Case Title: Ohio Consumers' Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm.

Citation: 2006-Ohio-4706

Docket Number: 20050945

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2006-09-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Ohio Consumers' Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm., 110 Ohio St.3d 394, 2006-Ohio-4706.] 
 
 
OHIO CONSUMERS’ COUNSEL, APPELLANT, v. PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION 
OF OHIO ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as Ohio Consumers’ Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm.,  
110 Ohio St.3d 394, 2006-Ohio-4706.] 
Public utilities — Consolidated billing by electricity-distribution company — 
Costs of billing for providers of competitive retail electric service — 
Expenses caused by default of provider of competitive retail electric 
service. 
(No. 2005-0945 — Submitted May 9, 2006 — Decided September 27, 2006.) 
APPEAL from the Public Utilities Commission, Nos. 03-2405-EL-CSS, 04-85-EL-
CSS, and 03-2341-EL-ATA. 
__________________ 
 
O’DONNELL, J. 
{¶1} 
In this appeal, the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel challenges an order 
issued by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (“PUCO”) that approved a 
2004 agreement between the Dayton Power & Light Company (“DP&L”) and 
several other entities, Dominion Retail, Inc., Green Mountain Energy Company, 
Miami Valley Communications Council, and Industrial Energy Users–Ohio, each 
of which had questioned DP&L’s efforts to recoup the cost of changing its billing 
practices after the General Assembly deregulated the retail electricity market in 
1999. 
{¶2} 
The PUCO order at issue changed the way in which DP&L could 
recover its billing-system costs.  For the reasons that follow, we affirm the 
PUCO’s order. 
 
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2 
Facts 
{¶3} 
DP&L incurred the $18.8 million in billing-system costs at issue in 
this case  because the statutes that deregulated electricity in Ohio required electric 
utilities to “unbundle” or separate the costs of electricity generation from the costs 
of electricity distribution.  See R.C. 4928.10(C)(2) and 4928.35.  As a result, 
DP&L developed new computer programs enabling the company to produce the 
type of customer bills that the statutes and PUCO regulations required in a 
deregulated electricity market. 
{¶4} 
In 2000, the PUCO approved DP&L’s initial plan to charge 
“CRES providers” for the costs associated with the billing-system changes.  A 
CRES provider is a provider of competitive retail electric service.  See Ohio 
Adm.Code 4901:1-10-01(F) and 4901:1-21-01(A)(10).  Both Dominion Retail, 
Inc. and Green Mountain Energy Company – which joined the 2004 agreement at 
issue – are CRES providers. 
{¶5} 
In the competitive retail market for electricity established by the 
General Assembly in 1999, customers have the option to choose to continue 
paying their original electricity provider for generation service or to select a 
CRES provider for that service.  R.C. 4928.14.  Regardless of which provider the 
customer selects, the electricity generated by the provider is delivered over wires 
owned and maintained by the electric utility, and that company can continue to 
charge for the delivery service. 
{¶6} 
The PUCO requires electric utilities such as DP&L that distribute 
electricity to offer “consolidated billing” to the CRES providers that want to offer 
competing electricity generation service to retail customers in the utility 
company’s territory.  Ohio Adm.Code 4901:1-10-29(G).  See, also, Ohio 
Adm.Code 4901:1-10-01(D) (“ ‘Consolidated billing’ means that a customer 
receives a single bill for electric services provided during a billing period” for 
both distribution services and generation services).  Evidence in the record before 
January Term, 2006 
3 
us indicates that DP&L had to do substantial reprogramming of its computers to 
accommodate the new requirement that it offer a consolidated bill showing the 
unbundled charges incurred by any customer in its territory who chose to buy 
electricity generation service from a CRES provider while DP&L continued to 
provide electricity-distribution service to the customer. 
{¶7} 
In making its initial 2000 plan to charge CRES providers for the 
billing-system changes, DP&L calculated that it would have to charge $4.76 for 
each consolidated bill it generated for a CRES provider to fully recover the costs 
of the billing changes.  DP&L concluded that potential CRES providers in its 
territory would not be willing to pay such a high price for the production of each 
customer bill, so DP&L chose to charge CRES providers $1.90 per bill under a 
one-year contract or $1.56 per bill under a two-year contract. 
