Court Opinion

ID: 9710080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:01:41.658445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:32.248821
License: Public Domain

DANA, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The Court today interprets 35-A M.R.S.A § 2102 (1988 & Supp.1995) to divest a charter utility of its authority to serve, without the prior consent of the Public Utilities Commission, the balance of a municipality that it was partially serving on October 8, 1967, notwithstanding the text of section 2 of the 1967 amendment, now codified in section 2102(2), which provides:
[This provision] ... shall not operate to divest any corporation, person or association of authority to furnish service in any city or town in which such corporation, person or association is furnishing services on the effective date of this Act.
P.L.1967, ch. 279. Apparently, in the Court’s view, section 2102(2) only absolves a utility from seeking the PUC’s consent to continue to serve its October 8, 1967, customers. "While serving an area that it was authorized to serve by the Legislature, why would a utility suspect that it might need the consent of the Legislature’s agent to continue that service?
As the Court indicates, the 1967 amendment was enacted in response to our decision in Poland Tel. Co. v. Pine Tree Tel. & Tel. Co., 218 A.2d 487 (Me.1966), in which we construed an antecedent to section 2102, 35 M.R.S.A. § 2301.1 In Poland a general law utility was both authorized to operate in the Town of Gray, 218 A.2d at 487-88, and actually serving a portion thereof when the legislature created a charter utility with authority to serve all of Cumberland County. Id. Without seeking or obtaining the consent of the PUC, in 1927 the charter utility began serving a different area of Gray. Id. at 488. In 1966 the general law utility wanted to expand into that area of Gray and because the PUC had not previously given its consent to the charter utility’s service, the general law utility sought to oust the charter utility from that area. Id. at 487.
We held that the consent requirement of section 2301 did not apply to charter utilities. Id. As a signal to the Legislature we observed that “a neat and orderly system of public utility regulation covering service of a second public utility in a [municipality] in which there is a public utility engaged in similar service or authorized therefor” should apply the consent requirement to charter utilities as well as general law utilities. Id. at 490.
The Legislature responded to our signal by enacting the 1967 amendment here at issue. By its terms the Legislature intended to eliminate the distinction between “charter” and “general law” utilities with respect to the consent requirement. From that time forth, if either a charter utility or a general law utility wanted to commence service in a municipality in which another utility was then providing service, the second utility would need the PUC’s consent. By enacting the grandfather clause, however, the Legislature sought to preserve the expansion rights of charter utilities within a municipality in which it was then providing some service.
The PUC’s interpretation, adopted by the Court, is inconsistent with the PUC’s previ*236ous construction of section 2102. Saco River Tel. & Tel. Co., Re: Petition for Interpretation of Boundaries Agreement with Standish Telephone Company and Petition to Halt New Cable Construction by Standish Telephone Company, No. 86-156, Order on Reconsideration (Me. P.U.C. April 25, 1988), vacated sub nom. on other grounds, Standish Tel. Co. v. Saco River Tel & Tel. Co., 555 A.2d 478 (Me.1989).2 In Saco River the Commission interpreted the consent requirement language as applying only to a “second” utility seeking to expand its service into a territory in which a “first” utility was already serving or was authorized to serve. Id. The Commission in Saco River explained that the 1967 amendment was “designed to affect only the rights of those companies over which Poland Telephone stated the Commission had no control, i.e., second companies with charter rights.... ” Id.
The Court’s view is also inconsistent with 35-A M.R.S.A. § 2105 (1988). Section 2105 must be read together with section 2102. Section 2105 sets forth the procedure to be followed by a second utility when it seeks PUC consent, pursuant to section 2102(1), to serve an area in which another utility is already serving or is authorized to serve.3 Section 2105 expressly refers to a “2nd public utility,” and requires a public hearing on the necessity of a “2nd public utility” before consent may be granted under section 2102. The statute implicitly exempts any “1st utility” from the consent process requirement. Contrary to the Court’s interpretation the 1967 amendment did not eliminate the distinction between the “first utility” and the “second.”
The Court’s interpretation is also inconsistent with the language of the 1967 amendment itself.4 All concede that section 2102 incorporates the 1967 amendment “except for a few stylistic changes.” The language of the 1967 amendment reveals the Legislature’s intent that the consent requirement not operate “to divest” a utility of its “authority” to expand its service in any municipality in which it was then providing service.
I would vacate the order of the Commission.

. In 1966, 35 M.R.S.A. § 2301 stated in pertinent part:
Corporations for the operation of ... telephones ... for the transmission of television signals ... and corporations for the purpose of making, generating, selling, distributing and supplying gas or electricity ... in any city or town ... within the State ... may be organized under [the general incorporation laws of Maine], No corporation so organized ... shall have authority, without the consent of the Public Utilities Commission, to furnish its service in or to any city or town in or to which another corporation, person or association is furnishing or is authorized to furnish a similar service.
Poland Tel. Co. v. Pine Tree Tel. & Tel. Co., 218 A.2d 487, 488 (Me.1966) (citing 35 M.R.S.A. § 2301) (emphasis added).

. On appeal we vacated the Commission's order of dismissal of a petition regarding a territory dispute on the grounds that the issue of the Commission's jurisdiction was res judicata. See Standish Tel. Co. v. Saco River Tel. & Tel. Co., 555 A.2d 478 (Me.1989).

. Title 35-A M.R.S.A. § 2105 (1988) states:
1. Approval only after hearing. Except as provided in subsection 2, no approval required by section 2102, 2103 or 2104 and no license, permit or franchise may be granted to any person to operate, manage or control a public utility named in section 2101 in a municipality where there is in operation a public utility engaged in similar service or authorized to provide similar service, until the commission has made a declaration, after public hearing of all parties interested, that public convenience and necessity require a 2nd public utility.
2. Declaration without hearing. The commission, may make a declaration without public hearing, if it appears that the utility serving or authorized to serve, the utility seeking approval from the commission provide service and any customer or customers to receive service agree that the utility seeking approval to serve should provide service.

. The pertinent provisions of the 1967 amendment state:
Sec. 1. R.S., T. 35, § 2301, amended. The 2nd sentence of section 2301 of Title 35 of the Revised Statutes is repealed and the following enacted in place thereof:
No corporation for either or any of such purposes, whether organized or authorized to do business under this section or by special Act of the Legislature, or any person or association, shall have authority, without the consent of the Public Utilities Commission, to furnish its service in to any city or town, in or to which another corporation, person or association is furnishing or is authorized to furnish similar service.
Sec. 2. R.S., T. 35, § 2301, amended. Section 2301 of Title 35 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by section I of chapter 348 of the public laws of 1965, is further amended by adding at the end of a new paragraph, to read as follows:
The 2nd sentence of the first paragraph shall not operate to divest any corporation, person or association of authority to furnish service in any city or town in which such corporation, person or association is furnishing services on the effective date of this Act.
Effective October 7, 1967
P.L.1967, ch. 279 (emphasis added).