Court Opinion

ID: 9472430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:59:56.273824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:55.851949
License: Public Domain

FAGG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The MPUC order in question simply declares that “[t]he existing minimum billing demand portion of the Butler-MP & L contract is hereby abrogated.” The legal issue at hand concerns the effect of that abrogation on the viability of the electrical service agreement between Hanna and MP & L. Hanna does not challenge the order or MPUC’s asserted statutory power to abrogate a material term of its negotiated power agreement with MP & L. Hanna only questions, as a matter of contract law, if it can be held to an agreement that is now radically different from the one it made.
The MPUC order has triggered, but it is not the subject of, the parties’ dispute. MP & L is clearly mistaken when it argues that Hanna’s action “would require the Court to question and interpret the MPUC’s intent, analyze the reasonableness of the MPUC action and second-guess the MPUC’s public policy choices.” Hanna does not seek to “restrain the operation of, or compliance with,” the MPUC order in this action. Hence, the Johnson Act has no application here.