STEVENS, Circuit Judge.
This appeal arises out of a dispute over plaintiff’s monthly billing of $9.89 for residential electric service for November, 1969. The question presented is whether the Power Company’s proposed method of resolving the dispute— by terminating plaintiff’s service unless the disputed bill is paid within five days — is proscribed by § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, now 42 U.S.C. § 1983.1 The statute protects [641]*641the plaintiff from deprivation of his federal constitutional rights by a defendant acting “under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage” of the State of Wisconsin.
Because the defendant proposes to act before the dispute has been resolved, plaintiff contends that he will be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law;2 because the proposed termination is consistent with disconnect rules which have been approved by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, he contends that the Power Company’s threat is made “under color of” state law. We shall consider both contentions after describing the background of this particular dispute and the Power Company’s disconnect procedures as approved by the Wisconsin Commission.
I.
Plaintiff is one of the 599,051 customers of the defendant Wisconsin Electric Power Company. As a representative of that class, and also on his own behalf, he filed a complaint on July 2, 1970, requesting that a three-judge court be convened to enjoin the enforcement of § 113.13(4) of the regulations of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, and to prevent defendant Power Company from “terminating electrical services for alleged arrearages without prior, adequate notice and hearing.” The complaint alleged that plaintiff had paid his monthly bill in cash on December 23, 1969, but failed to obtain a stamped receipt. Thereafter he paid current charges, but consistently refused to pay the alleged arrearage. In due course the Power Company notified him that his service would be disconnected on July 6, 1970.
After filing his complaint on July 2, 1970, plaintiff moved for a temporary restraining order. The parties apparently agreed informally that his service would continue while the litigation was pending.3 A few days later, plaintiff amended his complaint to join the commissioners of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission as individual defendants. In his amended complaint and in his argument in this court he emphasized the absence of “an impartial decision maker” to resolve the dispute before service could be discontinued.4
The defendant commissioners moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the relevant provisions of the Wisconsin Administrative Code “do provide due process of law to plaintiff and to all similarly situated.” The motion was supported by affidavits describing the commission’s disconnect regulations and the rules of the defendant Power Company relating to collections. The affidavits also described both formal and informal procedures which the commission employs to resolve disputes between customers and a regulated utility. The affidavits indicated that the plaintiff had not invoked these procedures.
Every utility is required to furnish reasonably adequate service and to comply with a variety of commission regulations as well as detailed rules which each utility must file with the commission.5 The commission’s rule covering [642]*642deposits, guarantees and disconnects (§ 113.13) contains the following provision specifically attacked by plaintiff in this litigation:
“(4) DISCONNECT RULE. (a) Service may be disconnected if a customer’s current bill for service as defined in the utility’s filed rules is not paid within a reasonable period set forth in said rules.”
Pursuant to that rule, the defendant Power Company had filed detailed rules and regulations describing, among other things, its collection procedures. The section applicable to arrearages amounting to between $5 and $20 stated that when collection action is required, the following steps should be taken:
“1. A written notice shall be sent to the customer, stating the amount the customer is in arrears, and notifying him that service will be disconnected if such arrears are not paid within five days.
“2. If the arrears remain unpaid at the end of the period specified on the disconnection notice and satisfactory arrangements for payment have not been made, service may be disconnected without further notice to the customer.”
It is the commission’s acceptance of these “filed rules” as adequate compliance with § 113.13(4) that plaintiff attacks as unconstitutional.
The affidavit of the Director of the Rates and Research Division of the commission described the manner in which customer complaints involving service, including situations in which a public utility threatens to invoke the disconnect rule for nonpayment, are handled by the commission. Formal complaints may be brought by no less than 25 private citizens. Such a procedure might lead to the modification of a utility’s disconnect procedures, but apparently has not been invoked for that purpose. However, affiant received an average of [643]*643about two informal complaints per week concerning either actual or threatened terminations of service. It was his practice to make a written record of each such complaint and to request the utility to withhold actual disconnection until he could inquire into the relevant facts. The “great bulk of all complaints” was settled by mutual agreement. If no settlement was reached, the affiant indicated that the commission was authorized to initiate a formal investigation. However, he did not describe what had happened to any complaint which was not resolved by an agreement between the customer and the utility.