{¶8} 
The lesser amount did not satisfy CRES providers such as 
Dominion Retail and Green Mountain Energy Company, and as a result, 
Dominion filed a complaint with the PUCO in 2003, and Green Mountain then 
intervened to challenge the amount DP&L charged CRES providers for each 
consolidated customer bill DP&L generated for them.  The Miami Valley 
Communications Council – a regional council of governments interested in 
promoting competition in the retail electricity market – likewise filed a complaint 
against DP&L with the PUCO in 2003 alleging that DP&L charged CRES 
providers excessive amounts for billing services. 
{¶9} 
The PUCO consolidated the cases and granted motions to 
intervene filed by the Consumers’ Counsel and Industrial Energy Users–Ohio.  At 
a hearing before the PUCO on these complaints, Dominion Retail and Miami 
Valley offered evidence that the DP&L charges were “excessive and 
unreasonable,” “discourage[d] shopping,” and constituted a “barrier to 
competition.”  Expert testimony presented by the Consumers’ Counsel echoed 
those views, describing the charges to CRES providers as “a significant 
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impediment to competition” that would “significantly decrease the savings a 
residential customer would expect to realize” from switching to a new provider of 
retail electric-generation service.  
{¶10} After several days of hearings before the PUCO in 2004, all parties 
except the Consumers’ Counsel reached an agreement to change the way in which 
DP&L could recover the $18.8 million in billing-related costs it had incurred from 
1999 to 2001.  The stipulation called for DP&L to charge CRES providers only 
$.20 per customer bill (to cover the cost of transmitting customer data 
electronically between DP&L and the CRES provider) and then – beginning 
January 1, 2006 – allowed DP&L to recover from all of its customers those costs 
of the billing-system changes that had been approved in an audit. 
{¶11} The stipulation also provided for DP&L to recover from a CRES 
provider’s customers any of DP&L’s out-of-pocket costs resulting from the 
default of that CRES provider after reasonable efforts to recover from the CRES 
provider. 
{¶12} The Consumers’ Counsel refused to join the stipulation.  The 
PUCO considered the objections raised by the Consumers’ Counsel but 
nonetheless approved the agreement in February 2005, concluding that a 
reasonable arrangement would benefit ratepayers and the public.  The Consumers’ 
Counsel filed an application for rehearing, but the PUCO denied that application.  
This appeal followed. 
Standard of Review 
{¶13} “R.C. 4903.13 provides that a PUCO order shall be reversed, 
vacated, or modified by this court only when, upon consideration of the record, 
the court finds the order to be unlawful or unreasonable.”  Constellation 
NewEnergy, Inc. v. Pub. Util. Comm., 104 Ohio St.3d 530, 2004-Ohio-6767, 820 
N.E.2d 885, ¶ 50.  The court will not reverse or modify a PUCO decision as to 
questions of fact if the decision was not manifestly against the weight of the 
January Term, 2006 
5 
evidence and was not so clearly unsupported by the record as to show 
misapprehension, mistake, or willful disregard of duty.  Monongahela Power Co. 
v. Pub. Util. Comm., 104 Ohio St.3d 571, 2004-Ohio-6896, 820 N.E.2d 921, ¶ 29.  
The appellant bears the burden of demonstrating that the PUCO’s decision is 
against the manifest weight of the evidence or is clearly unsupported by the 
record.  Id. 
{¶14} Although the court has “complete and independent power of 
review as to all questions of law” in appeals from the PUCO, Ohio Edison Co. v. 
Pub. Util. Comm. (1997), 78 Ohio St.3d 466, 469, 678 N.E.2d 922, the court has 
explained that it may rely on the expertise of a state agency like the PUCO in 
interpreting a law where “highly specialized issues” are involved “and where 
agency expertise would, therefore, be of assistance in discerning the presumed 
intent of our General Assembly.”  Consumers’ Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm. 
(1979), 58 Ohio St.2d 108, 110, 12 O.O.3d 115, 388 N.E.2d 1370. 
