Court Opinion

ID: 9643692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:37:44.563129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:02.265317
License: Public Domain

TERRY, Associate Judge,
concurring in the result:
I join reluctantly in affirmance, but only because the issues raised here were not raised below until after the damage was done. In my judgment the procedure by which a settlement was imposed in this case on an unwilling GSA reeked of unfairness. The Commission’s decision to limit GSA to the presentation of one witness, in particular, strikes me as arbitrary and capricious, and the exclusion of GSA from the settlement negotiations is utterly indefensible. GSA, after all, is C & P’s largest customer, and its interests differ markedly from those of any other consumer of C & P’s services.1 As I read this record, those interests were not given adequate consideration by the Commission. On the other hand, GSA did *835not articulate before the Commission what it hoped to accomplish by cross-examining the thirty-three witnesses who had prefiled their testimony, and even in this court it has not done so. If it had proffered (or filed) any testimony on the issues which it now claims were unresolved, this might well be a different case.
I agree with Part II of the court’s opinion.

. I seriously doubt whether the Office of People’s Counsel, which purports to represent all consumers in the District of Columbia, can ever adequately represent the interests of a consumer such as GSA, which are likely to be at odds with the interests of its other “clients.”