Opinion ID: 197774
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Grouped Appellants.

Text: 33 Although there are modest differences in the particulars of their respective situations, a common theme pervades the arguments of all the Grouped Appellants: each strives to justify intervention as a matter of right by reference to the same two interests. First, they assert that the plaintiffs' action asks the district court to strike down the Plan, and that such relief, if granted, would sunder their shared interest in obtaining lower electric rates. Second, they assert that their prior (and anticipated) participation in the PUC's administrative proceedings itself furnishes an independent basis for intervention. We find both assertions wanting. 34 To begin with, the assertion of an economic interest is procedurally vulnerable. Although the Grouped Appellants vigorously pressed this line of argument in the district court, they devote only cursory attention to it on appeal. Consequently, it is not preserved for appellate review. See Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co., 916 F.2d 731, 734 (1st Cir.1990). 35 Even were the asseveration preserved, it would be unavailing. While the type of interest sufficient to sustain intervention as of right is not amenable to precise and authoritative definition, a putative intervenor must show at a bare minimum that it has a significantly protectable interest, Donaldson v. United States, 400 U.S. 517, 531, 91 S.Ct. 534, 542, 27 L.Ed.2d 580 (1971), that is direct, not contingent, Travelers Indem., 884 F.2d at 638. Though these contours are relatively broad, the Grouped Appellants' interest in the lower electric rates expected to result from restructuring falls well outside the pale. 36 Potential economic harm to a would-be intervenor is a factor that warrants serious consideration in the interest inquiry. See Conservation Law Found., 966 F.2d at 43; but cf. New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. United Gas Pipe Line Co., 732 F.2d 452, 466 (5th Cir.1984) (en banc) (holding that an economic interest alone is insufficient predicate for a Rule 24(a)(2) intervention). It is settled beyond peradventure, however, that an undifferentiated, generalized interest in the outcome of an ongoing action is too porous a foundation on which to premise intervention as of right. See New Orleans Pub. Serv., 732 F.2d at 466; Athens Lumber Co. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 690 F.2d 1364, 1366 (11th Cir.1982); United States v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 642 F.2d 1285, 1292 (D.C.Cir.1980). That principle is dispositive here for the Grouped Appellants' theory of economic interest operates at too high a level of generality. After all, every electricity consumer in New Hampshire and every person who does business with any electricity consumer yearns for lower electric rates. 37 To cinch matters, the Grouped Appellants' interest in obtaining lower electric rates also has an overly contingent quality. This is not a case in which ongoing litigation directly threatens an economic right or benefit presently enjoyed by any would-be intervenor. See, e.g., City of Stilwell v. Ozarks Rural Elec. Coop., 79 F.3d 1038, 1042 (10th Cir.1996). It is, rather, a case in which these would-be intervenors root their professed economic interest in an as yet unrealized expectancy of lower electric rates. As the district court perspicaciously observed, numerous market variables will impact New Hampshire electric rates even after the PUC implements a restructuring plan. See PSNH II, 173 F.R.D. at 26. Whether the interaction of these variables actually will produce lower rates is anybody's guess, thus demonstrating the fatally contingent nature of the asserted economic interest. See Travelers Indem., 884 F.2d at 638-39. 38 The Grouped Appellants also claim a protectable interest within the purview of Rule 24(a)(2) arising out of their prior participation, and their anticipated opportunity for future participation, in the PUC's administrative proceedings. All profess to fear that the plaintiffs' suit will lay waste to the efforts that they expended (culminating in the Plan), and that this threat entitles them to intervention. 39 We do not dismiss this claim lightly. In certain circumstances, an administrative-proceeding interest may well form a sufficient predicate for intervention as of right. Since this clearly is not true across the board, we must evaluate the asserted administrative-proceeding interest in light of the specific claims embodied in the lawsuit pending before the district court--and we must do so in keeping with the pragmatic cast of Rule 24(a)(2). Furthermore, we must conduct this assessment with an awareness that Rule 24(a)(2)'s third tine--whether disposition of the extant action may as a practical matter impair or impede the applicant's ability to protect a cognizable interest--often influences resolution of the interest question. See Conservation Law Found., 966 F.2d at 42. 