Developments in Puc Consumer Interest Litigation
| Publication year | 1992 |
| Pages | 1875 |
| Citation | Vol. 21 No. 9 Pg. 1875 |
1992, September, Pg. 1875. Developments in PUC Consumer Interest Litigation
The Colorado Lawyers Committee ("Committee") is a nonprofit organization whose members include twenty-eight major Colorado law firms. For over ten years the member firms have been committed to providing free legal services and assistance on poverty, civil rights and children's issues to individuals and groups throughout Colorado.
In May 1984, Larry D. O'Bryant received a telephone bill from Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company ("Mountain Bell"), a portion of which was for local service provided by Mountain Bell and a portion of which was for long distance service provided by AT&T Communications of the Mountain States, Inc. ("AT&T"). O'Bryant was unable to pay the entire bill and remitted payment only for the local service charges. Following notice to O'Bryant, Mountain Bell disconnected O'Bryant's local telephone service for nonpayment of the long distance service charges.
O'Bryant filed a pro se complaint with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission ("PUC") in July 1984 on the ground that then-existing Rule 13(b) of the Rules Regulating the Service of Telephone Utilities prevented a utility from disconnecting service for failure to pay an indebtedness other than for that utility's service. Robert F. Hill and Ronald L. Wilcox, of Hill & Robbins, P.C., subsequently agreed to represent O'Bryant on behalf of the Committee. The Committee took on the case because it raised a consumer interest issue of whether a public utility should act as a billing agent for another entity and whether it should shut off its services based on nonpayment for services it does not provide. In an opinion of first impression, a PUC hearing examiner ruled in October 1985 that Rule 13(b) prevented Mountain Bell from disconnecting local phone service based on a customer's failure to pay for long distance service provided by AT&T. The PUC adopted the hearing examiner's recommended decision.
Mountain Bell appealed the PUC's decision to the Denver District Court. While the case was pending on appeal, Mountain Bell and the PUC entered into a settlement modifying the PUC's earlier decision to delete, among other things, the statewide relief obtained by O'Bryant and filed a joint motion to dismiss the...
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