The defendant Power Company filed an answer to the complaint specifically denying that it received a payment from plaintiff on or about December 23, 1969,6 and admitting that it had notified plaintiff that his electric service would be discontinued if plaintiff did not comply with the Company’s filed rule procedure respecting delinquent accounts. The Company averred that plaintiff had an adequate remedy in the courts of the State of Wisconsin for resolution of the dispute over the alleged nonpayment; that injunctive relief was inappropriate; that the ease was not proper either for a declaratory judgment or for a three-judge federal court; denied that plaintiff’s claim was typical of a significant definable class; and specifically denied that either § 113.13(4) or the rules which the Power Company had filed with the commission violated plaintiff’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Plaintiff propounded detailed interrogatories to the Power Company pertaining to its procedures for resolving disputes with customers and the records relating to plaintiff’s specific claim. In response, the defendant identified various Company personnel who handled such complaints and indicated that during 1969, 71 disputes had been presented to persons other than regular Company personnel. Of the total of 71 cases, 33 disputes were presented to the Public Service Commission, 35 to Company officers, 2 to the Better Business Bureau, and 1 to the Milwaukee Journal. The interrogatory answers stated that the number of service terminations for nonpayment of bills in 1968 and 1969, respectively, were 10,691 and 9,-970. The answers then described in great detail the Company’s billing procedures, the way in which its computers are employed, and stated that no customer billings were corrected in 1969 due to computer errors, although a total of 646 errors due to human agency had been brought to the attention of the Company. Most of the errors resulted either from incorrect meter readings or clerical errors; in all such cases the errors had been corrected when they became known.7
The defendant Power Company took plaintiff’s deposition. Although his testimony indicated that the accounting discrepancy might have arisen in part because of his move from one address to another in January, or possibly because he had given two monthly receipts to a Power Company clerk who had failed to return them to him in accordance with her promise, we assume [644]*644for present purposes that the factual dispute involves nothing more than the question whether he actually made the cash payment in December, 1969, as alleged in the amended complaint.8 Plaintiff was employed by the City of Milwaukee at the time the litigation was commenced and, although he subsequently lost his job and was permitted to prosecute this appeal in forma pauperis, he made no claim of inability to pay electrical bills when rendered.
In response to the motion to dismiss, and apparently without relying on any facts developed by affidavits or discovery, the district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted and for failure to state a substantial federal question. The court held that the defendant Power Company was a private company whose rights had not been enlarged by the commission regulation which plaintiff challenged. Since the Company did not act on behalf of the state and was given no rights under state law over and above the rights which it possessed under common law, the court held that it was not acting “under color of” state law within the meaning of § 1983. The court held our decision in Kadlec v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 7 Cir., 407 F.2d 624, cert. denied, 396 U.S. 846, 90 S.Ct. 90, 24 L.Ed.2d 95, applicable, and Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 813, 96 L.Ed. 1068 distinguishable. In response to the suggestion that neither our decision in Kadlec, nor the district court’s analysis of the “state action” issue, gave appropriate effect to Supreme Court decisions such as Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45, and Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 813, 96 L.Ed. 1068 we decided to review the case en banc. We reaffirm Kadlec.
II.
Before discussing the principal issues, it is appropriate to put certain preliminary matters to one side.
First, plaintiff’s challenge is directed at the practices of only one of several public utilities in the State of Wisconsin. Section 113.13(4) of the Wisconsin Administrative Code is not self-implementing, but rather contemplates further action by each of the utilities subject to its provisions. The rules which the defendant Power Company filed pursuant to that regulation do not have state-wide application and the regulation itself does not foreclose the procedural safeguards which plaintiff requests. We are satisfied, therefore, that a three-judge court should not be convened. See Board of Regents v. New Left Education Project, 404 U.S. 541, 92 S.Ct. 652, 30 L.Ed.2d 697.
