area serviced. However, from some source and in some manner the notice of hearing has supplied a location of the transmitter for the so-called application. There is an opposition filed by Kaplan Telephone Company; however, the principal, if not the only, opponent appearing at the hearing in Docket No. 10372 is Telephone Answering Bureau of Lafayette. The letter, the hearing notice, and the one opposition make up the total record for initiating and controlling the hearing later held in Docket No. 10372.
Apparently Docket No. 10359, Telephone Answering Bureau, was consolidated with several applications for radio common carrier authority, some in the Abbeville area and some in areas totally removed from that area. Although at the very beginning of the testimony taken in Docket No. 10372 the chairman of the Commission determined that only the applicant, Vermilion Mobil, and one opponent, Telephone Answering Bureau, were before the Commission, the witnesses who were called were subjected to examination and cross-examination by attorneys for three parties Strangers to the docketed case. Moreover, more than one-third of the transcript is given over to the examination of an expert witness not called by either Vermilion Mobil or Telephone Answering Bureau, but who in fact was the expert witness for another party who had made separate application for service in the Abbeville area. The Commission apparently called this witness. It is most difficult in our review of the records before us to ascertain the evidence pertinent to the matters on appeal and to the parties before us.
With total absence of notice pleadings, with no delineation of matters to be considered at the hearings or the basis for conducting the hearings, and on sparse records in both of these matters, the Commission granted Telephone Answering Bureau base stations in Crowley, New Iberia, and Opelousas but denied it a base station in Abbeville, and issued an order approving Vermilion Mobil's 'application' for radio service for the Abbeville area.
Telephone Answering Bureau asked for rehearing in both matters. The records before us reflect that a rehearing was granted as to the order authorizing Vermilion Mobil to give radio service to the Abbeville area. On rehearing the order was reinstated by a two-one vote of the Commission.
R.S. 45:1192 provides that a party dissatisfied with a decision of the Public Service Commission may appeal by filing a suit against the Commission in the district court of its domicile. By way of appeal from the order denying it a base station in Abbeville and from the order granting Vermilion Mobil radio common carrier authority in the Abbeville area, Telephone Answering Bureau filed suits against the Public Service Commission in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court. Vermilion Mobil intervened in the suits. The district court affirmed both orders. We reverse the trial court and the Public Service Commission.
First, we are required to reverse the trial court judgment because the court received into evidence depositions of a number of witnesses which had never been received or considered by the Commission in its determination in these matters. The introduction of new evidence is controlled by R.S. 45:1194, which reads: (Emphasis supplied.)
There is no written stipulation between the petitioner, Telephone Answering Bureau, and the Commission that the new evidence could be considered without a remand for the Commission's consideration. 2 2 Ordinarily, review of administrative rulings does not even allow the trial court or this court to make independent Findings of fact where there are findings of fact in the record, unless there is a showing that the findings of fact were arbitrary and unreasonable and made without substantial evidence. Moreover, new facts are not ordinarily received by courts for an independent determination on purely administrative adjudications. In Alabama Public Service Commission v. Southern Railway Company, 341 U.S. 341, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002, the Supreme Court made the broad statement that '* * * it is now settled that a utility has no right to relitigate factual questions on the ground that constitutional rights are involved'.
Administrative boards such as the Public Service Commission are the primary...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Gulf States Utilities Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Com'n
...by the record. Central La. Electr. Co. v. Louisiana Public Serv. Comm'n, 437 So.2d 278 (La.1983); White v. Louisiana Public Serv. Comm'n, 259 La. 363, 250 So.2d 368 (1971). Gulf States, however, contends that the traditional standard of review applicable to appeals from Commission rate orde......
-
South Central Bell Tel. Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Commission
...decisions will not be disturbed unless found to be clearly erroneous or unsupported by evidence. White v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 259 La. 363, 250 So.2d 368 (1971); Monochem, Inc. v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 253 La. 1047, 221 So.2d 504 (1969); Arkansas & Louisiana M......
-
Entergy Gulf States v. LPSC
...reason for recommencing the hearing process. This Court first discussed La.R.S. 45:1194 in detail in White v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 259 La. 363, 250 So.2d 368 (1971). In White, this Court held that the district court acted contrary to the statute when it admitted into evidenc......
-
AAA Cooper Transp. v. Louisiana Public Service Com'n
...308." Yazoo M. V. R. Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Com'n, 170 La. 441, 128 So. 39, 41 (1930). Also see White v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 259 La. 363, 250 So.2d 368 (1971). In removing the restriction, the Commission [TLC] merely seeks to be authorized to utilize more efficient......