State ex rel. Office of Public Counsel v. Missouri Public Service Commission

884 S.W.2d 311, 1994 WL 501333
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 9, 1994
DocketNo. WD 48734
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 884 S.W.2d 311 (State ex rel. Office of Public Counsel v. Missouri Public Service Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State ex rel. Office of Public Counsel v. Missouri Public Service Commission, 884 S.W.2d 311, 1994 WL 501333 (Mo. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinion

HANNA, Judge.

The issue in this appeal is whether the Report and Order of the Missouri Public Service Commission (Commission) approving Caller ID is lawful and reasonable.

On October 9, 1992, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (Southwestern Bell) filed a tariff with the Commission introducing a new telecommunications service known as “Caller ID.” The Missouri Office of the Public Counsel (OPC) requested hearings in the matter. Numerous parties were granted intervention, and an evidentiary hearing was held to determine whether Caller ID would be offered and, if so, in what form.

Caller ID is a service which provides its subscribers with the calling party’s telephone number, the date and the time of the call. Subscribers must pay a monthly fee and must purchase a device upon which that information is displayed. When a call is received by the customer, the information about the calling party is transmitted after the first ring. Due to current technological limits, the telephone number of the calling party is not displayed if the call is from outside of the area where Caller ID is available, is made from a cellular phone, is operator assisted, is made using a credit card, is made from a party line, or is the second call received using Call Waiting. The purpose of Caller ID is to give its customers additional information to use when deciding whether to answer a call. Several parties, including domestic violence agencies and the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, opposed the provision of any Caller ID services due to privacy concerns. However, most of the testimony and exhibits focused on the attendant blocking options.

There are three basic forms of blocking: (1) no blocking; (2) per call blocking; and (3) per line blocking. When a call is. blocked in some way by the calling party, the custom[314]*314er’s Caller ID device, instead of displaying the caller’s telephone number, displays a “private” or “anonymous” message.

The no blocking option was advocated by intervenors representing individuals with disabilities. This option would allow the calling party’s phone number to be transmitted in almost every circumstance. They argued that only by assuring minimal blocking can Caller ID reach its maximum usefulness and effectively aid people with certain disabilities to increase their ability to communicate with those who call them.

The second option is per call blocking. Under this option, the telephone number would be transmitted unless the calling party made a conscious decision to block the call. In order to block a particular call, the calling party must enter a three or four digit code before making the call (*67 for touch tone calls, and 1167 for rotary phone users). If the code is not entered, the telephone number will automatically be displayed on the Caller ID device. This form of blocking was advocated by Southwestern Bell and the other telephone companies involved.

The final option is per line blocking. When a call is made from a telephone with per line blocking, a private or anonymous message would automatically appear. If a caller wishes to unblock a particular call for some reason, the caller would first have to enter an unblocking code. This is known as per call unblocking. At the current state of technology, the code to unblock is the same as the per call blocking code — ⅝67 or 1167. While there was evidence to indicate that a different unblocking code will soon be available, the Commission noted the inherent confusion caused by the current system using the same code to block and to unblock. Several parties, including the OPC, argued for the provision of the per line blocking option upon request to any customer, either for free or for a small fee.

The Commission had before it evidence of the options and the evidence supporting each. The Commission recognized the interests of customers who desire the service and the interests of privacy of the calling parties. Finding that there are situations when the blocking of calls is a legitimate need, the Commission decided that per call blocking would provide adequate protection to most calling parties. However, realizing the special needs of certain organizations to protect the safety of members of the public, the Commission ordered that free line blocking be made available to law enforcement agencies and domestic violence agencies and their staffs and volunteers.

The OPC appeals the decision of the Commission, and advocates that free line blocking be made available to all customers upon request. The OPC has raised four claims of error on the part of the Commission:1 (1) the Commission’s decision is not based on competent and substantial evidence; (2) line blocking is a telecommunications product or service which should be made available absent an unusually strong showing that it is not in the public interest; (3) line blocking maintains and advances the efficiency and availability of telecommunications services; and ft) the tariffs filed by Southwestern Bell are void because they do not designate Caller ID as competitive, noncompetitive or transitionally competitive.

On appeal, we review the decision of the Commission, not the judgment entered by the circuit court. State ex rel. Public Water Supply Dist. No. 8 v. Public Serv. Comm’n, 600 S.W.2d 147,149 (Mo.App.1980). Our scope of review is limited to a determination of whether the Commission’s order was lawful and reasonable, and based on substantial and competent evidence. State ex rel. GTE North, Inc. v. Missouri Public Serv. Comm’n, 835 S.W.2d 356, 361 (Mo.App.1992). Factual issues decided by the Com mission are presumed to be correct and, until the contrary is shown, we are obligated to sustain the Commission’s order. Id. The Commission’s order' is presumptively valid [315]*315and the burden of disproving its validity is on the one attacking the order. State ex rel. Util. Consumers Council Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n, 585 S.W.2d 41, 47 (Mo. banc 1979).

In its first point and its subparts, the OPC argues that the Commission’s report and order which approved Caller ID without making free line blocking available upon request was based on speculation, opinion and conjecture, and not on competent and substantial evidence. The OPC specifically challenges four findings made by the Commission as not being based on substantial evidence: (1) that free line blocking is only necessary for the staff of law enforcement and crisis intervention organizations, and that per call blocking for all others will adequately protect the general public; (2) that free line blocking will substantially devalue Caller ID; (3) that per call unblocking will lead to unnecessary confusion; and (⅜) that it is important to have consistency of blocking options between Missouri and border states.

The respondents2 argue that three out of the four subpoints, the exception being (2) regarding the devaluation of Caller ID, are not preserved for appellate review.

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884 S.W.2d 311, 1994 WL 501333, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-office-of-public-counsel-v-missouri-public-service-moctapp-1994.