Opinion ID: 2616177
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Time to Prepare Expert Testimony

Text: Here NMIEC contends that the Commission allowed it only twenty-three days to prepare expert testimony to rebut the proposed Stipulation, and only three days to address the prefiled testimony of PNM. While this is literally true, it does not support the conclusion urged by NMIEC that it was surprised by the testimony, or that the Commission, in its rush to judgment, denied NMIEC its right to be heard. For one thing, many of the assumptions NMIEC challenges were presented in at least rudimentary fashion as early as the original adversarial hearings, in which NMIEC participated, more than a year before. In the course of that year, NMIEC, as a member of the Task Force, was as well apprised as anyone could be of the evolution of the expert testimony. Indeed, by October, 1984, NMIEC was able to submit to the Task Force its own proposal, prepared by its own experts. Yet NMIEC chose not to submit that testimony at the final hearing (see Point III below). The case law cited by NMIEC is unavailing. For example, the decision of this Court in Hobbs Gas Co. v. New Mexico Public Service Commission, 94 N.M. 731, 616 P.2d 1116 (1980) concerned an outright denial by the Commission of the opportunity to present expert rebuttal testimony. Here, although the Attorney General and other intervenors timely prepared rebuttal testimony, NMIEC's failure to do so was entirely of its own choosing. On this question, as on the alleged denial of discovery discussed above, NMIEC appears to have relied on its expectation arising from the original stipulation creating the Task Force. There the parties agreed that: The task force shall report to the Commission as to its conclusions no later than the first day of August, 1984, and the Commission shall schedule hearings thereafter to accept testimony and allow for examination of witnesses, by the parties to Case 1804, to enable the Commission to make a final decision by the 15th day of May, 1985. From this language NMIEC would extract a clearly stated procedural schedule, according to which NMIEC expected to have from August to May to conduct discovery and prepare for formal, adversarial proceedings. Evidently NMIEC would fault the Commission for coming to a decision well in advance of this self-imposed deadline. Yet NMIEC would also have it both ways, inasmuch as after the deadline of August 1, it did not initiate discovery nor prepare rebuttal testimony, although it could have foreseen the direction that the Task Force was heading. After months of access to virtually all the information which went into the Stipulation and the prefiled testimony of PNM, NMIEC made the strategic decision to petition the Commission for a continuance of indefinite duration, with no specific showing of what additional facts would be introduced nor how any such facts would contribute to the outcome. Finally, NMIEC both received and employed the opportunity at the December 3, 1984 hearing to cross-examine witnesses in an adversarial proceeding. In light of all the above circumstances, NMIEC has failed to demonstrate to this Court that the Commission abused its discretion by refusing to grant an indeterminate continuance. Nor has NMIEC demonstrated the due diligence required by case law for such a continuance to be granted. See El Paso Electric v. Real Estate Mart, Inc., 98 N.M. 490, 650 P.2d 12 (Ct.App.), cert. denied 98 N.M. 590, 651 P.2d 636 (1982).