40 The plaintiffs' complaint does not frontally attack the process through which the PUC arrived at the Plan, 7 but, rather, pleads causes of action that will require the district court to measure the submitted Plan against federal statutory and constitutional benchmarks. Hence, adjudication of the plaintiffs' claims will not place the district court in the position of having to rebalance competing policy views anent electric utility industry restructuring or otherwise to co-opt the administrative proceedings in which the would-be intervenors appeared. 41 The Grouped Appellants resist this conclusion. In their estimation, the plaintiffs' challenges do not involve pristine questions of federal law, and they express concern that the district court will be forced to immerse itself in the nitty gritty of ratemaking. We agree that the district court will have to understand the Plan in order to resolve the plaintiffs' challenges, but we are confident that the PUC is fully capable of explicating the interstices of the Plan to facilitate this review. More to the point, we deem it of decretory significance that the types of viewpoint-balancing issues that merited the inclusion of a wide array of parties in the administrative proceedings are not present in this civil action, and we therefore are hard-pressed to see how the present litigation will impair or impede the would-be intervenors' legitimate interests. 42 The Grouped Appellants' reliance on United States v. South Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 922 F.2d 704 (11th Cir.1991), for the proposition that participation in the PUC's administrative proceedings ipso facto justifies intervention as of right, is misplaced. There, the federal government brought suit alleging that a water management district's irrigation and flood control policies violated a state environmental statute. See id. at 707. The United States asked the district court, inter alia, to set a maximum allowable concentration of nitrogen and phosphorous in farm water runoff. See id. The court denied various farm groups' motions for intervention as of right. The Eleventh Circuit reversed. It found that the Florida statute granted the farm groups a statutory right to participate in the water district's administrative implementation of runoff standards. Because the federal litigation essentially bypassed the administrative framework, denial of intervention would eliminate the farm groups' role in the decisionmaking process. See id. at 708. 43 Such is not the case here. The would-be intervenors heretofore have taken full advantage of their right to participate in the PUC's proceedings, and their role in any future administrative decisionmaking process is not in jeopardy. On the one hand, if the plaintiffs lose, then the Plan that emerged from the administrative proceedings probably will remain intact--unless the PUC, in the course of further administrative proceedings (in which the applicants for intervention will have an opportunity to participate), modifies it. On the other hand, if the plaintiffs prevail, then the Plan likely will fall--yet the district court will not replace it with another of its own creation. Rather, the PUC will be left to devise a successor plan, and the Grouped Appellants will be able to participate fully in any such efforts. In either event, the would-be intervenors' administrative-proceeding interest remains unsullied. 8 44 The Grouped Appellants also advance the closely related claim that the TRO issued by the district court impairs their right to participate in ongoing or future administrative proceedings before the PUC. This claim requires scant comment. It suffices to say that the present litigation has not impeded this entitlement in any real sense. To the extent that the lower court has halted administrative proceedings, its orders are of universal application: it did not bar the Grouped Appellants selectively from participating in any ongoing proceeding. Indeed, the PUC itself has suspended reconsideration of the Plan pending resolution of this case. While the Grouped Appellants undoubtedly would prefer that the Plan's implementation proceed immediately, the current stalemate does not prejudice their ability to participate prospectively in resumed administrative proceedings once the litigatory logjam clears. 