Court Opinion

ID: 9552535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:12:46.154722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:58.622030
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
At the request of petitioners, we granted a limited rehearing “as to the question *513whether, in light of the whole record made before the Alaska Public Utilities Commission, respondent RCA Alaska Communications, Inc., made a serious and substantial showing in the superior court of confiscation under the criteria of Alaska Public Utilities Commission v. Greater Anchorage Area Borough, 534 P.2d 549 (Alaska 1975).”1 We denied the original and supplemental petitions for rehearing in all respects as to other issues raised therein.
Therefore, we decline to consider the arguments of petitioners and amici curiae that the “Ozark” separations methodology provides an inappropriate and inaccurate basis for assessing RCAA’s showing of confiscation. We adhere to the view expressed in our previous opinion that the use of the “Ozark” methodology by the Alaska Public Utilities Commission was mandatory in this case and that, in the context of its own regulations and conduct in processing RCAA’s application for interim rate relief, the Commission “was required to accept RCAA’s separations data based upon the February 1971 edition of the Separations Manual published by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (the Ozark methodology).” 597 P.2d 489 at 499 (Alaska 1978).
The issue thus framed is whether RCAA made the required showing of confiscation as to intrastate operations as determined by the “Ozark” methodology. RCAA’s burden in that regard was to “raise ‘serious’ and ‘substantial’ questions going to the merits of the case; that is, the issues raised cannot be ‘frivolous or obviously without merit.’ ” Alaska Public Utilities Commission v. Greater Anchorage Area Borough, 534 P.2d 549, 554 (Alaska 1974). Based on our review of the arguments of the parties and the record before the Commission, we find that RCAA did meet this rather minimal burden of proof. While not entirely uncontroverted, the case presented by RCAA to the Commission did raise “serious” and “substantial” questions and was not refuted by evidence which compels the conclusion that RCAA’s claim of intrastate confiscation was “frivolous or obviously without merit.”
On rehearing, having concluded that the superior court’s findings of fact as to this issue were not clearly erroneous,2 we affirm our previous opinion in this case.
MATTHEWS, J., not participating.

. In granting the petitions for review in this case, we entered an order directing the superior court to consider the full record of the proceedings before the Alaska Public Utilities Commission and to make detailed and explicit findings of fact and conclusions of law. However, at the time of our initial consideration of those petitions the full record of the Commission proceedings was not before this court. In granting the petitions for rehearing, we ordered the record in this court supplemented to include the full record of those proceedings.

. A “clearly erroneous” finding, which may be set aside on review, is one which leaves us with a definite and firm conviction on the entire record that a mistake has been made. See, e. g., Frontier Saloon, Inc. v. Short, 557 P.2d 779, 781-82 (Alaska 1976) (per curiam).
Some of the superior court’s findings of fact with respect to the evidence of intrastate confiscation presented by RCAA were set out in our previous opinion in this case. See 597 P.2d at 492, 493 (Alaska 1978).