City of Plant City v. Mayo

337 So. 2d 966, 1976 Fla. LEXIS 4506, 1976 WL 352304
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedSeptember 23, 1976
Docket47713, 47727, 47728, 48475 and 48489
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 337 So. 2d 966 (City of Plant City v. Mayo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Plant City v. Mayo, 337 So. 2d 966, 1976 Fla. LEXIS 4506, 1976 WL 352304 (Fla. 1976).

Opinion

337 So.2d 966 (1976)

CITY OF PLANT CITY et al., Petitioners,
v.
William T. MAYO et al., Respondents.

Nos. 47713, 47727, 47728, 48475 and 48489.

Supreme Court of Florida.

September 23, 1976.

*967 Paul S. Buchman, Plant City, for City of Plant City.

Lawrence Braisted, Braisted & Hill, Winter Haven, for City of Winter Haven.

Henry E. Williams, Jr., City Atty., William T. Keen, Matias Blanco, Jr., Jack W. Crooks and Stann W. Givens, Asst. City Attys., for City of Tampa.

John S. Lloyd, City Atty. and Mikele S. Carter, Asst. City Atty., Miami, for City of Miami, and John C. Chew, Frank B. Gummey, III, and Gregory J. McDole.

J. Kermit Coble, Coble, McKinnon, Reynolds & Rothert, Daytona Beach, for City of Daytona Beach.

William L. Weeks, Prentice P. Pruitt and Donald R. Alexander, Tallahassee, for respondents.

Woodie A. Liles, Public Counsel, C. Earl Henderson, Associate Public Counsel, and Donald W. Weidner, Deputy Public Counsel, Tallahassee, for the Citizens of the State of Florida.

D. Fred McMullen, Lee L. Willis and James D. Beasley, Ausley, McMullen, McGehee, Carothers & Proctor, Tallahassee, for Tampa Elec. Co.

Ralph A. Marsicano, Tampa, and Burton M. Michaels, Tallahassee, for Florida League of Cities, Inc.

Carl R. Linn, St. Petersburg, for City of St. Petersburg.

George H. Salley, Salley, Barns & Pajon, Miami, for Maule Industries, Inc.

John S. Lloyd, City Atty., and Mikele S. Carter, Asst. City Atty., Miami, for City of Miami, amicus curiae.

*968 ENGLAND, Justice.

By petitions for writ of certiorari to the Public Service Commission we are asked to review a decision of the Commission that municipal franchise fees paid by electric utility companies in Florida should no longer be considered as a general operating expense payable by all of the utilities' customers, but rather should be separately billed by the utility to the customers of the municipalities which impose the fees.

Procedural Background

In 1974 Tampa Electric Company petitioned the Commission to increase its electric rates throughout its system. By direction of the Commission, customers and the general public were notified of the proposed rate increases in newspapers of general circulation and by inserts placed in each billing sent by Tampa Electric to its customers. None of these notices referred specifically to the treatment of franchise fees in the company's rate structure, or in any manner suggested that a new treatment for these fees would be considered.

During hearings on the proposed rate increase, the Commission's staff questioned two of Tampa Electric's officers concerning the nature of franchise fees. Evidence adduced through these witnesses showed that eleven municipalities served by Tampa Electric had negotiated franchise agreements at various dates in the past under which the company was granted permission to use municipal rights-of-way in return for a "fee" of 6% of the gross receipts obtained by the company from within municipal boundaries. Testimony was also developed to the effect that each municipality allows the franchise fees paid by Tampa Electric to be credited against property and other taxes owed by the utility to the city. None of the eleven franchise agreements were introduced into evidence during the proceeding, and no other evidence on the subject of franchise fees was developed during the proceeding.

The Commission approved a rate increase for Tampa Electric on May 21, 1975 in its Order No. 6681. Among several other matters set out in the order, the Commission abolished the traditional method of treating municipal franchise fees as a general operating expense for purposes of computing Tampa Electric's new rate charges. Instead, the Commission ordered Tampa Electric to bill customers within each city a 6% surcharge as a separate item on each bill. The effect of this directive was to place the financial burden for these franchise fees directly on the residents of the municipalities which imposed the fees, rather than spreading that cost among all customers of the utility system.

After Commission Order No. 6681 became final, the cities of Plant City, Winter Haven and Tampa filed petitions with this Court requesting that we review the franchise fee portion of the order. None of the three had been parties to the rate proceeding before the Commission, and Plant City and Winter Haven had been denied permission to intercede on the basis of late-filed requests for reconsideration. The three petitions were consolidated here, and we granted Tampa Electric and Public Counsel for the State of Florida permission to intervene. We also granted the cities of Miami and St. Petersburg, and the Florida League of Cities, Inc., permission to file briefs as a friend of the Court.

Following the entry of its order No. 6681, and as a direct consequence of reconsideration requests filed by cities which had not participated in the Tampa Electric rate proceeding, the Commission instituted a separate proceeding to determine whether it had the legal authority to require utility companies to charge franchise fees solely to customers within city limits as had been done in Order No. 6681 (and in three other orders approving rate increases for other investor-owned utility companies in the state). In that proceeding the Commission heard oral argument and considered briefs filed by interested parties (not including all of the cities now before us), but it did not permit the introduction of any evidence. On November 4, 1975 the Commission entered its Order No. 6990, declaring that it indeed had the power to treat franchise fees *969 as it had. Three days later, during our oral argument on the petitions of Plant City, Winter Haven and Tampa in this case, the existence of Order No. 6990 was brought to our attention by public counsel, who moved to supplement the record here with the record upon which Order No. 6990 was based. Shortly after oral argument the cities of Daytona Beach and Miami filed timely petitions for a writ of certiorari to the Commission, seeking to have us review Order No. 6990. (It is alleged that both cities have franchise agreements with Florida Power & Light Company, an investor-owned electric utility which in April 1975 had also been directed by the Commission to charge franchise fees to customers within municipal limits rather than system-wide.) Having denied public counsel's motion, we determined that the second Commission proceeding involves the same legal issue as that brought to us on review of Tampa Electric's rate increase order, and consolidated the petitions seeking review of Order No. 6990 with those seeking review of Order No. 6681.

Discussion of Legal Issues

1. Standing to obtain review of Commission Order No. 6681. The first issue we must decide is whether Plant City, Winter Haven and Tampa have standing to obtain review of an order entered by the Commission in a proceeding to which they were not parties. The municipalities argue that they are "persons in interest" under Section 366.10, Florida Statutes (1973), which provides:

"Any public utility or any person in interest dissatisfied with any order of the commission may have it reviewed by the supreme court by certiorari."

The Commission disagrees, cautioning that we should not construe "person in interest" to include those who have not been a party to a proceeding or else the jurisdiction of this Court will be expanded infinitely by indiscriminate and unpredictable demands to review Commission orders.

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Bluebook (online)
337 So. 2d 966, 1976 Fla. LEXIS 4506, 1976 WL 352304, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-plant-city-v-mayo-fla-1976.