Court Opinion

ID: 9630381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:09:57.488618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:55.328258
License: Public Domain

Justice LOHR
specially concurring:
I join the opinion of the court but write specially to emphasize what I believe to be the narrowness of the holding. In Miller v. Public Service Co., 129 Colo. 513, 272 P.2d 283 (1954), we held that a public utility need not obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity before condemning private property for a new facility, plant or system. In the present case, we rely on Miller in holding that Public Service Company of Colorado (Public Service) was authorized to condemn a right-of-way for a transmission line to serve an Adolph Coors Company mine located within an area for which Home Light and Power Company (Home Light) held a certificate of public convenience and necessity. Home Light was a wholly owned subsidiary of Public Service and agreed that Public Service could provide electricity to the mine. Home Light thereafter merged with Public Service, and Public Service acquired all of Home Light’s certificates of public convenience and necessity. I believe that the majority opinion must be read no more broadly than necessary to resolve the issue as presented by those facts. Cf. Public Service Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n, 765 P.2d 1015, 1021 (Colo.1988) (“After a utility has been assigned a specific territory, no other utility may provide service in that territory unless it is established that the certificated utility is unable or unwilling to provide adequate service.”)
Although I find the rationale of Miller less than convincing, the rather unusual facts of the present case do not present an appropriate occasion to question Miller's continuing vitality or its general applicability to situations in which one public utility seeks to condemn private property to provide utility service within an area included *320within a certificate of public convenience and necessity held by another. Accordingly, I concur in the majority opinion.