Court Opinion

ID: 9536156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:55:45.43523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:28.307757
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent on the ground that the Division of Public Utilities (hereafter “Division”) lacks standing to appeal an order of the Public Service Commission (hereafter “Commission”).
During the period between the filing of the applications for rate increases mentioned in the majority opinion and the hearing thereon, the Division conducted an investigation of the proposed increase and was permitted to inspect certain confidential material filed by Mountain Fuel Supply Company (hereafter “Mountain Fuel”) in connection with the applications. The Committee of Consumer Services (hereafter “Committee”), which did not appeal the Commission’s order here, was refused access *1255to that material based on a protective order by the Commission during the hearing. On appeal, Mountain Fuel asserts that the confidential material was shown to members of the Division as staff of the Commission. At the Commission hearing, the attorneys for Mountain Fuel declared that they had been willing to allow the Division to view the confidential material because the Division was the staff of the Commission. Counsel for Mountain Fuel further stated that because Mountain Fuel, as the applicant, had a different relationship with the Division than with the other intervenors in the case, which included the Committee, Mountain Fuel made every effort to cooperate with the Division. Counsel for the Division did not object to the characterization of the Division as staff of the Commission.1 Mountain Fuel’s counsel stated that it had no objection to allowing the counsel for the Division access to the confidential material, and noted that two members of the staff had already examined the material in the process of the Division’s investigation prior to the hearing.
This Court has not heretofore had the opportunity to explore the status of the Division in depth. The relationship between the Division and the Commission, governed by statute and regulation, is scanty at best, and the role of the Division is even more vague and undefinitive.2
Sections 13-1-1.1 and 13-1-1.3, enacted by the Legislature in 1969, separate the administrative functions in the Department of Business Regulation, which are to be exercised by the executive director thereof, from the quasi-judicial and rule-making functions, which are exercised, as to public utilities, by the Commission. The Commission remains, under the amended statutes, within the Department of Business Regulation, but is removed from “administrative channels,” and expressly may “not exercise administrative authority over the division of public utilities . . . ; such administrative authority shall be exercised by the executive director of business regulation.” (Section 13-1-1.3) However, the executive director, who exercises administrative authority over the Division, is also charged in the same Section with “the execution of any rules, regulations or orders of the public service commission.”
The-Division acts, then, under authority of the executive director, to enforce the rules, orders and regulations of the Commission, although the Division is not under direct administrative control of the Commission.
Rule 14.9 of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure Governing Formal Proceedings, states:
When the Commission’s staff participates in a hearing it shall be regarded as a party in neither the support of nor in opposition to any application, petition, complaint, or investigation. Such appearance shall be solely for the purpose of assisting the Commission in discovering the facts pertinent to the issues involved.
This rule was adopted prior to the 1969 reorganization of the Department of Business Regulation but was not amended after the reorganization. However, it should be noted again that under Section 13-1-1.3, the executive director exercises administrative control over the Division, and the executive director is charged with “[t]he execution of any rules, regulations or orders of the public service commission of Utah issued pursuant to its quasi-judicial or rule-making power.”
In sharp contrast to the uncertain status of the Division is the Legislative creation and definition of the Committee. In Section 54-10-1, et seq., the Legislature created the Committee as a subsection of the *1256Division. The Committee’s stated purpose is to assist in representing residential and small commercial consumers before the Commission and to assess the impact of utility rates on such consumers. Section 54-10-4(3) specifically grants the Committee the following authority and duties:
The committee shall be an advocate on its own behalf and in its own name, of positions most advantageous to a majority of residential consumers as determined by the committee and those engaged in small commercial enterprises, and may bring original actions in its own name before the public service commission of this state or any court having appellate jurisdiction over orders or decisions of the public service commission, as the committee in its discretion may direct.
