Court Opinion

ID: 9458717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:00:05.742731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:52.331775
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in result:
While I concur with the majority opinion’s finding, that dismissal was improper in this case, I would arrive at that result on grounds that would not reach the question of the finality of the Phase I order. The only case cited to us squarely on that question, the late Judge Holtzoff’s opinion in Leeman v. Public Utilities Commission, 104 F.Supp. 553, 556 (D.D.C.1952), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Capital Transit Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 93 U.S.App.D.C. 194, 213 F.2d 176, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 816, 75 S.Ct. 25, 99 L.Ed. 643 (1954), held that
the first order of the Commission was in effect an interlocutory order formulating merely the principles on which the new rate schedules should be prescribed, while the second order prescribing the actual rates should be regarded as the final order.
I am not convinced by the opinion of the majority that Judge Holtzoff was wrong, and since I find an alternative ground for reversing the dismissal below I would not hold that the Phase I order was a final, appealable order.

The Finality of the Phase I Order

My problem with the majority opinion stems from what seems to me to be a misconception of the Phase I order and its place in the Commission’s rate proceeding, and a confusion between the concepts of revenues and rates. The majority says, at page 377, that the Phase I order “authorizes” an increase in “operating revenues,” and then continues by saying that the “increase in rates . . . [was] in no way left for further decision by the Phase II order.” Neither of these statements accurately represents the process by which the Commission considers requests for changes in rates. •
Only one order ever “authorizes” any increase in revenue to any of the utili*380ties subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction. That order is a Phase II order authorizing the imposition of a new schedule of rates which must be paid to the utility by its customers, thus increasing the amount of revenue received. It is the Phase II order, and that order alone, that completes the rate proceedings and ultimately authorizes changes in consumers’ utility rates. The Phase I order merely makes certain findings and determinations (on questions such as the rate base, an appropriate rate of return, allocation of D.C. portion of service, the amount of additional revenue needed to yield the appropriate rate of return, etc.) which are necessarily preliminary to consideration of an appropriate rate schedule. It is in this sense that Judge Holtzoff considered the Phase I order to be interlocutory in nature, and that approach seems proper to me.
Though the Commission has chosen to bifurcate its decisionmaking procedure into these separate phases, no doubt to simplify the hearing and decisional process by dealing with fewer issues at each stage, it is nonetheless a single proceeding that produces only one order effectuating an altered customer rate schedule. The long quotation in the majority opinion, at page 377, from the Boston Marine Terminal Ass’n case seems to me to undercut their result, for by permitting review of the Phase I order the majority would “disrupt the orderly process of adjudication” at a stage before “legal consequences” — in the sense of the customers’ obligation to pay higher rates— “will flow from the agency action.” As the majority concedes, “there was something else for the Commission to do”; that “something else” was to determine and order a new rate schedule, for, contrary to the majority’s conclusion NO “increase in rates . . . had been granted” by the Phase I order.
The second and third portions of the majority opinion demonstrate the problems inherent in their determination of the finality question. We have the fortuitous circumstance on these facts that the Phase II order, confirming appellant’s contentions regarding its effect on him, was issued prior to the District Court’s disposition below. The majority, at page 378, properly notes, however: “Had the Phase II .order eliminated any effect upon Mr. Goodman’s rates, we might have a different case.” Isn’t this possibility precisely why the Phase I order is only interlocutory? I would suggest that the recognition of such a possibility amply demonstrates that the course chosen by the majority would permit a premature interruption of the Commission’s ratemaking procedure. The majority’s subseqeunt concern that by waiting for the Phase II order’s effect “his time to appeal from the Phase I order” might expire, is specious. If the Phase II order is the only final, ap-pealable order, then merely by petitioning for its reconsideration and subsequently appealing to this court, appellant could raise the same contentions he has raised here. This is precisely the procedural context in which Judge Holtzoff ruled in Leeman, swpra, that “the final order prescribing the actual rates brings up for review the prior order, which formulated the principles on which the new rates should be based.” Finally, the entire third portion of the majority opinion and the problems it raises would be obviated by requiring that only the Phase II order is final and appealable.

