Court Opinion

ID: 8921132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 06:15:20.711539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:17.791290
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
with whom
GOLDBERG, ALVIN B. RUBIN, TATE and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
This is not just a little breach of contract case between two corporations. This litigation will inescapably decide how much the citizens of the City of New Orleans will pay their enfranchised monopoly, New Orleans Public Service, Inc., for their electric power. Because the majority of the Court holds it is no abuse of discretion to deny the Mayor and City Council of New Orleans participation in this lawsuit although it is vital to the well being of the city’s citizens, I find it necessary to dissent. The majority holding strikes a serious blow against the heralded modern development in law protecting the rights of consumers by allowing them to participate in administrative and judicial decisions for which they *474ultimately pay the full price out of their own pockets.
The majority opinion presents the factual posture of this case with commendable thoroughness. Further, I am in full agreement of that carefully reasoned portion of the opinion which holds that the Mayor and City Council of New Orleans, are not entitled to intervention as a matter of right. When the city yielded its ratemaking functions to the state Public Utilities Commission, see opinion for the Court note 19, it yielded its claim to compulsory intervention in this case. The panel so held. 694 F.2d 421 (5th Cir.1982).
I accept the proposition set out in the opinion for the Court that it is unusual to upset a denial of permissive intervention by the district court. But that is no justification for abdicating the power of review we are charged to exercise. A denial of permissive intervention is subject to our review on the claim that the district court abused its discretion. Further, I concede that the standard to be applied is one of “clear abuse”. Allen Calculators, Inc. v. National Cash Register Co., 322 U.S. 137, 142, 64 S.Ct. 905, 908, 88 L.Ed. 1188 (1944); Korioth v. Briscoe, 523 F.2d 1271, 1278 (5th Cir.1975); but c.f., Crumble v. Blumthal, 549 F.2d 462, 468 (7th Cir.1977). If there is yet a dearth of decisional law on what constitutes a “clear abuse of discretion” as to an issue of permissive intervention, it is time that some be made. This is a superb case in which to do it.
In presenting this dissent, I rely largely upon the consideration of this issue found in the panel decision of the Court, New Orleans Public Service, Inc. v. United Gas Pipe Line Co., 690 F.2d 1203, 1209 (1982). I add by way of emphasis only a brief analysis to reemphasize why the failure to allow the Mayor and the City Council to intervene was a clear abuse of discretion by the district court.
The controlling rule is Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(b). The negative aspect of the rule admonishes the Court in exercising its discretion to “consider whether the intervention will unduly delay or prejudice the adjudication of the rights of the original parties.” There is no showing in this case that allowing the Mayor and City Council to intervene would create substantial prejudice to the parties. The panel opinion recognized that creating a large class of consumers and allowing them to intervene would bring about a level of interference which would bring the stated negative concern clearly into play. And that is why the panel refused to find an abuse of discretion in the failure to certify a class of consumers.
Allowing the city through its governing body to intervene is a wholly different matter. The Mayor and City Council of New Orleans are the elected representatives of the people of New Orleans. They can properly serve as the representatives of the consumers in New Orleans without unduly complicating the judicial proceedings. The interests of the citizens of New Orleans in this case, acting through their elected representatives, should not be brushed aside. Only by ignoring the realities of the situation can inexorable and insensitive logic lead to the denial of intervention in this case.
We cannot close our eyes to the realities of the “pass-through”, c.f., Commonwealth of Virginia v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 542 F.2d 214, 216 (4th Cir.1976). With the development and common use of the ubiquitous pass-through, there simply can be no assurance that this public utility monopoly can be certain to represent the consumers to the full extent of their interest in this litigation. NOPSI knows it can fall back with confidence in any ratemaking proceeding before the Commission on a guarantee of “fair return.” Baton Rouge Water Works Co. v. La. PUC, 342 So.2d 609 (La.Sup.Ct.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 827, 98 S.Ct. 105, 54 L.Ed.2d 86 (1977). The issue which NOPSI and New Orleans presents is the same, but the interests which NOPSI represents do not fully encompass the interests which should be represented by the Mayor and City Council on behalf of the electorate — the citizens who put them in office and who pay the electric bills.
*475In substantial measure, the majority of the Court unfortunately returns to the days before our recognition that the consumers, those who pay, must be allowed to participate in legal and administrative proceedings which have a potent impact upon them. Since the ground breaking decision in Office of Communication of United Church of Christ v. Federal Communications Commission, 359 F.2d 994 (D.C.Cir.1966), in which Judge Burger (now Chief Justice Burger) insisted upon the right of consumers to participate in administrative proceedings which affect them, we have broadly recognized the rights of consumers to participate in administrative and judicial proceedings in which their fate is deeply involved. This is such a case.
By limiting the intervention to the Mayor and City Council of New Orleans, we would avoid the burdens which Rule 24(b) protects against. Yet no reason whatsoever is shown for denying consumers the right to be heard in this ease through their elected representatives. There is no substantial burden, and there is every reason to recognize that the interests of the consumers move beyond the interests of their enfranchised power company. Finally, if United Gas Pipeline prevails in this litigation, NOPSI will not pay, but the consumers in New Orleans will pay. It is a clear abuse of discretion to forbid them participation in a case in which they have such an urgent interest.
No, this is not just a little breach of contract case between two corporations. The outcome of this litigation will fix the price NOPSI will pay for the gas used to generate electricity to be sold — under regulation but without the pressures of competition — to the citizens of New Orleans. It is lamentable to say that the citizens have so little interest in this litigation that they should not be permitted to participate as parties through their elected representatives. I dissent.