Opinion ID: 1585011
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether a Hearing is Required Under Iowa Code Section 17A.2(2).

Text: We next consider whether the definitional statute defining contested case under the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act affords any basis for the district court's determination that a contested hearing was required to resolve differences between the commission and the utility concerning the proposed PGA reconciliation. Section 17A.2(2) provides: Contested case means a proceeding including but not restricted to ratemaking, price fixing, and licensing in which the legal rights, duties or privileges of a party are required by Constitution or statute to be determined by an agency after an opportunity for an evidentiary hearing. In order to qualify the present dispute as a contested case under the foregoing definition, Peoples must point to some statutory or constitutional requirement which mandates an evidentiary hearing. For reasons stated in the the preceding division, we find no such statutory requirement in section 476.6. Peoples does not suggest any other statutory provision which mandates that a contested case hearing be held, but it does suggest that the failure to require a hearing would violate its due process rights. This argument is primarily based upon its contention that the dispute which it has with the commission over its proposed PGA reconciliation involves issues of fact which cannot be fairly resolved in the absence of an evidentiary hearing. For reasons which will subsequently appear, we disagree with this contention. The issue in dispute in the present action concerns the proposed 1984 PGA reconciliation filed by Peoples on or about October 1, 1984, to be effective November 1, 1984. In the matters filed with the commission with respect to that proposed reconciliation, Peoples sought to recapture an under recovery of $439,029 from general service town plant customers for the period between September 1, 1982, and August 31, 1983. The commission refused to permit recapture of these costs during the ensuing twelve-month period because of Peoples' failure to include this information in the PGA reconciliation filed for the previous year. Peoples sought reconsideration of the commission's ruling on this issue in a petition for rehearing filed in compliance with the commission's rules. That petition was summarily denied by the commission on the basis of the documentation which had been furnished in connection with the original PGA reconciliation and the petition for reconsideration. In its attempt to show that a factual dispute exists which requires an evidentiary hearing, Peoples disputes the commission's determination that (a) the proposed PGA adjustment should have been made prospectively and not retrospectively; (b) the proposed PGA adjustment arose from a change in Peoples' methodology for assigning costs; and (c) in failing to seek recapture of these costs in its prior year's PGA reconciliation, Peoples failed to collect the short-fall by its own choice. We believe that in its efforts to convert the foregoing issues into factual disputes Peoples is exalting form over substance. It has documented in its filings with the commission exactly what occurred in regard to the $439,029 short-fall and exactly how it proposes to recapture same. Regardless of how the commission's findings and conclusions are labeled, there is nothing to indicate that they were arrived at as a result of disbelieving or failing to accept Peoples' version of the facts. It is readily apparent in comparing the documentation supplied by Peoples with the rationale employed by the commission in denying the proposed short-fall recapture in the 1984 PGA adjustment that such denial was the result of the commission's belief with respect to controlling principles of law. Peoples was accorded, under the commission's rehearing rules, an opportunity to fully challenge the legal conclusions which led to the denial of the proposed recapture. Because the primary issue was one of law and not of fact, a contested case hearing was not necessary. See Zachary v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 621 F.2d 155, 158 (5th Cir.1980); Allegheny-Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, 501 Pa. 71, 459 A.2d 1218, 1220-21 (1983).