Court Opinion

ID: 5151435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-02 01:57:32.489565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:52:34.376437
License: Public Domain

[33] The Oklahoma Constitution Art. 9 § 20 provides in pertinent part:
 "* * * The Supreme Court's review of appealable orders of the Corporation Commission shall be judicial only, and in all appeals involving an asserted violation of any right of the parties under the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma, the Court shall exercise its own independent judgment as to both the law and the facts. In all other appeals from orders of the Corporation Commission the review by the Supreme Court shall not extend further that to determine whether the Commission has regularly pursued its authority, and whether the findings and conclusions of the Commission are sustained by the law and substantial evidence. Upon review, the Supreme Court shall enter judgment, either affirming or reversing the order of the Commission appealed from. * * *"
[34] The leading case in Oklahoma involving the substantial evidence rule is Yellow Transit Co. v. State, 198 Okla. 229, 178 P.2d 83
(1947). This case involved an appeal from the Corporation Commission. It stands for the premise that the determination of whether there is substantial evidence to support an order of the commission does not require the evidence be weighed, but only that the evidence tending to support the order be considered. The factors to be considered in determining this are whether the evidence implies a quality of proof which induces the conviction that the order was proper or furnished a substantial basis of facts from which the issue tendered could be reasonably resolved.
[35] The application of this rule has recently been modified by Brown v. Banking Board, 512 P.2d 166, 167 (Okla. 1973). In Brown, we held that the reviewing court shall look to the entire record and take into account not only that evidence which supports the order, but the evidence contrary to the order in its determination as to whether there is substantial evidence in the record to support the order. The majority has ignored this modification of substantial evidence, and in effect, has imposed a different standard for Corporation Commission cases.
[36] The Brown decision recognized the substantial evidence rule as promulgated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Universal Camera Corp. v. National L.R. Bd., 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951):
 "The substantiality of evidence must take into account whatever in the record fairly detracts from its weight. * * *. *Page 583 
To be sure, the requirement for canvassing "the whole record" in order to ascertain substantiality does not furnish a calculus of value by which a reviewing court can assess the evidence. Nor was it intended to negative the function of the Labor Board as one of those agencies presumably equipped or informed by experience to deal with a specialized field of knowledge, whose findings within that field carry the authority of an expertness which courts do not possess and therefore must respect. Nor does it mean that even as to matters not requiring expertise a court may displace the Board's choice between two fair conflicting views, even though the court would justifiably have made a different choice had the matter been before it de novo. Congress has merely made it clear that a reviewing court is not barred from setting aside a Board decision when it cannot conscientiously find that the evidence supporting that decision is substantial, when viewed in the light that the record in its entirety furnishes, including the body of evidence opposed to the Board's view."
[37] One of the arguments in favor of considering only the evidence which "reasonably tends to support the Commission's order" is that the Commission has a high degree of expertise in matters presented to it. This was effectively refuted in Universal Camera in recognizing that substantial evidence requires scrutiny of the record in its entirety including evidence opposed to the finding.
[38] The syllabus in the Brown case holds, 512 P.2d at 167:
 "In determining whether there is substantial evidence in the record to support the order of the Banking Board, the reviewing court shall look to the entire record and take into account not only that evidence which supports the Banking Board's view, but also the evidence contradictory to the view of the Banking Board."
[39] There is no rational reason that one definition of substantial evidence be applied to banking cases and another to Corporation Commission cases. The majority opinion promotes what this Court rejected in Dancy v. Owens, 126 Okla. 37, 258 P. 879, 882 (1927), the creation of a court of co-ordinate final jurisdiction.
[40] In the Dancy case, the court stated:
 "There can be no doubt about the supremacy of the Supreme Court. This court is placed by the Constitution at the head of the judicial system of the state."
[41] The definition of substantial evidence supported by the majority negates and ignores the supremacy of this court.
[42] Whether the Ogallala aquifer is being polluted or will be polluted, are really unknowns. It is also a matter of controversy, and a question of scientific advancement as to whether the Glorietta sand may ever be utilized for irrigation and fresh water supply purposes.
[43] However, there was testimony that pollution had already occurred, even though the cause of pollution was not established. Phillips Petroleum Co., one of the major oil and gas producers in the Panhandle area dispensed with disposal of salt water into the Glorietta sand in 1967, because they believed it was in the interest of all concerned.
[44] Testimony was heard that the Glorietta is permeable in some locations and migration of polluted water was quite possible.
[45] Although it was not proven that the disposal of salt water resulted in pollution, we held in Eason Oil Co. v. Uhls, 518 P.2d 50
(Okla. 1974) that where the water supply might be polluted or contaminated by drilling, drilling would not be permitted. While recognizing the Eason case was not a Corporation Commission case, but an appeal from a trial court's judgment, it is, in my opinion in conflict with the majority opinion.
[46] The real peril involved in this case is that locally the water table can be pulled *Page 584 
below the potentiometric surface in the Glorietta and if any type of conduit exists in the area, the water is free to migrate into the fresh water aquifer and the actual influence of increasing the hydrostatic pressure in the Glorietta by continued additional injection of salt water and other waste in such dangerous areas would increase the potential for or add to pollution. It is in this area where the intervenors have failed to show to the court any substantial evidence which would protect against pollution of the fresh water supply in the Ogallala formation.
[47] It is undisputed that a deeper formation, the Council Grove formation, is available for disposal without danger of pollution. Intervenors contend that it is economically unfeasible to inject the salt water into deeper formations and that to do so would require that production be halted on certain wells. This is unfortunate, if true, but financial loss to an individual, firm, or corporation affords no adequate ground for impeding or standing in the way of the general government and promotion of public welfare. See Eason Oil Co. v. Uhls supra; Van Meter v. H.F. Wilcox Oil Gas Co., 170 Okla. 604, 41 P.2d 904, 909 (1935). Especially so in the present case, where the Ogallala formation is the only source of water available in the area. As long as there are attending dangers of pollution to this sole source of water supply, then the economic considerations of the private sector should give way to a more ultimate concern — the people.
[48] Until such time as all the risks have been scientifically analyzed, and reduced to an acceptable level I would enjoin the Corporation Commission from granting any further applications for disposal of salt water into the Glorietta formation, and that proper phasing out procedures be adopted for the existing eleven disposal and/or injection wells.
[49] I, therefore, respectfully, dissent.
[50] I am authorized to state that Justice SIMMS and Justice DOOLIN concur in the views herein expressed.