Analysis 
The Order Allowing DP&L to Charge Customers for the Billing- 
Related Changes Made by DP&L Is Reasonable 
{¶15} The Consumers’ Counsel contends first that the multiparty 
agreement approved by the PUCO is not beneficial to ratepayers and that it 
improperly deviates from DP&L’s initial intention to recover from CRES 
providers rather than from consumers the $18.8 million cost of reprogramming 
DP&L’s computers to accommodate new billing practices mandated by the 
General Assembly when the competitive retail market for electricity was 
established in Ohio.  The PUCO, DP&L, and Dominion Retail each counter those 
arguments, claiming that the PUCO’s approval of the agreement was entirely 
reasonable. 
{¶16} This court applies a three-part test when evaluating the 
reasonableness of settlements approved by the PUCO: whether the settlement is a 
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6 
product of serious bargaining among capable, knowledgeable parties; whether the 
settlement, as a package, benefits ratepayers and the public interest; and whether 
the settlement package violates any important regulatory principles or practices.  
Consumers’ Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm. (1992), 64 Ohio St.3d 123, 126, 592 
N.E.2d 1370.  See, also, AK Steel Corp. v. Pub. Util. Comm. (2002), 95 Ohio 
St.3d 81, 82-83, 765 N.E.2d 862. 
{¶17} The Consumers’ Counsel urges that the agreement in this case fails 
the second and third prongs of the test, alleging that consumers will pay costs 
under the agreement that DP&L initially planned to recover solely from CRES 
providers.  To support its argument, the Consumers’ Counsel points to a separate 
one-page sidebar agreement between DP&L and the Consumers’ Counsel.  In that 
sidebar agreement from June 2000, DP&L had agreed that it would “not seek 
recovery from residential customers” for costs associated with “billing system 
modifications” made by DP&L.  The PUCO’s failure to enforce that earlier 
agreement when DP&L and other parties presented their new agreement in 
October 2004 represented a “willful disregard of duty,” according to the 
Consumers’ Counsel. 
{¶18} However, the June 2000 sidebar agreement was never filed with or 
approved by the PUCO, and for that reason, the PUCO refused to consider it 
when weighing the reasonableness of the 2004 agreement, explaining that 
“[u]nderstandings among parties that are important enough that the parties wish to 
have a means to bring them to the Commission’s attention at a later time” should 
be brought “to the Commission for approval” when those understandings are 
reached.  The PUCO has taken a similar approach in past cases, and we have 
approved that practice.  See, e.g., Constellation NewEnergy, Inc. v. Pub. Util. 
Comm., 104 Ohio St.3d 530, 2004-Ohio-6767, 820 N.E.2d 885, ¶ 14-15 
(approving the PUCO’s refusal to consider side agreements that had not been 
incorporated into the agreement at issue); Cookson Pottery v. Pub. Util. Comm. 
January Term, 2006 
7 
(1954), 161 Ohio St. 498, 505, 53 O.O. 374, 120 N.E.2d 98, citing G.C. 614-17, 
the predecessor of R.C. 4905.31 (contracts between a public utility and its 
customers that are not filed with the PUCO “shall not be lawful”).  R.C. 
4905.31(E) provides that no financial arrangement between a public utility and 
consumers “is lawful unless it is filed with and approved by” the PUCO. 
{¶19} The PUCO’s refusal, then, to consider the unapproved June 2000 
sidebar agreement between the Consumers’ Counsel and DP&L appears 
consistent with past practice and with the relevant statutory provision. 
{¶20} The PUCO also properly applied our three-part test for weighing 
the reasonableness of the October 2004 agreement at issue in this case.  Ample 
evidence in the record supports the PUCO’s conclusion that the agreement would 
be a “benefit to ratepayers and the public interest” and would “limit[ ] any 
negative impact on competition in DP&L’s territory” by doing away with 
DP&L’s initial plan to charge CRES providers up to $1.90 for each consolidated 
electric bill prepared by the utility company. 
{¶21} As the PUCO noted in its order, “it is a benefit to the ratepayers 
and the public interest for the parties to these cases to agree to a per-bill fee that is 
substantially lower than DP&L currently charges.”  The PUCO also explained 
that the 2004 agreement is consistent with standard regulatory practices because 
other electric and gas utility companies have been allowed to recover from their 
customers the same kind of billing-related charges that the agreement calls for 
DP&L to recover from its customers. 
{¶22} The agreement also brings other benefits to the consumer.  The 
reduced charges to CRES providers for each customer bill will lower any barrier 
that may have kept Dominion Retail and other competitors of DP&L from 
winning customers for retail electricity generation service in DP&L’s territory.  