The Dismissal was Nonetheless Improper

It is obvious from the foregoing that I consider the majority’s decision regarding the finality of the Phase I order unwise, but I do not believe it is even necessary to reach that question to find the District Court’s dismissal improper here. When Mr. Goodman petitioned the Commission for reconsideration of the Phase I order, PEPCO responded with the same arguments concerning the finality of that order as those adopted by the District Court in dismissing Mr. Goodman’s appeal. The Commission, *381however, did not reject the petition on that procedural ground, holding instead:
[W]e see no need to decide this question in passing on the petition before us. If we concluded that the petition was untimely, however, it would be refiled [subsequent to the issuance of the Phase II order] and we would have to consider it on its merits. Having now looked at those merits, we have concluded that the petition should be denied on the grounds outlined above. We see no reason why we should not so indicate at this time rather than determining whether we should wait to make our views known [i e. until after the Phase II order is issued]. The result in any event would be the same.
By this order the Commission, in essence, told Mr. Goodman “It is irrelevant to us whether your petition is filed now, to review our Phase I order, or later, to review our Phase II order — we have considered the petition on its merits and have decided it is wholly without merit.” Having so forcefully and un-qualifiedly informed Mr. Goodman, by means of an official order of the Commission, of the futility of his pursuing any subsequent petition with regard to the Phase II order, I believe the Commission should be estopped from denying in the District Court that a timely petition from a final order had been filed.
It has long since been recognized that “[a] party is not required to pursue a plainly futile remedy . . . . ” Spanish International Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 93, 104, 385 F.2d 615, 626 (1967); see, e. g., Montana National Bank v. Yellowstone County, 276 U.S. 499, 505, 48 S.Ct. 331, 72 L.Ed. 673 (1928); Waite v. Macy, 246 U.S. 606, 609, 38 S.Ct. 395, 62 L.Ed. 892 (1918). And while many courts continue to assert as a general proposition that governmental units cannot be equitably es-topped, an estoppel theory has frequently, and increasingly been used against both federal and local governmental bodies. See, e. g., Moser v. United States, 341 U.S. 41, 71 S.Ct. 553, 95 L.Ed. 729 (1951); and cases collected in 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise §§ 17.-03, -.06 (1958 & 1970 Supp.). This court recognized at an early date that: “The doctrine of election and estoppel must be applied with great caution to the Government and its officials. But in proper circumstances it does apply.” Vestal v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 268, 152 F.2d 132, 136 (1945); see United States v. Fox Lake State Bank, 366 F.2d 962, 965-966 (7th Cir. 1966); Semaan v. Mumford, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 282, 335 F.2d 704 (1964); Smale & Robinson Inc. v. United States, 123 F.Supp. 457 (S.D.Cal.1954). But see Kondo v. Katzenbach, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 12, 17, 24, 356 F.2d 351, 356, 363 (1966). Professor Davis provides a succinct rationale for allowing an estoppel in eases such as this :
Since the doctrine of equitable es-toppel is founded upon ideas of what is a fair adjustment when one party has relied to his detriment upon what the other party has held out, it is hard to see why the ideas of fairness should differ when one of the parties happens to be a governmental unit
2 K. Davis, supra, § 17.09 (1958).
In this ease the Commission, acting within the scope of its authority through the issuance of a lawful order, represented to Mr. Goodman that they had considered his petition for reconsideration on its merits and that for him to file a subsequent petition on the same grounds at a later time would be a wholly futile exercise. Relying on that representation Mr. Goodman brought his appeal from that order in the District Court, and did not file a petition for reconsideration of the Phase II order. I would hold that an estoppel was thereby established and order the District Court to reverse its dismissal order and consider the appeal on its merits as though it had arisen as an appeal from the final, Phase II, order and the Commission’s denial of a petition for reconsideration thereof. Such an estoppel theory would thus wholly avoid the “finality,” “af-*382feet” and “scope of appeal” issues so questionably resolved by the majority opinion, while providing Mr. Goodman with the judicial review of the Commission’s orders to which he is, in all fairness, entitled.