WHAT THE CUMBERLAND CASE MEANS
What the Cumberland Case Means [AN EDITORIAL] A DECISION that might have far reaching importance to the public ownership movement in Wisconsin was handed down by the state supreme court last month...
...fy^HE supreme court's decision on this case, which received far too little notice because of the pressure of war news, upheld the right of the city of Cumberland to construct its own generating plant and was a setback for the technique of using utility inspired taxpayers' suits to defeat municipal ownership expansion...
...Since 1918 it has purchased wholesale energy from the Wisconsin Hydro-Electric Co...
...The court held that the private power company had no legal interest in such a taxpayers' proceeding...
...Tired of paying the high wholesale rates demanded by the private power company, the city of Cumberland saw an opportunity to make substantial savings by constructing a diesel generating plant and generating current for the publicly owned distributing system...
...If representatives of private power companies are permitted to appear in cases where they have, under the court's ruling, no legal interest, the public service commission will be placing its own Judgment over that of the court's...
...Under this decision, it would seem that private power companies henceforth should be prevented from appearing and opposing matters which are concerned between the public service commission as the regulatory body supposed to protect the interests of consumers and the city which owns the municipal utility...
...was itself a plaintiff...
...What the Cumberland Case Means [AN EDITORIAL] A DECISION that might have far reaching importance to the public ownership movement in Wisconsin was handed down by the state supreme court last month in the Cumberland utility case...
...WHTHETHER this is an important vic-tory for public ownership depends upon the attitude of the public service commission...
...This is the current power company technique in the Columbus case and in the Fennimore case...
...There have been times when public spirited regulatory bodies have been hamstrung by the courts...
...In this action the Wisconsin Hydro-Electric Co...
...It asked and obtained permission from the public service commission to do so...
...It has been the game of the private power companies to fight the right of municipalities to install their own generating equipment on the ground that because they have served the city on a wholesale contract that they are interested...
...After the private utility attorneys had delayed action as long as possible with demands for rehearings, etc., a so-called taxpayers' suit was started...
...Then began the usual attack on the proposal by the private power company...
...Prior to 1918 the city generated its own electric current with a steam plant...
...The public service commission may carry out the decision of the supreme court, or it may not...
...The city of Cumberland has owned and operated its electric distribution plant for more than 33 years...
...The supreme court, however, said in the Cumberland case: "If the city of Cumberland can be prevented from generating its own electrical energy it will be obliged to make a contract with the electric company, but the possibility or even the probability that the electric company would procure such a contract does not give it a legal interest in this controversy...
...It will be interesting to see what the public service commission does in such cases in the near future...
...It would be an odd situation if court decisions favorable to the interests of the public should be sidetracked by a regulatory body that would rather play along with the private power companies...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 25
