Court Opinion

ID: 9626064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:01:06.010188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:20.346345
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Under OCGA § 46-5-165 “(b) [a]ny Tier 2 local exchange company [appellees] may elect to have the rates, terms, and conditions for services determined pursuant to the alternative regulation described in this article upon the filing of notice with the commission and committing to provide basic local exchange services upon reasonable request, (c) The alternative regulations under this article shall become effective on the date specified by the electing company but in no event sooner than 30 days after such notice is filed with the commission, (d) On the date a telecommunications company elects the alternative regulation described in this article, all existing rates, terms, and conditions for the services provided by the electing company contained in the then existing tariffs and contracts are deemed just and reasonable.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The language is plain, clear, and unambiguous. Two separate dates are mentioned in the section: the election date and the effective date, which cannot be the same by the express language of the section. As part of this same section and consciously aware of the two dates, the General Assembly created an irrebuttable presumption that on the date of election “then existing tariffs and contracts are deemed just and reasonable.” The electing company cannot change the maximum existing rates upward and the Public Service Commission (“PSC”) cannot raise or lower the maximum rates for five years except as provided under OCGA § 46-5-166 (f). By making an election, regardless of the effective date chosen, the electing company freezes the maximum rate at the moment in time that election is made, not the effective date selected, and thus the electing company establishes the “maximum rates that the local exchange company may charge for the basic local exchange services for a period of five years.” OCGA § 46-5-166 (b). The General Assembly intended this method to assure a local exchange company that, if it made an irrevocable election based upon existing conditions and went through the time and expense of changing over to a free market, then the PSC could not change the terms and conditions after such election and before the effective date, causing planning and economic uncertainty for the company by being locked into an unforeseen rate structure imposed after the election had been irrevocably made.
If the majority’s and PSC’s interpretation is followed, then no reasonably prudent local exchange company will risk making an election, because it may find itself locked into an inadequate return on capital for five years caused by PSC changes made between the date *389of election and the effective date and based upon inadequate or erroneous data. Such would be contrary .to the expressed intent of the General Assembly to encourage and not frustrate election to come under the alternative regulation. OCGA § 46-5-161. Therefore, to avoid just such action by the PSC, which the General Assembly could reasonably foresee, OCGA § 46-5-165 (d) was included to forestall the PSC from doing what it now seeks to do, change the maximum rates downward prior to the effective date and locking lower rates in for five years. Under the majority’s construction, an electing company must run the gauntlet between the election date and the effective date risking a PSC-ordered reduction in maximum existing rates and becoming locked in for the next five years to such rate structure.
In the case sub judice, the PSC engaged in retroactive rate-making after appellees had elected to come under the alternative rate structure. Such retroactive rate-making even under the general provisions is prohibited. OCGA § 46-2-25 (d); Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co. v. Ga. Pub. Svc. Comm., 203 Ga. 832, 883 (49 SE2d 38) (1948); Atlanta Gas Light Co. v. Ga. Pub. Svc. Comm., 212 Ga. App. 575, 583 (2) (442 SE2d 860) (1994). To escape such prohibition, the majority must construe OCGA § 46-5-165 (d) contrary to its plain, clear, and unambiguous meaning and give it a tortured construction. The trial court within the standard of review under OCGA § 50-13-19 (h) (1) and (2) found that the PSC had exceeded its statutory authority in violation of OCGA §§ 46-5-165 (d) and 46-2-25 (d).
When the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, trial and appellate courts are mandated to construe the statute as written and not to impose a different meaning to the statute. Mullins v. First Gen. Ins. Co., 253 Ga. 486, 487 (322 SE2d 265) (1984); Hollowell v. Jove, 247 Ga. 678, 681 (279 SE2d 430) (1981); Rayle Elec. Membership Corp. v. Cook, 195 Ga. 734, 735 (25 SE2d 574) (1943); Standard Oil Co. &c. v. State Rev. Comm., 179 Ga. 371, 377 (176 SE 1) (1934).
If the PSC’s position prevails, then this Court has applied OCGA § 46-5-165 in an unconstitutional fashion in violation of both appellees? federal and state constitutional rights to be free from as a “Bill of attainder; ex post facto law,” U. S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 1, and Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. X; as a taking for public purposes without just and adequate compensation, U. S. Const., Amends. V and XIV, Sec. 1, and Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. I and Sec. II; Art. I, Sec. II, Par. V; and Art. I, Sec. III, Par. I, which was raised in the trial court but not ruled upon because the trial court by statutory construction avoided the constitutional issues. Such constitutional issues will affect all future applications of this act and lead to a constitutional attack on the application.
The PSC’s interpretation adopted by the majority will allow the PSC to act in an arbitrary and capricious manner in the future by *390allowing it to change rates after an election and prior to the minimum effective date to reduce rates but never to raise rates on such short a period for review. Such construction of the act will cause few local exchange companies to risk election, which will frustrate the legislative purpose to induce election and to create a voluntary free market regulation.
Decided July 3, 1997
Reconsideration denied July 16, 1997
Thurbert Baker, Attorney General, Brenda H. Cole, Deputy Attorney General, Alan Gantzhorn, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Thomas K. Bond, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Chorey, Taylor & Feil, John L. Taylor, Jr., Charles V. Gerkin, Jr., Matthew L. Hess, for appellees.
I am authorized to state that Judge Johnson joins in this dissent and Judge Blackburn concurs in the result only of the dissent.