Court Opinion

ID: 9446043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:44:37.636211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:30.176678
License: Public Domain

On Petitions for Rehearing
Before Wilbur K. Miller, Danaher and Bastían, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
In separate petitions for rehearing, the Federal Power Commission and The Ohio Fuel Gas Company contend that we have no authority to remand this proceeding to the Commission for findings as to the nature of the contract, if any, between Lancaster and Ohio Fuel. They say we are prohibited from doing so by § 19 of the Natural Gas Act1 because, in its application to the Commission for reconsideration, Lancaster did not expressly rely upon a contract with Ohio Fuel as a basis for seeking administrative rehearing.
Yet the Commission, in its original brief, relied upon a “service agreement between Ohio Fuel and Lancaster dated November 17, 1942,” and purportedly quoted §§ 2 and 3 thereof as showing that Lancaster “had consented to rate changes under Section 4(d) by agreeing to pay for gas under the then existing rate schedule ‘or any effective superseding rate schedule’ * * * which, of course, would be through a filing by Ohio Fuel.”
It is quite clear that these petitioners for rehearing act prematurely. Our opinion is purely interlocutory. We have not said we intend to decide the case on the basis of the contract between Lancaster and Ohio Fuel, if there is such a contract. We simply say, “Decision concerning the points raised by the petition for review may depend upon the gas service contract, if any, between the *634parties.” The upshot is that petitioners for rehearing would prevent us from knowing whether there actually was a contract such as that upon which the Commission relied in argument and, if so, what its terms and conditions were. If there was such a contract it should be revealed to us, after which it will be time enough to consider the argument now advanced by petitioners under § 19, as to which argument we express no opinion.
The petitions for rehearing are denied.

. 15 U.S.C.A. § 717r.