Present: All the Justices 

TOWN OF BLACKSTONE 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 980564 JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 

 November 6, 1998 

SOUTHSIDE ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, ET AL. 

FROM THE STATE CORPORATION COMMISSION 

In this appeal, the primary issue we consider is whether a 

municipality seeking to acquire, by condemnation, electric 

utility distribution facilities within an annexed area under 

Code § 56-265.4:2 must first obtain the approval of the State 

Corporation Commission (Commission) under Code § 25-233. 

BACKGROUND

The Town of Blackstone (the Town) is a municipality in 

Nottoway County that owns and operates an electric utility 

system for the distribution and retail sale of electricity both 

within and beyond its corporate boundaries. Southside Electric 

Cooperative (Southside) is a Virginia electric distribution 

cooperative that provides retail electric service within an area 

that encompasses eighteen counties and five municipalities, 

including portions of Nottoway County. 

In 1992, pursuant to an agreement with Nottoway County, the 

Town annexed a 2.5 square mile area of Nottoway County (the 

annexed area). Although the Town at that time provided electric 

service to customers in a portion of the annexed area, 

Southside, pursuant to a certificate issued by the Commission, 
provided electric service to customers in other portions of the 

annexed area as well as to customers in a subdivision of the 

Town known as Pickett Court. Virginia Electric and Power 

Company (Virginia Power) also provided electric service in the 

Town, serving three customers outside the annexed area. 

In order to extend its electric service to all customers 

located within the annexed area, the Town engaged in discussions 

with Southside in attempts to acquire Southside’s electric 

distribution facilities and associated rights of way (the 

facilities) within that area. After these discussions failed to 

achieve that goal, on June 25, 1996, the Town Council passed a 

resolution authorizing a condemnation proceeding, pursuant to 

Code § 56-265.4:2, to acquire the facilities. On June 28, 1996, 

the Town filed an application with the Commission requesting 

permission to acquire the facilities by a condemnation 

proceeding.1

In its application, consistent with the requirements of 

Code § 25-233, the Town asserted that a “public necessity” or an 

 1

In its application, the Town recognized that the Commission 

had previously ruled, in a divided opinion, that a municipality 

seeking to condemn facilities under Code § 56-265.4:2 was 

required to obtain Commission permission under Code § 25-233. 

See Petition of City of Franklin, Case No. PUE890069, 1990 

S.C.C. Ann. Rep. 301, 302. However, the Town did not concede 

the issue, and the Commission, therefore, expressly addressed 

it. 

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“essential public convenience” required its acquisition of 

Southside’s facilities and that these facilities were not 

essential to the purposes of Southside. In support of those 

assertions, the Town maintained that condemnation would: (1) end 

the fragmented service that results from having more than one 

electric provider in the area; (2) reduce rates for electric 

service; (3) improve the reliability of electric service in the 

annexed area; (4) allow more prompt service connections to 

customers in the annexed area; (5) give customers in the annexed 

area a greater voice in decisions regarding their electric rates 

and service; and (6) have no effect on Southside’s remaining 

customers. Southside challenged these claims in its answer 

opposing the Town’s application. 

The Commission appointed a hearing examiner to consider the 

application, and hearings were held in December 1996. On August 

21, 1997, the hearing examiner issued his report. In that 

report, the hearing examiner rejected the Town’s assertion that 

Code § 56-265.4:2 does not require the Town to obtain the 

Commission’s permission under Code § 25-233 prior to proceeding 

with condemnation of Southside’s facilities in the annexed area. 

In addition, the hearing examiner rejected the Town’s further 

assertion that under the circumstances of this case the 

Commission must apply a less stringent standard for determining 

whether a public necessity or an essential public convenience 

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supports the Town’s application. With respect to the merits of 

the application, the hearing examiner addressed each of the 

assertions made by the Town in support of its application and 

found that none of these demonstrated a “public necessity” or 

“essential public convenience” warranting condemnation. For 

purposes of our resolution of the issues presented in this 

appeal, we need not relate the facts supporting these findings, 

which are adequately supported by the record.2 

The Town filed exceptions to the hearing examiner’s report. 

Thereafter, the Commission reviewed the report and adopted the 

findings and recommendations of the hearing examiner in an order 

dated November 24, 1997, denying the Town’s application. This 

appeal followed. 

DISCUSSION

On appeal, the Town asserts that the Commission erred in 

finding that it was required to obtain the Commission’s 

permission under Code § 25-233 prior to exercising its right 

 2

The hearing examiner also addressed the issue of whether 

the facilities are essential to Southside, as required by Code 

§ 25-233. Noting that the Commission has construed “essential” 

to mean “only when the acquisition would adversely affect 

service to [the relinquishing] utility’s remaining customers,” 

the hearing examiner concluded that the facilities are not 

essential to Southside’s purposes. The Commission subsequently 

determined that it need not reach this issue since the Town had 

failed to establish that condemnation was appropriate. The Town 

does not assign error to this determination, and accordingly, we 

express no opinion on this issue. 

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under Code § 56-265.4:2 to acquire, by condemnation, Southside’s 

facilities in the annexed area. The Town further asserts that 

even if it was required to obtain the Commission’s permission 

prior to exercising its right under Code § 56-265.4:2, the 

Commission applied an erroneous legal standard in determining 

whether the requirements of Code § 25-233 were met, by requiring 

the Town to establish a “public necessity” or an “essential 

public convenience” under the traditional standard, instead of 

some “less stringent” standard. 