45 Any residual doubt that might linger regarding the Grouped Appellants' right to intervene is assuaged at the final step of the Rule 24(a)(2) inquiry. We agree with the district court that the Grouped Appellants simply have not shown that the defendant commissioners inadequately represent their interests in upholding the Plan. 46 To be sure, an applicant for intervention need only make a minimal showing that the representation afforded by existing parties likely will prove inadequate. See Trbovich v. United Mine Workers, 404 U.S. 528, 538 n. 10, 92 S.Ct. 630, 636 n. 10, 30 L.Ed.2d 686 (1972). Nonetheless, the adequacy of interest requirement is more than a paper tiger. A party that seeks to intervene as of right must produce some tangible basis to support a claim of purported inadequacy. See Moosehead Sanitary Dist. v. S.G. Phillips Corp., 610 F.2d 49, 54 (1st Cir.1979). Moreover, the burden of persuasion is ratcheted upward in this case because the commissioners are defending the Plan in their capacity as members of a representative governmental body. Given this fact, the Grouped Appellants must rebut a presumption that the commissioners adequately represent their interests. See Mausolf v. Babbitt, 85 F.3d 1295, 1303 (8th Cir.1996). This rebuttal requires a strong affirmative showing that the agency (or its members) is not fairly representing the applicants' interests. Hooker Chems. & Plastics, 749 F.2d at 985. 47 The Grouped Appellants attempt to roll this presumption on its side. They maintain that the PUC's status as the principal protector of the general public interest precludes its effective representation of their particularized interests. See, e.g., Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians v. Minnesota, 989 F.2d 994, 1001 (8th Cir.1993) (finding the presumption of adequate representation overcome where a suit against the state to enforce an Indian treaty implicated the intervenors' interest in preserving fish and game stock on their private lands). On the facts of the case at bar, however, this resupinate reasoning does not withstand scrutiny: in respect to the plaintiffs' claims, the PUC's interests are perfectly aligned with those of the Grouped Appellants. We explain briefly. 48 Although the motives that drive any individual appellant's support for the Plan may diverge slightly from those of its fellow appellants and also from those of the PUC, all march in legal lockstep when defending the Plan against the plaintiffs' federal statutory and constitutional challenges. None of the Grouped Appellants has propounded any legal argument that the PUC members are unable or unwilling to make, or that subverts the PUC's institutional goals. This symmetry of interest among the Grouped Appellants and the PUC commissioners ensures adequate representation. See American Lung Ass'n v. Reilly, 962 F.2d 258, 261-62 (2d Cir.1992); Washington Elec. Coop. v. Massachusetts Mun. Wholesale Elec. Co., 922 F.2d 92, 98 (2d Cir.1990); see generally United Nuclear Corp. v. Cannon, 696 F.2d 141, 144 (1st Cir.1982) (discussing the factors that a federal court must consider in the adequacy of interest inquiry). 49 If that were not enough--and we firmly believe that it is--we note that the PUC members have launched a full-scale, uncompromising defense of their Plan. We think the likelihood that the PUC will capitulate cravenly to the plaintiffs' onslaught is extremely remote. This circumstance, in itself, weighs heavily in favor of denying mandatory intervention. See Washington Elec. Coop., 922 F.2d at 98; Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. New York State Dep't of Envtl. Conservation, 834 F.2d 60, 62 (2d Cir.1987); cf. Conservation Law Found., 966 F.2d at 44 (finding that the Secretary of Commerce inadequately represented the more parochial interests of putative intervenors because he agreed, with minimal opposition, to a consent decree drafted by the plaintiffs). 50 Finally, the Grouped Appellants maintain that the courts must accept at face value the PUC's declaration of its inability to represent their interests, no questions asked. This is sheer persiflage. Here, as in many other contexts, actions speak louder than words. In all events, neither the PUC commissioners' support of and consent to the Grouped Appellants' desire to intervene, nor the commissioners' insinuations that they, alone, are not up to the task of defending the Plan, can strip a federal court of the right and power--indeed, the duty--to make an independent determination as to whether Rule 24(a)(2)'s prerequisites are met. See International Paper, 887 F.2d at 340-41; Wade v. Goldschmidt, 673 F.2d 182, 184 n. 3 (7th Cir.1982). 51