Court Opinion

ID: 9646898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:15:25.333064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:43.431871
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, Justice,
dissenting.
Because I think this appeal is not ripe for appellate review, I respectfully dissent. Whether the Commission has statutory authority to order a merger is not the real issue in this appeal. The Commission has expressly conceded that it had no such authority. The crux of MPS’s appeal is its concern that its failure to make itself amenable to fundamental corporate reorganization will be taken into account by the Commission as one aspect of the prudence doctrine affecting the establishment of just and reasonable rates in a future ratesetting procedure.
The policy of this court is not to issue advisory opinions but to delay ruling on matters until they are “ ‘ripe’ for judicial consideration and action.” Lewiston, Greene & Monmouth Tel. Co. v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 299 A.2d 895, 907 (Me.1973). Because of the complexity of the issue of the relationship between the prudence doctrine and corporate reorganization, we cannot effectively, and therefore should not, evaluate its merits until we are presented with concrete facts in a future ratesetting procedure.
The agency action appealed from is essentially a statement of findings. Since the evidentiary basis of those findings in the record is not challenged on appeal, this court has nothing to review. The Commission’s statements that it may adjust MPS’s rates “commensurate with the economic loss to ratepayers” and that it “will give serious consideration to possible changes in MPS’s rates” (emphasis added) are not even “policy statement[s] of what the Commission intends to do in the future,” Maine Water Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 388 A.2d 493, 499 (Me.1978), much less “a concrete, firm disposition of rights and obligations” of MPS. Lewiston, Greene, 299 A.2d at 908; see also New England Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 448 A.2d 272, 303 (Me.1982). It is precisely to avoid such entanglement “in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and also to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a *1227concrete way by the challenging parties,” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1515, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), that the ripeness doctrine came into being as a matter of judicial restraint.
Nor is there perceptible hardship to MPS in withholding judicial consideration. See id. at 149, 87 S.Ct. at 1515. The Commission has not directed MPS “to take specific action within prescribed time limits immediately operative.” Lewiston, Greene, 299 A.2d at 908. Though the Commission has undoubtedly raised the issue whether MPS’s failure to make itself amenable to fundamental corporate reorganization is a legitimate factor to be taken into account in setting future rates, there is no “avowed commitment by the Commission to effectuate its own plan in accordance with controlling principles, formulas and computations meticulously prescribed in the [decision].” Id. Despite the vague directive to pursue merger, a directive acknowledged on all sides as a nullity, there clearly is no requirement of affirmative conduct resting on MPS as a result of the May 15 decision. Contrast New England Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 390 A.2d 8, 57-58 n. 40 (Me.1978); Central Maine Power Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 395 A.2d 414, 423 (Me.1978); Lewiston, Greene, 299 A.2d at 908.
I would grant the Commission’s motion to dismiss.