Opinion ID: 2499605
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subsection 40-6-115(5)

Text: ¶ 47 To successfully invoke the statutory jurisdiction of a district court to review a PUC decision, subsection 40-6-115(5) plainly and unambiguously requires a petitioner to initiate its appeal in either one of two specific divisions of the district court. The subsection provides in the relevant part: All actions for review shall be commenced and tried in the district court in and for the county in which the petitioner resides, or if a corporation or partnership in the county in which it maintains its principal office or place of business, or in the district court of the city and county of Denver, at the option of the petitioner. § 40-6-115(5) (emphasis added). ¶ 48 The word shall is mandatory. See People v. Dist. Court, 713 P.2d at 921. When read within the jurisdictional whole of section 40-6-115, shall in subsection 40-6-115(5) denotes a requirement with which a petitioner must strictly comply to invoke the jurisdiction of a reviewing court. See id; Mile High United Way, 801 P.2d at 5. The word commence means to initiate formally by performing the first act of. Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 456 (Philip Babcock Gove, ed., 2002). Commence is synonymous with bring an action, which means to institute legal proceedings. Black's Law Dictionary 219 (9th ed. 2009). Thus, the phrase shall be commenced plainly means that a petitioner must initiate its appeal of a PUC decision in the proper division of the district court, as described in subsection 40-6-115(5), to successfully invoke the reviewing court's jurisdiction. See Mile High United Way, 801 P.2d at 5. A petitioner's failure to comply with this requirement constitutes a jurisdictional defect mandating dismissal of the case. Borquez, 751 P.2d at 644. ¶ 49 In addition, the phrase and tried that immediately follows shall be commenced in subsection 40-6-115(5) indicates that the legislature intended shall be commenced to refer to something other than venue. Venue relates to where a case shall be tried. [2] See, e.g., C.R.C.P. 98. As such, the phrase and tried in subsection 40-6-115(5) refers to venue, and shows that the legislature intended venue to lie in the same district court in which an action is properly commenced. Had the legislature intended shall be commenced to refer to venue, it would not have included and tried immediately after that phrase because doing so would have been redundant. Therefore, shall be commenced speaks to the jurisdictional requirement that a petitioner must initiate its action in the proper forum; it does not describe venue. ¶ 50 Construing subsection 40-6-115(5) in isolation and as a non-jurisdictional venue provision, as the majority does, permits petitioners to file section 40-6-115 actions in any district court in Colorado, and completely ignores the legislature's intent to limit district court jurisdiction over PUC matters. The majority's interpretation directly contravenes the plain language of subsection 40-6-115(5), which explicitly limits district court jurisdiction over a petition to review a PUC decision by requiring petitioners to commence and try such an action in one of two specific divisions of the district court. ¶ 51 An action can only be commenced once. The result of the majority's interpretation of commence defies logic and frustrates the legislature's intent to limit district court jurisdiction because the interpretation allows an action to be commenced in any district court, and then commenced again in one of the district courts described in subsection 40-6-115(5). Nothing in the plain language of section 40-6-115 expressly or impliedly permits a district court to transfer a previously-commenced action to another division of the district court for trial. Thus, the majority appears to inexplicably interpret commence to mean more than it does: to initiate formally by performing the first act of a legal proceeding. ¶ 52 We must construe the unambiguous plain language of subsection 40-6-115(5) to require a petitioner to initiate a PUC review action in one of two specific forums to invoke the jurisdiction of the district court. Failure to strictly comply with the terms of subsection 40-6-115(5) effectively closes the courtroom door on the petition, consistent with the legislature's intent to explicitly limit district court jurisdiction to review PUC decisions. See Mile High United Way, 801 P.2d at 5. IV. Application and Conclusion ¶ 53 AGNC undisputedly failed to substantively comply with subsection 40-6-115(5) by commencing its action for review of a PUC decision in Routt County district court, rather than in the district court for Garfield or Denver county. The Routt County district court, like the majority, interpreted subsection 40-6-115(1) to confer jurisdiction to review PUC decisions upon all Colorado district courts generally, and interpreted subsection 40-6-115(5) as describing venue with no impact on jurisdiction. Based on this interpretation, the Routt County district court took jurisdiction over AGNC's case and transferred it to Denver district court, at AGNC's request, in an effort to comply with subsection 40-6-115(5). ¶ 54 The plain language of section 40-6-115, read as a whole to define the limits of a district court's jurisdiction to review PUC decisions, indicates that the Routt County district court erred by taking jurisdiction over this case. Unlike the petitioner in Trans Shuttle, AGNC failed to substantively comply with the requirements of section 40-6-115. See 58 P.3d at 50. As such, the Routt County district court should have dismissed AGNC's action for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to C.R.C.P. 12(b)(1), as the PUC requested, because AGNC failed to strictly comply with the jurisdictional forum requirement of subsection 40-6-115(5). See Borquez, 751 P.2d at 644; see also Mile High United Way, 801 P.2d at 5. Because the majority affirmed the Routt County district court's inappropriate assumption of jurisdiction, and thereby failed to order that court to dismiss AGNC's petition, I respectfully dissent.