Opinion ID: 1427111
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: requirement of stay, bond and individual accounting

Text: If this Court were to accept UP & L's arguments and permit the PUC to award surcharges on rehearing, the protections afforded non-petitioning parties by I.C. §§ 61-634, -637 and -638 would be rendered incomplete and almost meaningless. I.C. § 61-634 provides that a court order staying or suspending a PUC decision shall not become effective until a suspending bond has been executed in compliance with I.C. § 61-637 which provides that: In case the order or decision of the commission is stayed or suspended, the order of the court shall not become effective until a suspending bond shall first have been executed ... sufficient in amount and security to insure the prompt payment, by the party petitioning for the review, of all damages caused by the delay in the enforcement of the order or decision of the commission ... in case said order or decision is sustained. The court ... shall also by order direct the public utility affected to pay into court ... all sums of money which it may collect from any corporation or person in excess of the sum such corporation or person would have been compelled to pay if the order or decision of the commission had not been stayed or suspended. I.C. § 61-638 requires an individual accounting of all moneys paid by utility customers pursuant to a court order staying a PUC order lowering utility rates pending the outcome of an appeal to this Court: In case the court stays or suspends any order or decision lowering any rate, ... the commission, upon the execution and approval of said suspending bond, shall forthwith require the public utility affected ... to keep such accounts verified by oath, as may in the judgment of the commission suffice to show the amounts being charged or received by such public utility, pending the review, in excess of the charges allowed by the order or decision of the commission, together with the names and addresses of the corporations or persons to whom overcharges will be refundable in case the charges made by the public utility, pending the review, be not sustained by the court... . Upon the final decision by the court, all moneys which the public utility may have collected, pending the appeal in excess of those authorized by such final decision . .., shall be promptly paid to the corporations or persons entitled thereto... . (Emphasis added.) These provisions reflect the legislative intent to insure that there is established a fund out of which persons or corporations injured by the stay of a PUC order may be recompensed. It is clear that the legislature envisioned protecting individual ratepayers by providing that the higher rates collected following a stay of a PUC order be put aside and that if the petitioning party does not prevail upon appeal those rates will be refunded to the individual ratepayers from whom collected. These provisions do not treat utility ratepayers as a fungible mass allowing utility ratepayers of the year 1983 to be substituted for those of the year 1978. As manifested by this statute, the legislature did not envision allowing the ratepayers of any particular year to be benefited or burdened by the over or under collection of rates pending appeal. Under UP & L's argument, a utility could sidestep the statutory requirements of initially obtaining a stay of a PUC order lowering the utility's requested rates; of then posting a bond to set aside the difference in the rates under the stay of the PUC order and those under the PUC order before stayed; of going through the labor and cost of making an individual accounting of the customers who might later be entitled to refunds; and last of making refunds to the individual customers overcharged by a stay of a PUC order if that order is later upheld by this Court on review. Under UP & L's argument, a utility could circumvent this intricate statutory scheme by merely filing an appeal with this Court and then collecting a surcharge on rehearing by the PUC. If the legislature intended to give utilities the option, as UP & L contends, of either proceeding by way of the stay and bond procedures or by way of a surcharge surely it would have so stated. If it be that our assessment of the statutory scheme is incorrect, the legislature is available to take appropriate action.