And because all customers benefit from having greater choices in a competitive 
retail electricity market, the stipulation’s removal of a significant barrier to the 
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entry of new competitors in DP&L’s territory benefits all customers in that area.  
As a result, as one witness testified, it is reasonable to ask all customers to pay for 
that benefit. 
{¶23} Upon review, we have concluded that the record supports the 
reasonableness of the PUCO’s order approving the 2004 agreement and contains 
sufficient probative evidence to justify the PUCO’s factual findings that the 
agreement would benefit ratepayers and the public interest and would not violate 
any important regulatory principles or practices.  The PUCO’s decision finding 
the agreement reasonable is therefore not “manifestly against the weight of the 
evidence” and is not “so clearly unsupported by the record as to show 
misapprehension, mistake, or willful disregard of duty.”  AT&T Communications 
of Ohio, Inc. v. Pub. Util. Comm. (2000), 88 Ohio St.3d 549, 555, 728 N.E.2d 
371. 
The Order Allowing DP&L to Charge Customers for the Billing- 
Related Changes Made by DP&L Is Lawful 
{¶24} The Consumers’ Counsel further challenges the lawfulness of the 
PUCO’s order, arguing that the PUCO should not have deviated from one of its 
own earlier orders and should have enforced various statutory requirements that 
apply to utility rate increases.  We conclude that the PUCO properly rejected both 
arguments. 
{¶25} First, the Consumers’ Counsel contends that in accordance with the 
PUCO’s 2000 order, DP&L could not recover its billing-related costs from CRES 
providers before 2007.  However, in Consumers’ Counsel v. Pub. Util. Comm. 
(1984), 10 Ohio St.3d 49, 50-51, 10 OBR 312, 461 N.E.2d 303, we explained that 
the PUCO may change or modify earlier orders as long as it justifies any changes.  
The agreement reached by DP&L and the other parties in 2004, and approved by 
the PUCO in the proceedings below in 2005, created a new and entirely 
reasonable way for DP&L to recover the billing-related costs it had incurred 
January Term, 2006 
9 
between 1999 and 2001.  As explained above, the record supported the change, 
and the PUCO fully explained its reasons for approving the agreement.  The 
PUCO was not bound to adhere to an earlier arrangement that had created 
anticompetitive barriers to the entry of new CRES providers in DP&L’s territory, 
and the PUCO’s decision to remove those barriers by modifying an earlier PUCO 
order was not unlawful. 
{¶26} The Consumers’ Counsel next contends that the statutory 
requirements for utility rate increases should have been followed in the 
proceedings below.  Under the statute cited by the Consumers’ Counsel, a public 
utility seeking to change its existing rates for customers must “file a written 
application” with the PUCO and must prove at any hearing held on the request 
that it is “just and reasonable.”  R.C. 4909.18.  The application for a rate increase 
must also be published by the PUCO in a newspaper in the utility company’s 
territory, R.C. 4909.19, and public hearings must be held in large municipalities 
in the affected service area, R.C. 4903.083. 
{¶27} Those specific statutory provisions were not followed in this case, 
as the proposal that DP&L’s customers pay for the expenses it incurred to 
reprogram its computers between 1999 and 2001 to accommodate consolidated 
billing had emerged not from a formal rate-increase application but from the 
agreement between DP&L and the other parties in October 2004.  Nonetheless, 
the agreement is valid, and the PUCO lawfully approved it in February 2005. 
{¶28} The agreement in this case was reached in an R.C. 4905.26 
complaint proceeding, not an R.C. 4909.18 rate-increase proceeding (with all of 
the attendant procedural requirements cited by the Consumers’ Counsel).  That 
former statutory provision was cited by CRES provider Dominion Retail and by 
the Miami Valley Communications Council when they filed their separate 
complaints against DP&L to initiate the proceedings that led to the agreement at 
issue several months later.  In its February 2005 order approving the parties’ 
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10 
settlement agreement, the PUCO acknowledged that the agreement “arose in the 
context of a complaint case” rather than in a rate-increase proceeding. 
