Court Opinion

ID: 9651658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:30:22.695413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:32.964903
License: Public Domain

GLASSMAN, Justice,
with whom ROBERTS, Justice, joins, concurring.
I agree with the Court that the judgment of the Public Utilities Commission (Commission) dismissing the petition of Standish Telephone Company (Standish) be vacated. In my opinion, however, the Commission acted clearly within its statutory authority when it issued its order dated December 8, 1938 approving the joint petition and agreement of Standish and Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company (Saco).
In 1919 and 1933, respectively, the legislature enacted the predecessors to 35-A M.R.S.A. §§ 1101 and 1104 (1988), that provided in pertinent part:
Any public utility may henceforth sell, lease, assign, mortgage, or otherwise dispose of, or encumber the whole or any part of its property necessary or useful in the performance of its duties to the public, or any franchise or permit, or any right thereunder, or by any means whatsoever, direct or indirect, merge or consolidate its property, franchises, or permits, or any part thereof, with any other public utility, when, and not otherwise, it shall have first secured from the commission an order authorizing it so to do. Every such sale, lease, assignment, mortgage, disposition, encumbrance, merger, or consolidation made other than in accordance with the order of the commission authorizing the same shall be void.
P.L.1919, ch. 65, § 40, amended by P.L. 1935, ch. 30 (pertinent part unchanged) (emphasis added).
Abandonment of property or service by public utilities. No public utility as defined in this chapter shall abandon all or any part of its plant, property or system necessary or useful in the performance of its duties to the public, or discontinue the service which it is rendering to the public by the use of such facilities, without first securing the approval of the public utilities commission. In granting *483its approval, the commission may impose such terms, conditions or requirements as in its judgment are necessary to protect the public interest. Any public utility abandoning all or any part of its plant, property, or system or discontinuing service in pursuance of authority granted by the commission under the provisions of this section shall be deemed to have waived any and all objections to the terms, conditions or requirements imposed by the commission in that regard.
P.L.1933, ch. 155.
In the instant case, the documentary record discloses that on December 8, 1938 Standish and Saco filed a joint petition with the Commission seeking the Commission’s approval of their agreement providing that each would discontinue certain telephone services in designated areas in which each had been authorized by law to provide such service. The agreement provided that Standish be allowed to sell and Saco to purchase “poles, cross-arms, glass insulators and open wires” that Standish owned within the area in which Standish proposed to discontinue telephone services. The agreement further explicitly recognized that it would not be effective as between the parties unless approved by the Commission.1 By its order dated December 8, 1938, the Commission approved the joint petition.
In its final order dismissing Saco’s petition to resolve disputes arising from the 1938 order, the Commission determined that it had not had subject matter jurisdiction to approve the parties’ joint petition of 1938 because:
First, there is no reference in the 1938 petition or order to the predecessor of section 1104 [see R.S.1930, ch. 62, § 44-A]. Second, the parties and the Commission were all under the mistaken impression that the Commission could unilaterally order a utility to abandon its service territory and may have felt under some pressure to reach an agreement which was mutually beneficial.
(Emphasis added).
I would conclude that the Commission’s findings are clear error because no authority is cited, and I know of none, that requires parties to reference the governing statute in a petition that is filed pursuant to and in compliance with the provisions of that statute. Further, there is absolutely nothing in the joint petition and agreement of the parties or in the order of the Commission approving the petition and agreement that indicates that the Commission acted unilaterally or that the parties and the Commission were under the mistaken impression that the Commission could act unilaterally or other than in conformance with and under the authority of sections 44 and 44-A. The Commission simply acted within its statutory authority in its order approving the discontinuance of service and sale of property set forth in the agreement between Standish and Saco.
Accordingly, although I concur with the Court that the judgment of the Commission be vacated, I would do so on the ground that the Commission erred as a matter of law in determining that in 1938 it was without jurisdiction to approve the joint petition and agreement of Standish and Saco.

. In the joint petition the parties stated, inter alia,
Feeling that public convenience would best be served by the Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company purchasing the facilities of the Standish Telephone Company in the Southern part of the Town of Buxton, below a line agreed upon and by the Standish Telephone Company agreeing not to attempt to render service in the portions of the town Southerly of said line, and the Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company agreeing not to attempt to render service Northerly of said line, except as mentioned in an agreement this day executed, the parties have reached an agreement, which is made a part of this petition, which the petitioner asks this Commission to approve and by decree or order, authorize the Standish Telephone Company to sell and transfer to the Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company, the property and rights mentioned in said agreement, for the sum of twenty-one hundred dollars ($2100.00) and by decree or order authorized the Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company to purchase said property for the above mentioned sum, and to approve the terms and conditions of said contract.