Second, we express no opinion on whether this litigation was appropriately commenced as a class action. Manifestly, there is room to doubt whether all of the customers of Wisconsin Electric Power Company would desire the Company to make the changes in its disconnect procedures which plaintiff requests. See Ihrke v. Northern States Power Co., 459 F.2d 566, 572 (8th Cir. 1972). In view of the plaintiff’s allegations, however, we assume that plaintiff is a typical customer of the utility.
Third, we note that plaintiff, of course, makes no claim that the defendant Power Company has any obligation to provide electric service to anyone who is unable to pay his bills. For purposes of decision, we assume that the defendant’s typical customer is solvent and may be required to make a reasonable security deposit as a condition to the initiation or continuation of service. We stress this assumption because in argument before this court plaintiff’s counsel suggested that the [645]*645issues are affected by the fact that plaintiff is now receiving welfare assistance. We reject this suggestion, Although plaintiff’s present indigency might be relevant to the question whether it would be reasonable for the utility to extend him further credit, it cannot control our analysis of a procedure which is designed to treat 599,051 paying customers with an even hand.9
We should also note that we do not believe the outcome of this litigation, particularly since plaintiff purports to act in a representative capacity, may turn on the plaintiff’s lack of understanding of the remedies available to him. Although he indicated in his deposition that he is unable to read or write, and that he was neither advised nor knew that he might seek the assistance of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in attempting to resolve his dispute, he affirmatively alleged that he is an adequate representative of the entire class of customers. For purposes of testing the sufficiency of his claim, he must be presumed to have had the same knowledge of the law as any other citizen. Whether the action be considered as an individual action oías a class action, it is apparent that the unique disability of a particular recipient of a formal notice cannot be the measure of its constitutional adequacy.10
Finally, we note that our disposition of the case avoids the necessity for eonsidering the possible applicability of the Johnson Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1342, and the troublesome question of whether decisions such as Alabama Public Service Commission v. Southern Railway Co., 341 U.S. 341, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002, would require a federal court to abstain when requested to review the validity of state administrative action, We turn to the merits.
III.
The amended complaint was dismissed because the district court, 322 F.Supp. 337, concluded that there was insufficient “state involvement” on which to predicate federal jurisdiction. Defendants argue that in any event plaintiff has not been denied “due process.” The case is thus argued as though it presented a “state action” issue and a “due process” issue. Because of the confusion that the “state action” concept has generated,11 however, it is useful to identify two different reasons for analyzing a state’s participation in challenged conduct; one reason is constitutional and the other statutory.
The Fourteenth Amendment is a prohibition against certain types of conduct by a state. It contains no self-executing prohibition against private discriminatory conduct, or against procedures by which one private citizen may deal unfairly with another. For a plaintiff to invoke the Fourteenth [646]*646Amendment, he must establish that his rights have been impaired by a state.12 Thus, in this case, the issue identified by the “due process” label is whether the State of Wisconsin has deprived plaintiff of his liberty or property without due process of law.
The statutory language provides a separate reason for considering the state’s relationship to the alleged wrong. Section 1983 is inapplicable unless the defendant has acted “under col- or of” state law, custom or usage. Whereas the primary focus of the constitutional prohibition is upon the action of the state, the statutory prohibition encompasses private conduct, the effectiveness of which is in part attributable to the fact that it derives support, or at least the appearance of validity, from a state law or custom. Neither Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45, nor Public Utilities Commission v. Poliak, 343 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 813, 96 L.Ed. 1068, arose under § 1983 or involved a consideration of when private conduct is “under color of” state law within the meaning of that statute. Conversely, Kadlec v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 7 Cir., 407 F.2d 624, cert. denied, 396 U.S. 846, 90 S.Ct. 90, 24 L.Ed.2d 95, relied exclusively on the interpretation of § 1983 and did not decide any constitutional issue. Instead, therefore, of accepting the parties’ invitation to consider the issues simply in terms of, first, “state action” and, second, “due process,” we believe our holding will be more precise if we discuss (a) the claim against the commissioners and then (b) the claim against the Power Company.
