Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Corporation Commission

653 P.2d 501, 99 N.M. 1
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 22, 1982
DocketNo. 13881
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 653 P.2d 501 (Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Corporation Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Corporation Commission, 653 P.2d 501, 99 N.M. 1 (N.M. 1982).

Opinion

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

In January 1981, Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company (Mountain Bell) filed an application for a rate increase of $48.3 million, based on a 1981 test year. The Attorney General of New Mexico (Attorney General) moved to intervene in the proceedings on behalf of the State and all New Mexico customers of Mountain Bell not otherwise represented. The State Corporation Commission (Commission) granted the Attorney General’s motion. In July the Commission entered its final order authorizing an increase in rates of $27,236 million. Mountain Bell’s petition for reconsideration was denied by the Commission and it then petitioned for removal to this Court pursuant to Article XI, Section 7 of the New Mexico Constitution. The Attorney General also filed a separate petition for removal. We address the issues raised by the Attorney General’s removal before reaching the objections raised by Mountain Bell’s removal.

I.

Mountain Bell raises procedural objections to the Attorney General’s removal.

Mountain Bell claims that the Attorney General’s representation both of the state and of unrepresented customers of Mountain Bell was improper. Mountain Bell notes that Article XI, Section 4 of the New Mexico Constitution requires the Attorney General to represent the Commission; it contends that his representation of other parties before the Commission is a conflict of interest and also a violation of his constitutional duty to represent the Commission.

Section 4 states in part: “The attorney general of the state, or his legally authorized representative, shall be the attorney for the commission.” Mountain Bell argues that there is a conflict between this constitutional provision and Section 8-5-2, N.M. S.A.1978, which states in part:

Duties of attorney general.
Except as otherwise provided by law, the attorney general shall:
A. prosecute and defend all causes in the supreme court and court of appeals in which the state is a party or interested;
* * * * * *
J. appear before local, state and federal courts and regulatory officers, agencies and bodies, to represent and to be heard on behalf of the state when, in his judgment, the public interest of the state requires such action or when requested to do so by the governor; and
K. perform all other duties required by law.

Mountain Bell asserts that the Attorney General’s duty to represent the Commission is “otherwise provided by law” so that Section 8-5-2 is inapplicable here. The Attorney General claims that the Constitution does not specifically prevent him from representing the state in these proceedings, so Section 8-5-2 does apply.

A short answer to this problem is that Mountain Bell waived any objection to the Attorney General’s intervention by filing a Waiver of Objection at the time he filed his motion to intervene. However, this answer does not resolve the basic question. After reviewing the arguments and relevant evidence, we hold that, on the facts presented here, the Attorney General could properly represent the State and these customers. Our conclusion relies on the fact that although the Attorney General provides commissioned assistant attorneys general to the Commission as legal counsel, these individuals function independent of the Attorney General. There is no evidence of control exercised by the Attorney General over the Commission’s legal staff. Mountain Bell’s argument posits a conflict of interest which does not in fact exist. Thus this situation differs from those involved in the cases cited by Mountain Bell.

Mountain Bell’s second objection is that the Attorney General’s request for removal was not timely filed. N.M.R.Civ. App. 3(d), N.M.S.A.1978, specifies that a party aggrieved by a final judgment in a civil action has thirty days from the date of that judgment in which to appeal to the appropriate appellate court. This rule applies to removal proceedings under N.M.R. Civ.App. 1(a), N.M.S.A.1978. The Attorney General points out that N.M.R.Civ.App. 4(c), N.M.S.A.1978, grants a party fifteen days from the date of service of notice of appeal if the notice is served later than fifteen days before the expiration of the time, within which the appeal may be taken. If Rule 4(c) applies, the Attorney General’s removal was timely.

Rules 3(d) and 4(c) speak in terms of appeals, not removals. However, no other rule governs the period within which removals from the Commission’s ratemaking proceedings may be taken.1 Therefore we apply Rules 3(d) and 4(c) to this proceeding and hold that the Attorney General’s petition for removal was timely filed.

The substance of the Attorney General’s removal is that the Commission erred by not including in its rate determination Mountain Bell’s revenues, expenses and investment related to directory advertising. The Commission acted properly in following the law as it had been set forth in our opinion in Corporation Com’n v. Mountain States Tel. & T. Co., 84 N.M. 298, 502 P.2d 401 (1972) (the 1972 case). The 1972 case held that the Commission had no authority to include Mountain Bell’s net income from directory advertising in determining rates for intrastate telephone service. The rationale was that directory advertising was not essential to furnishing telephone services and was handled as a distinct, separate and competitive business.

We now reexamine that opinion and conclude that it must be overruled to the extent that it prohibits inclusion of directory advertising in the Commission’s ratemaking determinations.

Article XI, Section 7 of the New Mexico Constitution reads in part:

[I]n the matter of fixing rates of telephone and telegraph companies, due consideration shall be given to the earnings, investment and expenditure as a whole within the state.. . .

The Court in the 1972 case (which was before us upon a stipulation so that we could interpret the constitutional provision) saw only two possible and very different interpretations of this provision. First, this provision could give the Commission jurisdiction to consider “all earnings, investment and expenditures of Mountain Bell in the State, regardless of their relationship to the business of furnishing telephone service. ...” Corporation Com’n v. Mountain States Tel. & T. Co., supra, at 301, 502 P.2d at 404. Second, the provision could mean that “only earnings, investment and expenditures directly used or useful in telephone service may be considered by the Commission in fixing rates.” Id. The Court in the 1972 case adopted the latter approach, adding that the provision “does not refer to earnings from, investments in, and expenditures incurred by such a company in some business unnecessary to the furnishing of adequate telephone or telegraph services.” Id. at 302, 502 P.2d at 405 (emphasis added).

Neither position is a fair application of the Constitution. Under the first, the Commission could include revenues from telephone company investments in wholly unrelated businesses.

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Bluebook (online)
653 P.2d 501, 99 N.M. 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mountain-states-telephone-telegraph-co-v-corporation-commission-nm-1982.