The Committee, under Section 54-10-6, may also request the Division to review the accounting procedures and expenditures of public utilities.
Significantly, the Division, unlike the Committee, has not been expressly granted, either by statute or otherwise, authority to sue in its own name, appear on behalf of itself or others before the Commission, or appeal Commission orders. It appears from past practice that the Division has primarily been involved in investigation of applications filed with the Commission, assisting the Commission with legal expertise in the area of public utilities law and enforcement of Commission orders under the direction of the executive director of the Department of Business Regulation. In these roles the Division may become privy, as was the case here, to confidential information which may not be discoverable by the Committee or other adverse parties. In this sensitive and difficult position, it is imperative that the integrity of both the Commission and Division be preserved. No organization, whether private or governmental, secular or religious, can effectively survive if one of its crucial component parts can wage hostile assaults upon its authority at will, even though the assaults are clothed with solemn concerns for “the larger good”.
In People v. Hively,3 the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that a county assessor, charged by the Board of Equalization with making additions and corrections to the assessment roll, had no standing to question the validity of the Board’s orders. Quoting from People v. Pitcher, 61 Colo. 149, 156 P. 812 (1916), the court in Hively stated:
It is the imperative duty of a ministerial officer to obey the act of a tribunal invested with authority in the premises directing his action; not to question or decide upon its validity. This applies with the same force whether the direction be embodied in a legislative act or in the pronouncement of a governmental agency invested with power in the premises. The maxim lies at the very foundation of jurisprudence, and without its observance government would cease to exist. .
******
Thus the Assessor here had no more standing to question the validity of the action of the Board than a lower court has to question the validity of the mandate of a reviewing court. He was obligated to carry out the mandate of the Board. There is no legal justification for his defiance and the District Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the ease. (emphasis in original).4 ■
The Division argues that unless it has standing to assert the public interest before the Commission, the people of this state will have no advocate to assert and protect their interests before the Commission except to the extent that the people are represented by the Committee or a special interest group. However, it must be kept in mind that the duties of the Commission itself include the safeguarding and promotion of *1257the public interest.5 To accomplish this the Commission is empowered by the Legislature to employ necessary personnel, including “experts” and “attorneys”.6 By comparison, there is no statute which even establishes, much less defines, the nature or duties of the Division. The Division’s existence is noted in the statutes 7 but nowhere is the Division granted the right to litigate in its own name or otherwise, or, significantly, to appeal Orders of the Commission.
I believe that, absent express statutory authority granted by the Legislature, the Division of Public Utilities has no standing to appeal Orders of the Public Service Commission. Indeed, the implication of Section 13-1-1.3 is that the Division on behalf of the executive director of the Department of Business Regulation, is charged to execute “any rules, regulations or orders of the public service commission of Utah issued pursuant to its quasi-judicial or rule-making power”. This Court should not allow the Division, and particularly in the absence of a definitive grant of authority by the Legislature, to assume the tension-filled role toward the Commission of both investigator-enforcer and adversary.

. The Division was represented before this Court and the Commission by counsel from the Utah Attorney General’s office. We note that the attorney who remained silent in the face of the characterization above described is not the same attorney who asserted before this Court that the Division is not staff of the Commission.

. We can find mention of the Division only in the following Sections: 13-1-1.3, 54-10-2, 54-10-6.

. 139 Colo. 49, 336 P.2d 721 (1959).

. Id. at 139 Colo. 73, 74, 336 P.2d 734, 735. See, also, Board of County Commissioners v. Love, 172 Colo. 821, 470 P.2d 861 (1970); I. T. O. Corp. of Baltimore v. Benefits Review Board, 542 F.2d 903, 908, n. 5 (4th Cir. 1974), cert. denied 433 U.S. 908, 97 S.Ct. 2972, 53 L.Ed.2d 1092 (1977).

. See, e. g., United States Smelting, Refining and Milling Co. v. Utah Power & Light Co., 58 Utah 168, 197 P. 902 (1921); Utah Light & Traction Co. v. Public Service Commission, 101 Utah 99, 118 P.2d 683 (1941).

. Section 54-1-6.

. See footnote 2, supra.