Court Opinion

ID: 9771207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:36:50.547747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:38:13.367227
License: Public Domain

POWERS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
THE STATUTE
Public utility companies pay franchise taxes. One may say that a utility’s ratepayers pay such taxes, in a sense, because they supply through payment of their utility bills the revenue from which their utility company pays its tax liabilities. Along with other taxes, franchise-tax payments enter into the calculation of a utility’s “net income” and, ultimately, the official rates by which a utility computes its customer billings. See generally, Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA), Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 1446c, § 41(c) (West Supp.1993); Ron Moss, Ratemaking in the Public Utility Commission of Texas, 44 Baylor L.Rev. 825, 829-30 (1992).
In PURA section 43(j), the legislature directed as follows: “The commission on its own motion or on the petition of a utility shall provide for the adjustment of a utility’s” customer billings “to reflect any increase or decrease of tax liability of the utility” when the increase or decrease is attributable to the various amendments of House Bill 11 enacted in 1991. See Act of Aug. 22, 1991, 72d Leg., 1st C.S., ch. 5, 1991 Tex.Gen.Laws 134. One observes that the terms of PURA section 43(j) vest no discretion in the Commission as to whether to provide for the billing adjustment if a utility’s tax liability has been increased or decreased due to the amendments made in House Bill 11. It is undisputed that House Bill 11 resulted in an increase of Southwestern Bell’s franchise-tax liability.
The principle reflected in the terms of PURA section 43(j) is quite simple and obvious: A utility’s customers shall reap the benefit and bear the burden of any change in their utility’s tax liability attributable to House Bill 11. Moreover, the method chosen by the legislature to effectuate the resulting benefit or burden is through billing adjustments directly, as opposed to effectuating them indirectly through the mechanism of a rate case. “[T]he prescribed method excludes all others, and must be followed.” *760Cobra Oil & Gas Corp. v. Sadler, 447 S.W.2d 887, 892 (Tex.1968). The legislature chose not to make any exception to this statute, principle, and method. It implicitly denied the Commission the power to make any such exception.
Thus, the issue on appeal reduces to the single issue: May the Commission nevertheless affix to PURA section 43(j) an exception not found in the text as it came from the legislature? I believe the answer is clearly “No.”
DISCUSSION
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company petitioned the Commission for a billing adjustment under PURA section 43(j), based on the fact that the company’s franchise-tax liability had increased by reason of House Bill 11. The Commission denied relief based on its construction of the agency’s rule 23.21(d). See Tex.Admin.Code § 23.21(d) (Supp.1993). This rule is quoted in the majority opinion; I need not repeat it here.
The Commission construed its rule 23.21(d) as providing an implied exception to the force and scope of PURA section 43(j): A utility may not obtain the billing adjustment when the utility, in settlement of a previous rate ease, has agreed not to seek further rate increases for a specified period of time not yet expired. The rationale claimed for this implied exception is that the parties, when they make such an agreement, have anticipated and allocated in advance the risk of changes in the tax laws; specifically “[t]he utility has accepted the risk of increasing taxes; the signing ratepayers have accepted the risk of decreasing taxes.” 17 Tex.Reg. 110, 111 (1992). Finding that Southwestern Bell had made such an agreement in a previous rate case, the Commission enforced its rule 23.21(d) by rejecting Southwestern Bell’s petition.
I believe the Commission was powerless, as we are, to create by construction an exception to the scope and force the legislature chose to give PURA section 43(j).
“A court may not write special exceptions into a statute so as to make it inapplicable under certain circumstances not mentioned in the statute.” Public Util. Comm’n v. Cofer, 754 S.W.2d 121, 124 (Tex.1988) (emphasis added); see also Jefferson County Drainage Dist. No. 6 v. Gary, 362 S.W.2d 305, 307-08 (Tex.1962). The rule against implied exceptions is well-settled in the tenets of statutory construction. A court may occasionally impute an implied exception to a statute when that is necessary to avoid an absurdity or to give effect to what the legislature obviously intended but failed to state. See North Common Sch. Dist. v. Live Oak County Bd., 199 S.W.2d 764, 765-67 (Tex.1946); Massachusetts v. United N. & S. Dev. Co., 168 S.W.2d 226, 229 (Tex.1943). Neither of these two situations exist in the case of PURA section 43(j). Absolutely nothing in the statute indicates that the legislature intended to exclude from the scope and force of the statute a situation where a utility has made an agreement of the kind contemplated by the Commission’s order and its rule 23.21(d). PURA section 43(j) is susceptible of a reasonable construction as it is written — it applies generally and without exception to require a billing adjustment when the statutory conditions are shown to exist.
If a court is powerless to write an exception into a statute, so as to make it inapplicable under certain circumstances not mentioned in the statute, it necessarily follows that an administrative agency is powerless to do so. Neither a court nor an agency sits to judge the wisdom of legislative enactments. Moreover, there is no reason to give any degree of deference to the Commission’s interpretation of this unambiguous statute. See Calvert v. Thompson, 339 S.W.2d 685, 688-89 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1960, writ ref'd); Fulgham v. Southland Cotton Oil Co., 296 S.W.2d 332, 334 (Tex.Civ.App.—Austin 1956, writ ref'd).
In summary, the Commission, for a reason it believed sufficient and equitable, has nakedly and starkly suspended the force and effect of PURA § 43(j), contrary to Article I, section 28 of the Constitution of the State of Texas, which places in the legislature the exclusive power to suspend the laws.
For the reasons given, I would reverse the Commission’s order and order a remand of *761the controversy to the agency for proceedings not inconsistent with my opinion.