Opinion ID: 889579
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Did the District Court properly allow Whitehall to augment the record?

Text: ¶ 30 Whitehall petitioned the District Court to augment the record to include 2002 avoided cost data from NorthWestern and data supporting the imposition of revised 2009 rates. A district court may receive additional evidence relating to a challenged rate in the case of alleged irregularities in procedure before the agency not shown in the record. Section 69-3-404(2), MCA. ¶ 31 Whitehall based its motion on the PSC's failure to require NorthWestern to produce current avoided cost data in conformance with Admin. R.M. 38.5.1905 and 2012. The District Court found that the record contained evidence that NWE has not submitted avoided cost data to the PSC since 1996. The court further found that the evidence is insufficient for the Court to make a determination whether the procedural irregularity alleged by [Whitehall] actually occurred. ¶ 32 The PSC argued that any procedural irregularities that might have occurred would have been contained in the record. The PSC further argued that § 2-4-703, MCA, precluded augmentation of the record because Whitehall had not made the necessary showing. Section 2-4-703, MCA, allows for the receipt of additional evidence on judicial review of an agency decision only where such evidence is material and good reasons support why the evidence had not been presented in the contested case proceeding. ¶ 33 The District Court concluded that Whitehall had alleged a sufficient procedural irregularity not shown in the record to justify augmentation. The District Court noted that Whitehall had predicated its motion to augment the record on § 69-3-404(2), MCA, which allows for augmentation of the record in case of an alleged procedural irregularity. The court properly confined its analysis to that statutory provision. The District Court concluded that it could not determine whether the alleged procedural irregularity had occurred based on the record before it. The court appropriately granted Whitehall's motion to augment the record.