Opinion ID: 1851827
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: lack of legal and factual basis for p.s.c. decision

Text: Otter Tail's argument that it should be favored because it will provide for a more orderly development of electric service in the area depends entirely upon the assumption that the owners of the property between the Kendall property and the city of Jamestown will (1) develop their property within a reasonable time, (2) take service from Otter Tail Power Company, (3) after obtaining the approval of the Commission, and (4) do so in such a way as to allow Otter Tail to develop the area without duplication of lines of the cooperative, although the cooperative, in the absence of any certificate of convenience and necessity issued to a public utility by the Public Service Commission for the area in question, is entitled to serve the property. As the Commission properly found, there is no basis from the evidence for making any assumptions as to future development of the area or annexation thereof by the city of Jamestown. We therefore conclude that there is no evidence in the record upon which to base an ultimate decision that Otter Tail can serve the Kendall property without wasteful duplication of investment or service. Since this and all other factors favor the cooperative, or favor neither the utility nor the cooperative, there is no evidence in the record to justify the Commission's conclusion that public convenience and necessity requires the issuance of a certificate to Otter Tail. Counsel for the utility asks us to take judicial notice of recent developments in the area surrounding Jamestown, including the area here in dispute. We are limited, of course, to the record made before the Public Service Commission at the time of the hearing several years ago. In another Public Service Commission case, Application of Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., 111 N.W.2d 705, 712 (N.D.1961), a similar request was made: . . . [the appellant] urges informally that this court should take judicial notice of certain evidentiary material not a part of the record in this case. In response, we said: Evidence of the type or kind referred to in the arguments of counsel is not to be found in the record made before the Commission nor the record considered by the district court. The first attempt to introduce this matter is on the appeal to this court. We cannot consider this material as evidence. 111 N.W.2d 705, at 713. Even if it should be true that the area in question will eventually be annexed to the city of Jamestown, that eventuality has been provided for by law insofar as the orderly continuance or transfer of electric service systems is concerned. The cooperative could continue to serve its customers until such time as its property in the annexed area is acquired by the franchised utility by negotiation or eminent domain. Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Divide County School District No. 1, 193 N.W.2d 723 (N.D.1972). Or the City could give the cooperative a franchise to continue to serve the customers it is serving. We affirm the judgment of the district court holding that the determination of the Commission was arbitrary and capricious. The utility did not sustain its burden of proof by substantial evidence that the public convenience and necessity reasonably required that it be allowed to extend its lines to serve the applicant. Without going into definitions of the terms, we would note, as the trial judge did, that the words arbitrary and capricious, when used in a legal sense as we have used them, are to be distinguished from the same words used in a popular sense, where they have an opprobrious connotation. We use them in the legal sense here to indicate simply that the findings of the Commission are without rational basis or that the evidence to support the findings is nonexistent or without probative value in either direction. Affirmed. ERICKSTAD, C. J., and JOHNSON, PAULSON and KNUDSON, JJ., concur.