{¶29} We have repeatedly held that utility rates may be changed by the 
PUCO in an R.C. 4905.26 complaint proceeding such as this, without compelling 
the affected utility to apply for a rate increase under R.C. 4909.18.  See, e.g., 
Lucas Cty. Commrs. v. Pub. Util. Comm. (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 344, 347, 686 
N.E.2d 501 (“Pursuant to R.C. 4905.26 * * * , the commission may conduct an 
investigation and hearing, and fix new rates to be substituted for existing rates, if 
it determines that the rates charged by the utility are unjust and unreasonable”); 
Allnet Communications Servs., Inc. v. Pub. Util. Comm. (1987), 32 Ohio St.3d 
115, 117, 512 N.E.2d 350 (“R.C. 4905.26 is broad in scope as to what kinds of 
matters may be raised by complaint before the PUCO.  In fact, this court has held 
that reasonable grounds may exist to raise issues which might strictly be viewed 
as ‘collateral attacks’ on previous orders”); Ohio Util. Co. v. Pub. Util. Comm. 
(1979), 58 Ohio St.2d 153, 157, 12 O.O.3d 167, 389 N.E.2d 483 (in an R.C. 
4905.26 proceeding, the PUCO can “order[ ] that new rates be put in effect”). 
{¶30} As R.C. 4905.26 itself provides, “any person, firm, or 
corporation,” as well as the PUCO itself, may file a complaint alleging that an 
existing or proposed utility rate or charge is unjust or unreasonable.  That kind of 
allegation was raised by both Dominion Retail and the Miami Valley 
Communications Council in the proceedings below, each of which questioned the 
charges that DP&L imposed on CRES providers for consolidated-billing services.  
R.C. 4905.26 indicates that the parties to a complaint proceeding “shall be entitled 
to be heard, represented by counsel, and to have process to enforce the attendance 
of witnesses.”  No allegation exists that those requirements were not met in the 
proceedings below, and in fact the PUCO held several days of hearings on the 
complaints and heard from multiple witnesses, including a witness who testified 
on behalf of the Consumers’ Counsel. 
January Term, 2006 
11 
{¶31} Some of the testimony in the R.C. 4905.26 complaint proceeding 
before the PUCO in 2004 indicated that the PUCO’s 2000 order – which allowed 
DP&L to charge CRES providers for the computer-related consolidated-billing 
costs that it incurred between 1999 and 2001 – was unreasonable and posed a 
barrier to the entry of new CRES providers in DP&L’s service area.  Testimony 
presented after most of the parties in the complaint proceeding reached their 
October 2004 agreement indicated that shifting the computer-related costs from 
CRES providers to DP&L’s customers would foster competition in DP&L’s 
service area by “mak[ing] it easier for CRES providers to offer savings to 
customers.”  Multiple witnesses also testified that the agreed resolution of the 
complaint proceeding was reasonable and appropriate.  Relying on that evidence 
in the record, the PUCO approved the agreement in February 2005. 
{¶32} The PUCO acted lawfully.  As noted above, this court has allowed 
the PUCO to impose new utility rates or to change existing rates in other R.C. 
4905.26 complaint proceedings, and there is no dispute that the PUCO complied 
with all of the procedural requirements in the statute by holding a hearing and by 
allowing the parties to be represented by counsel and to compel the attendance of 
witnesses. 
The Portion of the PUCO’s Order Giving DP&L Additional  
Protections in the Event of a CRES Provider’s Default  
Is Also Reasonable and Lawful 
{¶33} Although the Consumers’ Counsel primarily focuses on the 
reasonableness and lawfulness of the PUCO decision  permitting DP&L to charge 
its customers for the costs that DP&L incurred when it made software changes in 
order to produce unbundled consolidated customer bills, the Consumers’ Counsel 
also challenges a provision of the PUCO order allowing DP&L to recover from a 
CRES provider’s customers any of DP&L’s out-of-pocket costs resulting from the 
default of that CRES provider. 
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{¶34} The PUCO and DP&L argue that the Consumers’ Counsel should 
not be permitted to raise this issue because she did not first raise it in the 
application for rehearing before the PUCO.  Those parties are correct in that R.C. 
4903.10 states, “No party shall in any court urge or rely on any ground for 
reversal, vacation, or modification not so set forth in the application..”  Yet the 
Consumers’ Counsel did challenge the default recovery mechanism in the 
application for rehearing, and the PUCO addressed the issue in its order denying 
rehearing.  The Consumers’ Counsel has therefore properly raised the issue. 