It is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for a state to deprive any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”13 When the defendant commissioners act in their official capacity they unquestionably act “under color of” state law within the meaning of § 1983; we therefore need not concern ourselves with the statutory issue in the case against the commissioners. The real question as to the commissioners is constitutional — whether on behalf of the State of Wisconsin they have deprived plaintiff of due process of law. As to the Power Company, however, we need not reach any constitutional issue unless a statutory hurdle is first overcome. The statutory question is whether the [647]*647Company acts “under color of” state law when it disconnects service. If not, it does not violate § 1983 even if its conduct would otherwise deprive plaintiff of a federal right.
We shall therefore first direct our attention to the claim that the Constitution requires that the defendant commissioners be enjoined from enforcing, or be required to modify, § 113.13(4) of the Wisconsin Administrative Code and then consider whether the proposed action of the defendant Power Company is “under color of” state law within the meaning of § 1983.
A.
When the defendant commissioners, or their predecessors, adopted § 113.13(4), and later when they accepted the Power Company’s five-day notice rule as conforming thereto, they were, of course, acting for the state. Unquestionably, therefore, this case involves “state action.” 14 But the right which plaintiff seeks to vindicate in this litigation was not abridged in the slightest by that action. To grant plaintiff’s request for a judgment declaring § 113.13(4) invalid, or to enjoin defendant commissioners from enforcing it, would merely remove a restriction on the utility’s freedom.15 The action of the state which plaintiff seeks to restrain has neither enhanced the Company’s powers nor diminished plaintiff’s rights. The “state action” in promulgating § 113.13(4) of the regulations did not deny plaintiff due process of law.
What plaintiff really seeks is not an injunction against the state’s action, but an affirmative command that it act more effectively. In essence, he contends that there is state inaction in the face of circumstances which are constitutionally intolerable. It is by no means clear that “state inaction” is equivalent to “state action” for Fourteenth Amendment purposes. Obviously, a state does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to enact into law the programs or policy judgments advocated by any particular citizen or group. We assume, however, without deciding, that there are situations in which the state’s duty is so clear that the failure to act might violate the due process clause.16 [648]*648Even so, analysis of the “inaction” claim reveals that the alleged shortcomings in Wisconsin’s administrative procedures involve policy decisions which a state may make without offending the Federal Constitution.
Plaintiff contends that no disconnection for nonpayment, at least if the arrearage is disputed, should be permitted unless the credit dispute has first been resolved by an impartial decision maker. Less forcefully he also contends that the regulation failed to require adequate notice of the proposed termination.17 We shall comment on both points.
Defendants argue that requiring a pretermination hearing would be costly, would provide an incentive to dispute arrearages, and by delaying the discontinuance of service would, in effect, compel the Company to extend credit to nonpaying customers.18 If these arguments are valid, presumably the cost of service might be increased. Such policy considerations must give way, however, if the Constitution commands greater procedural safeguards before a termination may be effected.19 We therefore consider whether “due process” requires a hearing before an impartial arbiter before service may be disconnected.
The answer is provided by a consideration of the remedies which are actually available to plaintiff. If those remedies satisfy the standards of due process articulated in recent Supreme Court decisions, the state has no constitutional duty to require or provide other procedures merely because they might be better as a matter of policy.20
The two “remedies” which customers have most frequently invoked are informal. The record indicates that most credit disputes are resolved by an official of the Company or through the good offices of the commission. The informal disposition of disputes in either of these ways is not really a legal remedy for an aggrieved customer, but the fact that most customer controversies are easily resolved tends to minimize the need for a special formal procedure to handle a case such as plaintiff’s.
The formal remedies available to plaintiff include two primary alternatives. First, he has a right to seek emergency relief in the state courts. If the termination of service would cause a customer irreparable harm, and if he had paid the disputed bill by check, or had saved his receipt, or had other convincing evidence of payment at hand, presumably a Wisconsin court would temporarily enjoin the disconnect pending a full hearing on the merits;21 more weighty controversies are frequently resolved by a chancellor on equally short notice.22 Second, the eus[649]*649tomer may forestall the disconnect by paying the disputed amount under protest and then suing for a refund; such a procedure is frequently required in disputes over taxes, rent, or other arrearages, without being considered constitutionally defective.23 A third formal remedy is also available. If the Power Company wrongfully cuts off plaintiff’s electricity, he may sue in tort for his actual damages.24 Thus, Wisconsin does provide the customer of the utility with [650]*650impartial tribunals empowered to resolve disputes over billings and to grant appropriate relief.
