Court Opinion

ID: 9699110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:10:57.562501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:46.661831
License: Public Domain

Barney, J.,
concurring. Valid exercise of the power of eminent domain by an eligible private corporation requires full compliance with the statutory prerequisites. Strict construction of the terms of delegation of this power is the rule, since attributes of sovereignty overriding private property rights may not be casually exercised.
30 V.S.A. §111(1) permits the right of eminent domain to be invoked in connection with a power dam only by the holder of a certificate of public good for the project, or by the holder of a license from the Federal Power Commission. This utility admits that it has no federal license. The exercise of eminent domain must then be justified under a certificate of public good. However, the record demonstrates that the utility has no such certificate.
The Public Service Commission’s attempt to supply this lack by resort to a sort of “grandfather clause” technique has no support in the statute. Construction of the dam prior to the enactment of the statute requiring a certificate of public good authorized and sustains its presence in the Clyde River under state law. However, this does not overcome the statutory demand that resort to eminent domain powers after the enactment of 30 V.S.A. §111(1) requires either a state certificate or a federal license.
The statute contains no exceptions. The inference is that the legislature wished the “public good” examined before eminent domain is exercised in connection with dams. Neither the public service commission nor the parties have any authority to dispense with the specified prerequisites, however small the proposed exercise of sovereignty. No more can the parties contract away the specific statutory requirements.
The parties have chosen to have recourse to the eminent domain procedure. They are bound to abide by its terms. In this case they have not qualified as authorized users of the power to condemn in either of the modes provided by the statute. The jurisdictional basis for the action of the public service commission is therefore lacking.
Although the case of In re Bellows Falls Hydro-Elec. Corp., 114 Vt. 443, 47 A.2d 409, is indicative of the consequences of the entrance *454of the Federal Power Commission into the area-through a navigability-determination, the question of conflicting jurisdiction is not reached in this view of the matter.
For these reasons I concur with the conclusion of the majority that the jurisdictional basis for the action of the public service commission fails.