{¶35} The default-recovery mechanism approved by the PUCO is 
unlawful according to the Consumers’ Counsel because no statutory or regulatory 
provisions in Ohio expressly permit that kind of financial protection to be given to 
an electricity distributor like DP&L.  Notably, though, the Consumers’ Counsel 
cites no statutory provisions that disallow the practice either. 
{¶36} R.C. 4928.08(B) requires CRES providers to “provid[e] a financial 
guarantee sufficient to protect customers and electric distribution utilities from 
default,” and Ohio Adm.Code 4901:1-24-08(C) allows an electricity distributor 
(like DP&L) to “apply for relief” at the PUCO if a CRES provider fails to 
maintain such a guarantee.  Those provisions – the only ones cited by the 
Consumers’ Counsel – do not prevent the PUCO from approving the kind of 
additional financial protections given to DP&L to ensure that it will not incur 
losses when a CRES provider in its territory defaults. 
{¶37} As one witness testified before the PUCO about this so-called 
default recovery rider, it “establishes a reasonable and appropriate process for the 
recovery by DP&L of prudently incurred costs of a CRES provider default * * * 
[and] will protect DP&L from costs that DP&L may incur to procure replacement 
power to serve customers who had been served by a defaulting CRES provider.”  
Another witness testified that because DP&L does not select CRES providers 
(customers do), and because DP&L does not benefit from CRES providers’ 
January Term, 2006 
13 
services (customers do), it is reasonable for the customers of a CRES provider to 
reimburse an electricity distributor such as DP&L for the out-of-pocket costs 
DP&L incurs when the CRES provider defaults.  Testimony before the PUCO 
also indicated that similar default recovery mechanisms currently protect natural 
gas distributors. 
{¶38} The PUCO cited and agreed with all of that testimony, stating in its 
February 2005 order that the default recovery mechanism “is not prohibited by 
any current statute or rule” and is in fact “permissible under the current statutory 
system.”   The likelihood that DP&L will ever invoke the default recovery 
mechanism is small, the PUCO noted, but it is “a reasonable method to spread the 
risk of the competitive market.” 
{¶39} The PUCO’s findings as to the reasonableness of this particular 
provision of the 2004 agreement are supported by the record, and its legal 
conclusion that the provision is not unlawful is correct.  The order, therefore, 
allowing DP&L to recover from a CRES provider’s customers any of DP&L’s 
out-of-pocket costs resulting from the default of the CRES provider was both 
reasonable and lawful. 
Conclusion 
{¶40} For the reasons explained above, the order of the PUCO that 
allowed DP&L (1) to shift from CRES providers to DP&L’s customers the costs 
that DP&L incurred to update its computer software in order to provide 
consolidated customer bills for CRES providers in its territory and (2) to recover 
from a CRES provider’s customers any of DP&L’s out-of-pocket costs resulting 
from the default of the CRES provider was both reasonable and lawful.  The 
PUCO fully explained the rationale for its order, evidence in the record supports 
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the PUCO’s decision, and the order is not inconsistent with any statutory or 
regulatory requirements.  Therefore, the order of the PUCO is affirmed.1 
Order affirmed. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR and 
LANZINGER, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Janine L. Migden-Ostrander, Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, Jeffrey L. Small, 
and Larry S. Sauer, for appellant. 
 
Jim Petro, Attorney General, Duane Luckey, Senior Deputy Attorney 
General, and Steven T. Nourse and William L. Wright, Assistant Attorneys 
General, for appellee, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. 
 
Faruki, Ireland & Cox, P.L.L., Charles J. Faruki, and Jeffrey S. Sharkey, 
for intervening appellee, the Dayton Power & Light Company. 
 
Bell, Royer & Sanders Co., L.P.A., Barth E. Royer, and Judith B. Sanders, 
urging affirmance for amicus curiae, Dominion Retail, Inc. 
______________________ 
                                                 
1. In accordance with S.Ct.Prac.R. IX(8), the Consumers’ Counsel filed a list of additional 
authorities before the oral argument in this case.  That list of citations was timely filed, and we 
therefore deny the PUCO’s and DP&L’s motions to strike the list.