As a practical matter, we recognize that most disputes are so nominal in amount that judicial remedies are seldom, if ever, invoked. In most cases the only “hearing” actually held is that provided by the Power Company itself. Plaintiff therefore contends that fair procedure requires the reference of disputes over billing to an inpartial arbiter before he is required either to suffer the inconvenience of a termination or to pay a disputed amount under protest. In practice, he argues, it simply is not fair to permit the Power Company to be the effective final judge of its own credit disputes. There are at least three answers to the argument.
First, the fact that a dispute may be so trivial that an injured party may elect to suffer injustice rather than to assert his legal rights — in other words, that the maxim de minimus non curat lex suitably applies — -is certainly no reason for construing the Federal Constitution as requiring special procedural safeguards for such matters. The constitutional commands are met once an opportunity for a hearing is afforded. That opportunity is protected by the state enforced requirement of a five-day notice, together with the availability of effective judicial remedies.25
Second, in those cases in which the judgment of the Power Company is erroneous, that judgment has no finality. If service should be terminated wrongfully, the Company must answer in damages; the potential injury that a customer may suffer from a loss of electricity is the measure of the Company’s risk of error. Thus, although in a sense the Company is the judge of its own case, it acts at its peril whenever it exercises that judgment.
Third, since the conclusion of the “hearing” conducted by the Power Company itself is only a preliminary and tentative determination of the ultimate rights of the parties, the fairness of that hearing must be appraised in the context of the entire procedure made available by the state. If the state is ultimately required to adjudicate a customer’s liability for an arrearage, it must, of course, provide a full judicial hearing, which, as we have noted, it does in this case. But a lesser standard applies to determinations which are only tentative in character even though they have an immediate and significant impact on the litigant. Bianchi v. Morales, 262 U.S. 170, 43 S.Ct. 526, 67 L.Ed. 928.26 In this type of hearing “procedural due process will be satisfied by an inquiry limited to the determination whether there is a reasonable possibility of judgments in the amounts claimed being rendered against the licensee.” Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 540, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 1590, 29 L.Ed.2d 90.
Whether we examine the specific dispute between plaintiff and the Power [651]*651Company, or its experience with the class he purports to represent, certainly “there is a reasonable possibility of judgment in the amounts” reflected by the Company records if they are contradicted only by a customer’s oral statement and if they have been reexamined for the purpose of correcting possible error. In a sense, as plaintiff argues, the Company’s agent may not be “impartial”; but certainly its accounting procedures must deal impartially with all customers and must have integrity to comply with the commission’s regulatory requirements. The Company’s incentive to sell electricity to paying customers is at least as great as the desire to collect past due accounts. The partiality that may arise in subsequent litigation, or that may characterize a particular discussion between a Company clerk and a dissatisfied customer, does not undermine the conclusion that the Company records, if verified after a specific objection is made, will establish a reasonable possibility of judgment in favor of the utility.
The “reasonable possibility” test of Bell v. Burson has been restated in slightly different language in other recent cases; those cases neither hold nor imply that there is a rigid requirement that a determination of “reasonable possibility” must always be made by an impartial tribunal. The supporting procedure must be “meaningful,” Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552, 85 S.Ct. 1187, 14 L.Ed.2d 62, and “appropriate to the nature of the case,” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 657, 94 L.Ed. 865. It need not take any particular form and is governed by the aim of establishing the “probable validity” of the underlying claim.27 The'purpose of such a tentative determination “is to prevent unfair and mistaken deprivations of property” when the moving party “has little probability of succeeding on the merits of the dispute.” 28
Even without the participation of an independent hearing examiner, or some other impartial arbiter, the tentative determination made by the Power Company satisfies the due process standard as thus defined.29
The necessity for the participation of an impartial arbiter at a particular stage of a constitutionally protected procedure depends, in part, on the character of the interest at stake and the potential for error which may result from his absence. In cases involving interests of greater import than the temporary [652]*652use of money, or even the possible loss of electric service, we have squarely rejected the contention that an impartial hearing examiner is an essential component of due process. Shirck v. Thomas, 447 F.2d 1025, 1027-1028 (7th Cir. 1971).30 In the present case the existing procedures provide meaningful protection against the risk that the Power Company will cut off service when it “has little probability of succeeding on the merits” of a dispute with a customer.