Both issues raised by the Town are essentially matters of 

statutory construction. Code § 56-265.4:2, in relevant part 

provides: 

 A. Any city or town in the Commonwealth which 

provides electric utility service for the use of its 

residents may, at any time following annexation of 

additional territory to such city or town, acquire the 

distribution system facilities of the electric utility 

serving the annexed area in the manner provided by 

Title 25. 

(Emphasis added.) 

At all times relevant to this appeal, Code § 25-233, 

provided in part: 

No corporation or authority created under the 

provisions of Chapter 39 (§ 15.1-1603 et seq.) of 

Title 15.1 shall take by condemnation proceedings any 

property belonging to any other corporation possessing 

the power of eminent domain, unless, after hearing all 

parties in interest, the State Corporation Commission 

shall certify that a public necessity or that an 

essential public convenience shall so require, and 

shall give its permission thereto; and in no event 

shall one corporation take by condemnation proceedings 

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any property owned by and essential to the purposes of 

another corporation possessing the power of eminent 

domain. 

(Emphasis added.) 

 The Town contends that a proper construction of Code § 56-

265.4:2 would exclude such condemnation actions from the review 

of the Commission under Code § 25-233 by limiting the phrase “in 

the manner provided by Title 25” to mean that a city or town 

need only employ the procedures of the Virginia General 

Condemnation Act, Code § 25-46.1 et seq. In short, the Town 

contends that Code § 56-265.4:2 was enacted to permit a city or 

town to do the very thing prohibited by Code § 25-233, that is 

to condemn the property of a public utility with the power of 

eminent domain without first seeking permission from the 

Commission. In making this contention, the Town does not 

expressly state that Code § 56-265.4:2 is ambiguous, but 

supports its argument with extensive reference to external aids 

to construction, raising the obvious implication that the 

statute cannot be construed from its plain language.3 We 

disagree. 

 3

The Town further contends that Code § 56-265.4:2 must be 

read to provide more expansive powers of condemnation than are 

provided elsewhere in the Code, otherwise its enactment would 

merely be redundant of other statutes. However, as the Town 

itself notes, Code § 56-265.4:2 was enacted following this 

Court’s decision in Town of Culpeper v. VEPCO, 215 Va. 189, 207 

S.E.2d 864 (1974), in order to provide the express right of 

6
When considering a legislative act, a court may look only 

to the words of the statute to determine its meaning, and when 

the meaning is plain, resort to rules of construction, 

legislative history, and extrinsic evidence is impermissible. 

Harrison & Bates, Inc. v. Featherstone Assoc., 253 Va. 364, 368, 

484 S.E.2d 883, 885 (1997). Accordingly, unless we find that 

any words of the statute are “inherently difficult to 

comprehend, of doubtful import, or lacking in clarity and 

definiteness . . . it is not necessary to look beyond the plain 

language of the statute to ascertain its underlying legislative 

intent.” Id. at 369, 484 S.E.2d at 886. 

Utilizing this standard, we find no merit to the Town’s 

contention that the phrase “in the manner provided by Title 25” 

can be reasonably read to have a limited construction. Nothing 

in that phrase suggests that the legislature intended other than 

what the plain language imports, which is that the right 

afforded to cities and towns seeking to acquire by condemnation 

the electric utility distribution facilities within newly 

annexed areas is subject to all the provisions of Title 25 

relevant to such actions. No resort to external aids to 

construction is necessary to reach that self-evident conclusion. 

 

condemnation in annexed areas which we had found lacking 

elsewhere in the Code. Accordingly, the purpose of this statute 

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Accordingly, we hold that a city or town seeking to 

exercise the right provided by Code § 56-265.4:2 must comply 

with Code § 25-233, which provides that permission must first be 

obtained from the Commission by any public corporation or 

authority seeking to take by condemnation proceedings the 

property of any other entity also possessing that power. To do 

so, the city or town must demonstrate “that a public necessity 

or that an essential public convenience shall so require.” Code 

§ 25-233. 

The Town contends, however, that unless a “less stringent” 

standard is applied by the Commission in its determinations 

under Code § 25-233, Code § 56-265.4:2 is rendered meaningless. 

This is so, the Town asserts, because “it is highly unlikely 

that a municipality can ever demonstrate that a regulated public 

utility is failing to provide adequate service at reasonable 

rates” and, thus, no municipality could ever demonstrate that 

the condemnation of electric utility distribution facilities is 

a public necessity or essential to public convenience. 

The Town’s contention on this issue rests on a faulty 

premise. Nothing in the record before us suggests that the 

Commission limited its consideration of the Town’s application 

solely to the question of adequacy of service and reasonableness 

 

is clearly not redundant of the existing scheme for condemnation 

8
of rates, or that it would so limit itself in the future. 

Rather, the Commission focused its inquiry on whether the public 

would benefit under the entire circumstances of the proposed 

condemnation, and noted that while there would be certain 

benefits, including a slight reduction of rates, the evidence on 

balance did not support such a finding. The record adequately 

supports that finding. Moreover, we reject the Town’s 

contention that no municipality would be able to effectively 

compete with a public utility in the provision of or cost of 

service. 

In sum, we hold that all of the provisions of Code § 25-233 

as traditionally applied by the Commission apply to the 

condemnation of electric utility distribution facilities under 

Code § 56-265.4:2 by a city or town. The decision of the 

Commission, as an expert tribunal, is presumed to be just, 

reasonable, and correct unless without support in the record or 

manifestly in error. Central Telephone Co. of Virginia v. State 

Corporation Commission, 219 Va. 863, 874, 252 S.E.2d 575, 581-82 

(1979). Here, the record supports the decision of the 

Commission and the Commission correctly applied the law. For 

these reasons, the order of the Commission will be affirmed. 

Affirmed. 

 

of electric distribution facilities. 

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