Justia Utilities Law Opinion Summaries

After Appellants, several public utilities, sought to condemn a permanent easement across the property of Landowners for a high-voltage transmission line, Landowners elected to compel Appellants to purchase their entire parcel of land pursuant to the Buy-the-Farm statute, Minn. Stat. 216E.12(4). Appellants challenged Landowners’ election, arguing that it was not reasonable because the land subject to the election was much larger than the land needed for the easement and that the district court must consider several factors in addition to the statute’s requirements, including the size of the election. The district court approved the election, concluding that it was not required to analyze factors outside the provisions of the Buy-the-Farm statute. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the language of the statute forecloses Appellants’ assertion that the district court must engage in a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis of the reasonableness of Landowners’ election; (2) case law does not require an extra-statutory analysis; and (3) because Landowners’ election meets the statutory requires, the district court did not err in approving the compelled purchase of the parcel. View "Great River Energy v. Swedzinski" on Justia Law

This case arose from a longstanding issue between Public Utility District No. 1 of Okanogan County (PUD) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) over the installation of an electrical transmission line through school lands managed by DNR in the Methow Valley. At issue was whether PUD was statutorily authorized to condemn a right of way through school trust lands for the construction of a transmission corridor and, if so, whether the particular school lands were nonetheless exempt from condemnation as a result of their trust status as school lands or their then-present use for cattle grazing. The trial court and Court of Appeals concluded that PUD is statutorily authorized to condemn school lands and that the particular school lands at issue are subject to condemnation. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Pub. Util. Dist. No. 1 of Okanogan County v. Washington" on Justia Law

On Friday, January 9, 2009, after business hours, an unidentified motor vehicle crashed into and felled a utility pole carrying electric lines owned and operated by Duquesne Light. Several wires were connected to Burton L. Hirsh’s Funeral Home, and at least one was stripped from the attachment point to the building’s electrical system located on the structure. In addition to the funeral home, a number of other local buildings lost power as a result of the incident, although no structure other than Hirsh’s was connected directly to the downed pole. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review, as framed by appellant, was “[w]hether the Superior Court erred in imposing upon electric utilities a burdensome and unprecedented duty to enter customers’ premises and inspect customers’ electrical facilities before restoring power after an outage” The Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court, finding that Duquesne Light failed to adequately confront the common-law duties invoked by Hirsh or the warnings dynamic tempering the Superior Court’s ruling. The Superior Court did not err to the extent that it recognized a duty, on the part of an electric service provider, to take reasonable measures to avert harm in a scenario in which the utility has actual or constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition impacting a customer’s electrical system, occasioned by fallen and intermixed electrical lines proximate to the customer’s premises. The Court offered no opinion as to whether Duquesne Light had actual or constructive knowledge of an unreasonable risk in this scenario, since the electric company’s summary judgment effort was not staged in a manner which would have elicited an informed determination on such point. View "Alderwoods (PA), Inc. v. Duquesne Light" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Kathleen Langlois owned a building with commercial space on the first floor and an apartment on the second. She failed to pay the water bill for the property. Plaintiff alleged that she arranged with a representative of the Town of Proctor to disconnect the water service so she would not incur further water expenses, but that the Town failed to do so. In reliance on the Town's promised undertaking, plaintiff discontinued heating the building, causing the pipes containing water to freeze and split under the first floor of the building, which, in turn, flooded the first floor and basement, causing extensive damage to the building. Plaintiff brought this action with four counts: negligence, breach of contract, consumer fraud, and negligent misrepresentation. With respect to the negligence count, the Town argued that it had no duty to disconnect the water service or to disconnect the service with reasonable care or, alternatively, that any duty was based on its contractual obligations and could not give rise to tort liability. With respect to the contract claim, the Town argued that it had no contractual obligation to disconnect the water service and that it was exercising its right under a statutory delinquency collection procedure. It further argued that the contractual relationship between plaintiff and the Town was terminated when plaintiff failed to pay her water bill. The case was then tried before a jury, which rendered a verdict for plaintiff. In answering the special interrogatories, the jury found that there was a contract between plaintiff and the Town "regarding the turning off of her water service," but that the Town had not breached that contract. It found that the Town was negligent, that its negligence was a proximate cause of harm to plaintiff, and that plaintiff's damages were $64,918.44. Among the things the Town argued on appeal, it argued that the court should have instructed the jury to apply comparative negligence, and that the instructions on damages were erroneous because the proper measure of damages was the diminution in value of the building and, in any event, there was no evidence of that diminution. Plaintiff cross-appealed, arguing that the jury instructions improperly failed to allow the jury to find that the Town breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing. The Supreme Court rejected the Town's argument on appeal that it had no tort duty to properly turn off plaintiff's water. However, the Court found that the trial court erred in instructing the jury: "the instructions as a whole did not contain the spirit of the law. If we could determine from the damages award or the interrogatories that the jury found that plaintiff was not negligent and was not obligated to mitigate damages, we could find an absence of prejudice. We cannot do so here; the damages awarded by the jury were less than plaintiff claimed." On remand, the trial court was ordered to instruct the jury on comparative negligence. Because of the defect in the jury instructions, the Court did not address the remaining issues on appeal. The case was reversed and remanded for a new trial. View "Langlois v. Town of Proctor" on Justia Law

