THE UTILITIES REWRITE 'BLEAK HOUSE'
McMillin, Miles
Public Power News The Utilities Rewrite Bleak House' By MILES McMILLIN IN his great novel Bleak House Charles Dickens tells the story of greedy struggle to establish the right of inheritance to a...
...After almost 13 years of injunctions, writs, taxpayers suits, and almost anything the utility attorneys could dream up to prevent it, the people of the little village of Pardeeville were allowed to pay their $28,800 and take over the operation of their own utility...
...The court's ruling was handed down in November of 1935...
...The circuit court got the case again...
...The Commission moved to have his successor decide the case on the evidence that had been taken...
...It was the company's claim that an entirely new trial was necessary...
...Wisconsin has just seen the end of a utility acquisition case that rivals Dickens' immortal story...
...Apprehensive that the company attorneys would make another attempt to stall the proceedings, the village representatives rushed the money, in a wild 40-mile ride, into court...
...An Old Movie Thriller The Supreme Court ruled that the new judge was competent to'decide the case without a new trial...
...Public Power News The Utilities Rewrite Bleak House' By MILES McMILLIN IN his great novel Bleak House Charles Dickens tells the story of greedy struggle to establish the right of inheritance to a fortune...
...In March of 1944 he ruled that the order should stand...
...The case went to the circuit court, which found against the utility...
...In November of 1942 a new evaluation order was issued...
...The company went to the Supreme Court to obtain a writ of prohibition to keep the new judge from making the decision...
...This greedy, short-sighted policy on the part of the utilities will eventually come home to roost...
...The Bleak House of tomorrow may well be the story of the power trust operations today...
...Litigation Begins In September of 1934 when the state Public Service Commission was about to begin hearings to determine just compensation for the property, an injunction was served by the company to enjoin the Commission from taking further steps...
...Hearings were begun all over again...
...voted, under Wisconsin's utility acquisition law, to acquire its utility property...
...The necessary certificate was issued and title was transferred...
...Through long years of litigation the fortune is eaten up and the characters are destroyed by their own avarice...
...The circuit court upheld the order and the company took an appeal...
...In a decision more notable for its sophistry than good judgment, the Supreme Court set the order aside...
...Evidence that the money had been paid in was presented to the Public Service Commission...
...In February of 1945 the Supreme Court affirmed his decision and the order stood...
...Because of the numerous obstacles raised by the company this hearing, seeking to set the evaluation of some $25,000 worth of property, took longer than some cases involving many millions...
...The case is a valuable clinical study of the lengths to which a utility will go to prevent municipal acquisition...
...Indeed, when the case came up for its final appearance in the Wisconsin Supreme Court it drew a remark from one of the justices that a parallel was being drawn to the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of Bleak House...
...The utility alleged that the people had not voted to acquire all the property...
...The hearings before the Commission began all over again...
...It was appealed to the Supreme Court and the company lost again...
...This ruling was appealed...
...During the time of the trial the judge on the case died...
...The suspicious circumstance of the earlier conveyance of property to the Pardeeville company was made clear...
...Then followed hectic action on the part of the attorneys for the village...
...The first suspicious move on the part of the utility interests involved the transfer of additional property to the Pardee-ville company by another utility...
...An attorney involved in the proceedings recently told me that the costs of the protracted litigation and other expenses had probably equalled the total value of the property before the battle was finally concluded...
...This transfer was made between the time the village board had voted to submit the question to a vote and the date of the referendum...
...It began back in 1933 when the small village of Par-deeville, Wis...
...There were other grounds for the injunction also...
...An action was commenced to set the order aside...
...In December of 1935 the Commission set the evaluation at $33,000...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 17
