Court Opinion

ID: 9542825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:39:13.874641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:03.934854
License: Public Domain

Judge Kramer
Opinion by (Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part) :
I join in the dissenting part of the opinion written by Judge Wilkinson insofar as it applies to the petition of the Attorney General to intervene. I, too, would hold that the Attorney General should have been permitted to intervene for the same reasons stated by Judge Wilkinson.
I must register my dismay for the unexplained, extremely long delay by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission in completing these proceedings before it. The record fails to disclose why over forty-six months *290were consumed in arriving at an adjudication, twenty-one months of which delayed time followed the' last heaiungs before the Commission. Such procrastination is not fair to anyone, the public or the regulated. One of the very purposes of utilizing the administrative law approach to government regulation is expedition. That purpose failed in this case.
After a careful reading of the entire voluminous record in this case, this writer cannot conclude that the PUC committed an abuse of discretion or an error of law. Although this writer is deeply concerned with the possibility that the rate payers in the York area may be put to a disadvantage in a rate cáse involving the merged companies, the PUC has adequately conditioned its order so as to provide a reasonable safeguard through an adequate segregation of records. The PUC’s statements in its adjudication concerning the absence of á pending, or imminent, rate increase are meaningless in light of the fact that the statute permits a rate increase after only sixty 'days from the date of the filing for same (53 P.S. 1148): Even the representations máde to this Court by these telephone companies that there is no intent to present a consolidated cost of service rate case after the approval of this requested merger is not binding. But, there runs throughout the rate-making process a theme of fairness which will be present like a beacon in any future rate case of the merged company, at which the appellants will be given their full day in court on the subject of the fairness of rates.
I concur with the majority that Northern Pennsylvania Power Company v. Pennsylvania PUC, 333 Pa. 265, 5 A. 2d 133 (1939) controls this aspect of this case. Based upon the opinion of the majority, I concur in the result, to the end that the order , of the PUC approving the merger of these, three telephone companies should be affirmed.