Columbia, an interstate natural gas company subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), seeks to replace a portion of a natural gas pipeline that runs in and around York County, Pennsylvania. Because the original location of the pipeline has become heavily populated, the replacement will not track the original line but will be outside the existing right of way. To obtain easements necessary to complete construction of the replacement, in 2013, Columbia filed Complaints in Condemnation against four Landowners in federal court. The district court held that Columbia did not have the right of eminent domain required to condemn the easements, reasoning that 18 C.F.R. 157.202(b)(2)(i), was ambiguous. The Third Circuit reversed, finding that the regulation clearly anticipates replacement outside the existing right of way and contains no adjacency requirement. The district court erroneously adopted its own definition of “replace” and concluded that a “notice” of “proposed rulemaking” for “Emergency Reconstruction of Interstate Natural Gas Facilities” promulgated by FERC after 9/11 was relevant.View "Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC v. 1.01 Acres in Penn Twp" on Justia Law

The primary question this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether a municipal authority could exercise its eminent domain powers to condemn an easement over privately-owned land, where the sole purpose of the easement is to supply a private developer with land to install sewer drainage facilities needed for a proposed private residential subdivision. "While this determination may seem to interfere with the ability of municipal water and/or sewer authorities to expand their operations under circumstances where, as here, there is an overarching nexus between the taking and private development, it is not this Court’s function to ameliorate such difficulties by departing from the statutory text. [. . .] The Legislature’s decision to exempt regulated public utilities, but not municipal authorities, from the preclusive rule set forth in Section 204(a) demonstrates that it intended to allow – within constitutional limitations – the continued use of eminent domain for the provision of public services such as water and sewer access in tandem with private development for a limited, defined class of condemnors. As RAWA is not within that class, its condemnation of the drainage easement is in violation of PRPA." View "Reading Area Wat Auth v. Schuyl River Grwy, et al" on Justia Law

In 2001 Millview County Water District began diverting water from the Russian River under the authority of a pre-1914 appropriative water right assigned to Millview by plaintiffs Hill and Gomes. Following a citizen complaint, the State Water Resources Control Board issued a cease and desist order substantially restricting Millview’s diversion of water under the right, finding it had been largely forfeited by a period of diminished use from 1967 through 1987. Millview argued that the Board lacked jurisdiction to limit appropriation under a pre-1914 water right and that the evidence did not support the Board’s finding of forfeiture because there was no evidence of a timely adverse claim of use. The trial court accepted Millview’s arguments. The appeals court affirmed. While the Board did have jurisdiction under Water Code section 1831 to issue a an order precluding excessive diversion under a pre-1914 right to appropriate and the Board properly determined the original perfected scope of the claim, it applied an incorrect legal standard in evaluating the forfeiture of Millview’s claimed water right. Applying the proper legal standard, the evidence before the Board was insufficient to support a finding of forfeiture. View "Millview Cnty. Water Dist. v. State Water Res. Control Bd." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against defendants alleging that defendants violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692 et seq., and New York statutory and common law. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants obtained unauthorized attorneys' fees and costs in connection with actions to foreclose liens on plaintiffs' properties arising out of unpaid municipal property taxes and water and sewer charges. The court held that liens for mandatory water and sewer charges imposed by New York City as an incident to property ownership, which are treated as akin to property tax liens, are not subject to the FDCPA because they do not involve a "debt" as that term is defined in the statute. The court also held that the district court properly declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Boyd v. J.E. Robert Co., Inc." on Justia Law

The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court in this case centered on the limits of the Public Utility Commission's (PUC) authority to allocate costs associated with a rail-highway crossing project. The Commonwealth Court held that the Commission could not allocate costs to a transportation utility that regularly uses a railroad-crossing site and does not own real estate or properties there. The Commission and Intervenors argued that the PUC has broad discretion not only to determine the allocation of costs to "concerned parties," but also to determine which parties are "concerned" in the first instance. Counterbalancing the Commission's and Intervenors' remarks about equities, Norfolk Southern Railway questioned why it should contribute to the remediation of deteriorating infrastructure over which it had no control. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that a transportation utility need not own facilities at a rail-highway crossing to be a concerned party for purposes of the PUC's cost-allocation jurisdiction and authority, at least where the utility conducts regular operations at the crossing and may enforce an easement-based right of way. View "Norfolk Southern Railway v. PUC" on Justia Law

Appellants were landowners who elected to require a utility to condemn their property in fee after Respondents sought to acquire easements through their property by eminent domain in order to construct a high-voltage electric transmission line. After making this election, Appellants requested that Respondents provide them with minimum compensation and relocation assistance. Respondents moved the district court for an order clarifying whether such benefits are available to property owners making an election under Minn. Stat. 216E.12. The district court concluded that such benefits were available to Appellants, but the court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Appellants satisfied the statutory criteria for receiving minimum compensation and relocation assistance and were therefore entitled to such benefits. Remanded. View "N. States Power Co. v. Aleckson" on Justia Law