Court Opinion

ID: 9848470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:20:20.10616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:19.942553
License: Public Domain

STONEBURNER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I conclude that the majority is adding language to the unambiguous language in Minn.Stat. § 216B.36 that authorizes the city to require Minnesota Power to obtain a franchise or permit for its natural gas pipeline that occupies streets, highways, or other public property within the city. See Tuma v. Comm’r of Econ. Sec., 386 N.W.2d 702, 706 (Minn.1986) (noting that statutes are interpreted according to ordinary meaning when the legislature’s intent is plain from the statute’s unambiguous language).
Minn.Stat. § 216B.36 authorizes the city to require “a license, permit, right, or franchise” of “[a]ny public utility furnishing the utility services enumerated in section 216B.02 or occupying streets, highways, or other public property within [the] municipality ...” Among the utility services enumerated in section 216B.02 is: “operating, maintaining or controlling in this state equipment or facilities for' furnishing at retail ... electric service to or for the public or engaged in the production and retail sale thereof.”
Minnesota Power is plainly a public utility under the definition of “public utility” in section 216B.02, subd. 4. Minnesota Power is plainly furnishing utility services enumerated in section 216B.02, and Minnesota Power’s pipeline plainly occupies “streets, highways, or other public property” within the city. The focus of Minn.Stat. § 216B.36 is on the nature of the entity that is subject to the city’s franchise power, not the nature or purpose of the specific equipment that might be occupying a city’s streets, highways or other public property. When that entity is a public utility furnishing one of the services enumerated in section 216B.02 or occupying streets, highways, or other public property within a municipality, under the plain language of the statute, the entity may be required by the city to obtain a franchise. Minnesota Power is subject to the franchise under both conditions. The legislature has the power to make the distinctions made by the majority, but I submit that this court does not.
I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Minn.Stat. § 216G.02, subd. 4, preempts the city’s authority to franchise the pipeline. The statute plainly pertains to site approval and route designation and, while the city’s franchise authority may attach as a consequence of a permitted route, it is not any type of “site approval” and does not in any way conflict with the provisions of Minn.Stat. § 216G.02, subd. 4.