REA CO-OP WINS COURT TEST IN SERVICE RULING
REA Co-op Wins Court Test in Service Ruling Fudge Thompson Decision Favorable to St. Croix Co-op The right of an REA co-operative to serve farmers who had been receiving power from a private...
...The case was brought last fall by the Wisconsin Hydro .Electric .Co...
...Croix Falls handed down a decision against the Wisconsin Hydro Electric Co...
...The co-op needed to obtain easements from both these farmers in order to cross the power company's lines and serve a number of members living beyond their premises...
...Wheeler said...
...Croix County Co-op to render service to two of its farm members the case was instituted by the power company as a test of the application of the Rural Electrification act of 1936...
...While the immediate facts of the case involved only the question of the right of the St...
...which obtained a-temporary injunction to prevent the co-op from serving Oscar Peterson and Henry Hoffman, two Glenwood township farmers, who had been served by the power company from 1929 to 1932...
...Judge Thompson's decision denies both of these contentions...
...Denies 2 Contentions "The company contended that the clause in the REA act authorizing the administrator to loan federal funds to co-operatives and other agencies "for the purpoe of furnishing electric energy to persons in rural areas who are not receiving central station service" acts as a direct prohibition against REA borrowers making it illegal for them to render service to anyone from whom service may be available from a private power company...
...Decision Opens Door Although Judge Thompson's decision apparently opens the door by competition by REA co-operatives in rural areas already served by private utilities...
...New Richmond, and Tom l. Yates, a brother of Spencer Yates...
...Wheeler said he did not believe the co-ops would abandon their present policy of serving chiefly areas not served by private power companies...
...The power company also argued that the co-operative is a public utility subject to the jurisdiction of the state public service commission...
...Associated with Wheeler for the defendant co-op were Wade K. Halvor-son, district attorney of St...
...The power company was represented by W. T. Doar...
...Wheeler said the decision was of far-reaching importance to the REA program in this and other states because it involved the first case of its exact kind in the U. S. The outcome had been viewed with more than ordinary interest by Rural Electrification administration officials in Washington and by power company officials throughout the country, he said...
...The court's ruling was made public today by Floyd E. Wheeler, Madison, attorney for the co-operative...
...and in favor of the St...
...Croix County Electric Co-op...
...Croix county, and Spencer Yates, Glenwood City...
...Croix Co-op The right of an REA co-operative to serve farmers who had been receiving power from a private utility was upheld last week in the first court contest in Wisconsin involving conflict with a private utility when Circuit Judge George Thompson at St...
...Peterson and Hoffman would grant easements only on condition that they be served by the co-op as members...
...According to Wheeler, power company attorneys had announced this as a test case, and promised an appeal to the state supreme court if the decision went against them...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 15
