## Facts

- New England Telephone & Telegraph Company (NET) filed revised tariffs with the Maine Public Utilities Commission (Commission) seeking approximately a $39.5 million increase in annual gross revenues.
- The Commission held a 16-day evidentiary hearing in which about 33 witnesses testified, and the parties later submitted post-hearing briefs.
- On March 16, 1981, hearing examiners issued a report addressing the evidence and recommended findings; the parties were allowed until March 22, 1981 to file written exceptions.
- On March 30, 1981—roughly eight to nine days after the exceptions deadline—the Commission issued its Decision and Order, which largely adopted the examiners’ report and denied NET’s proposed revenue increase.
- NET sought judicial review, arguing that the short period between exceptions and the final order, combined with the Commission’s near-verbatim adoption of the examiners’ report, showed the Commission did not conduct an adequate, independent review of the record or provide a fair hearing.

## Issues

1. Whether the Commission’s near-verbatim adoption of the hearing examiners’ report, issued shortly after the exceptions period, showed that the Commission failed to exercise independent judgment on the record, rendering the order unlawful.

## Decision

- The Maine Supreme Judicial Court (Law Court) affirmed the Commission’s Decision and Order.
- The court held that the speed of the Commission’s action after exceptions and the substantial overlap between the order and the examiners’ report did not, standing alone, establish that the Commission failed to independently review the evidence.
- Applying deferential review of ratemaking decisions, the court concluded NET did not show the Commission acted unlawfully, unreasonably, or without substantial evidentiary support.

## Legal Principles

- Public-utility ratemaking is primarily a legislative/administrative function; judicial review is limited and does not permit a court to reweigh competing evidence or replace the Commission’s judgments with its own.
- A Commission may rely on hearing examiners to take evidence and prepare recommended findings, and it may adopt an examiners’ report, even largely as written, if the Commission makes the final decision based on the record.
- Neither a short deliberation period nor close textual similarity to an examiners’ report, by itself, proves a lack of independent agency decision-making.
- A party challenging a commission rate order bears the burden to show the order is unlawful, unreasonable, arbitrary, or unsupported by substantial evidence in the record as a whole.

## Conclusion

The Law Court upheld the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s denial of NET’s requested $39.5 million revenue increase, ruling that the Commission’s prompt issuance of an order that closely tracked the hearing examiners’ report did not, without additional proof, demonstrate a failure to independently consider the evidence or otherwise invalidate the ratemaking decision under Maine’s deferential standard of review.


New England Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 448 A.2d 272 (1982)