Court Opinion

ID: 9794412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:05:20.766381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:46.584714
License: Public Domain

*1269KAUGER, Justice,
with whom OPALA, V.C.J., joins concurring specially:
I agree that the Corporation Commission did not follow its rules when it failed to give notice by publication. Although publication may be available for the world to see, it is presumptuous to suppose that anyone could read all that is published to detect if something may be reported which affects his/her property interest.1 Reason and good business practice require that we assume: 1) that the appellee, Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corporation (AOG), maintains a current list of the very parties who will be most impacted by a rate increase— its customers — and that it sends them bills on a regular basis; and 2) that notice could be enclosed with regular mailings without any undue burden on AOG.
In Cate v. Archon Oil Co., 695 P.2d 1352, 1356 (Okla.1985), we acknowledged that neither necessity nor efficiency can abrogate the rule that, within the limits of practicability, notice must be reasonably calculated to reach the interested parties. If the names of those affected by a proceeding are available, the reasons disappear for resorting to means less likely than the mails to apprise them of possible action.2 Under these circumstances, anything less than notice by mail is a violation of due process when, as here, the party charged with the duty of notification regularly sends bills to its customers — the same parties which are impacted by the rate change.

. Cate v. Archon Oil Co., 695 P.2d 1352, 1356 (Okla.1985).

. Greene v. Lindsey, 456 U.S. 444, 455, 102 S.Ct. 1874, 1880, 72 L.Ed.2d 249, 258-59 (1982); Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U.S. 208, 213, 83 S.Ct. 279, 282, 9 L.Ed.2d 255, 259, 89 A.L.R.2d 1398, 1403 (1962); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 318-20, 70 S.Ct. 652, 659-60, 94 L.Ed. 865, 875-76 (1949); Cate v. Archon Oil Co., see note 1, supra.