Commission supervision of the conduct of the Power Company, together with its own self-interest in maintaining customer good-will and avoiding exposure to potential damage liability, provides a significant guarantee of impartiality in collecting arrearages. The Company’s experience with about 10,000 terminations a year, which has resulted in only a few disputes and almost no litigation, indicates that the routine participation of an independent arbiter is not essential to establish the “probable validity” of a claim. The possibility of an occasional error at a preliminary stage of a procedure which is routinely fair does not invalidate the entire procedure.
When we consider both the formal judicial procedures which are provided by the State of Wisconsin, and the informal procedures which are available at the Company or through the good offices of the commission, we have no doubt that the customer’s opportunities to forestall, or to remedy, a wrongful termination of service satisfy the standard of procedural due process as defined in Bell v. Burson. See also F.C.C. v. WJR, 337 U.S. 265, 275-277, 69 S.Ct. 1097, 93 L.Ed. 1353; Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 894-895, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230.
This conclusion is premised, of course, on the existence of adequate notice. In Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972), the Supreme Court invalidated state replevin procedures which authorized the seizure of property without any advance notice whatsoever. Without any notice, the debtor would have no opportunity to pay a disputed amount under protest, to have a clerical mistake corrected, or to initiate any protective or remedial action before being deprived of possession of goods or chattels. The rationale of [653]*653Fuentes is inapplicable to this case.31 Plaintiff’s discussions with the Power Company took place over a six-month period. Even if no more than the five days prescribed by rule were involved, he had adequate time in which to forestall termination by seeking informal review, by paying the arrearage under protest, or even by filing suit in a state court. (He did, after all, have time to file this federal suit.) There can be no serious quarrel with the timing of the Company’s notice.
It has been suggested, however, that the required content of the notice is inadequate. It advises the customer that service will be terminated unless the bill is paid within five days, but does not tell him how he may have a dispute over an arrearage resolved. We are satisfied that such an omission is not a fatal defect in the notice. Obviously the customer would know that Company personnel are available to correct billing errors. He might not realize that informal assistance is available at the commission; but since the commission procedure does not in fact provide a legal remedy to an aggrieved customer, it would be inappropriate and might even be misleading to imply that a specific remedy is available in that forum.32 As far as possible judicial remedies are concerned, the customer is presumed to know the law, or at least to know that he should consult a lawyer rather than rely on a potential adversary for a description of his legal rights. Whether it would be unwise to encourage credit disputes by adding detail to the notice, or wise to give customers more information in a stereotyped form that might or might not be appropriate in specific cases, involved questions of regulatory policy, not an issue of constitutional dimensions.
Whether we analyze the constitutional issue in terms of the action which the State of Wisconsin has taken, or in terms of its failure to act more effectively, we find no merit in plaintiff’s claim against the defendant commissioners.
B.
Plaintiff argues that the defendant Power Company, acting “under color of” state law, threatened to deprive him of a federal right. The federal right asserted is not, of course, any entitlement to continued service; 33 it is simply the procedural right to a fair opportunity to be heard. Our analysis of plaintiff’s claim against the commissioners discloses no deprivation of that right. We are also convinced that the Power Company’s challenged action is not “under color of” state law within the meaning of § 1983.
As we view the record, the action of Wisconsin Electric is that of a private company. The state is neither a “joint participant” nor a “direct beneficiary” of that action in the sense in which those words were used in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. [654]*654715, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45.34 It is true that the general revenues of the utility, like those of every other tax-paying business in Wisconsin, contribute to the state’s support; it is also true that this business, like many others, must comply with a variety of regulatory controls.35 Unless § 1983 is to become all-encompassing, such factors are obviously insufficient to bring private conduct within the coverage of this federal statute.36
The “under color of” provision encompasses only such private conduct as is supported by state action.37 That [655]*655support may take various forms, but it is quite clear that a private person does not act under color of state law unless he derives some “aid, comfort, or incentive,” either real or apparent, from the state.38 Absent such affirmative support, the statute is inapplicable to private conduct.39
[656]*656We believe that affirmative support must be significant,40 measured either by its contribution to the effectiveness of defendant’s conduct, or perhaps by its defiance of conflicting national policy,41 to bring the statute into play. There is no such significant affirmative state support of Wisconsin Electric’s proposed termination of plaintiff’s service.
It is true that the Company’s powers are enhanced in at least two respects by the state. First, the state has authorized an electric company to enter private property under certain circumstances.42 If that authority were invoked by the defendants in this case, an entirely different issue would be presented. On the record before us, however, it appears that the termination of plaintiff’s service can be completed simply by throwing the proper switch or disconnecting the proper wires.43
“Our holdings indicate that where the impetus for the discrimination is private, the State must have ‘significantly involved itself with invidious discriminations,’ Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 380, 87 S.Ct. 1627, 1634, 18 L.Ed. 2d 830 (1970), in order for the discriminatory action to fall within the ambit of the constitutional prohibition.” At 173, 92 S.Ct. at 1971. (Emphasis added.)
Second, the state has in effect granted monopoly protection to Wisconsin Electric. No competitor may invade the Company’s area of service without the permission of the commission. Customers, like plaintiff, are therefore denied the practical and often effective remedy of taking their patronage elsewhere when treated unfairly by a supplier. It [657]*657follows that the utility’s threat to discontinue service unless the arrearage is promptly paid is more effective by reason of the state’s protection of its monopoly.
That kind of support may well be present in all transactions between regulated companies and their customers.44 As stated, however, we believe the significance of that support must be evaluated to determine whether it brings § 1983 into play;45 otherwise the federal statute would soon supersede vast areas of state administrative regulation.46 For that reason the significance of the defendants’ monopoly position must be considered in the context of the particular controversy in which federal jurisdiction under § 1983 is invoked 47
We are satisfied that defendant’s monopoly will have no significant impact on the resolution of plaintiff’s $9,89 dispute, or other comparable disputes.48 Even if there were no commission control of entry, the assumption that there would be alternative sources of electrical service available in any given residential area is somewhat unrealistic. Assuming, however, that an alternative source of service might be available, it is most unlikely that one who could not forestall a disconnect by paying the disputed amount under protest could have a new connection installed and credit extended within a five-day period 49 As a practical matter, the absence of competition does not deprive the customer of an effective remedy.
On the other hand, the commission does provide customers with informal as well as formal remedies. As a practical matter, it is the commission’s pervasive regulatory powers that lend real significance to even the most informal complaint by a customer. As a legal matter, the detailed regulation of the utility, including the specific requirement that the Company adhere to its five-day notice rule as filed pursuant to § 113.13(4), inevitably inhibits the Company’s ability to treat its customers arbitrarily. If the commission is performing its as[658]*658signed mission faithfully, as we must of course assume, the extent to which a utility’s economic power is enhanced by commission control of entry is offset by other controls embodied in a coordinated regulatory scheme. In short, the commission’s control of entry is merely one of the factors affecting its regulation of the utility for the purpose of safeguarding the overall public interest. At least with respect to the issues presented in this litigation, the monoply factor does not provide the necessary ingredient of added state support of private conduct —the termination of electric service— which will transform an issue of state regulatory policy into a federal civil rights case under § 1983.50
We reaffirm our decision in Kadlec v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 407 F.2d 624 (7th Cir. 1969), and our more recent decision in Particular Cleaners, Inc. v. Commonwealth Edison Co., 457 F.2d 189 (7th Cir. 1972). We conclude that Wisconsin Electric’s private action in terminating service to a delinquent account after five days notice derives, at best, insignificant support from the State of Wisconsin and is therefore not “under color of” state law or custom within the intendment of § 1983.
The decision of the district court is affirmed.