Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission v. Pennsylvania Gas & Water Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently May 2004 · most notably Kansas Gas & Electric Co. v. Kansas Corporation Comm'n (1986), Philadelphia Electric Co. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (1981)
55 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Nebbia v. People of State of New York · Armstrong v. United States · Smyth v. Ames · Federal Power Commission v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co. · Bluefield Water Works & Improvement Co. v. Public Service Commission
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is ample authority for the proposition that the power to fix “just and reasonable” rates imports a flexibility in the exercise of a complicated regulatory function by a specialized decision-making body and that the term “just and reasonable” was not intended to confine the ambit of regulatory discretion to an absolute or mathematical formulation but rather to confer upon the regulatory body the power to make and apply policy concerning the appropriate balance between prices charged to utility customers and returns on capital to utility investors consonant with constitutional protections applicable to both.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“Reproduction cost figures are clearly admissible in PUC proceedings but we see nothing in the “fair value” rule that requires, either as a statutory or constitutional mandate, that they must be accepted in whole or in part for valuation purposes. We, therefore, repudiate any intimations in these decisions or in prior case law that has the effect of suggesting a constitú tional mandate requiring the inclusion of repro- • duction cost figures in arriving at the appropriate rate structure in public utility valuation cases. (Emphasis in original.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“In refusing to include the $2.7 million contribution made by the Commonwealth toward the capital construction costs of the reservoir and pipeline necessitated by the anticipated impact of the federally aided highway construction project in PG&W’s rate case, the PUC in effect disallowed PG&W an addition to the original cost measure upon which the property in question was valued. In so doing, PG&W contends that the PUC contravened the controlling statutory norm requiring it “to ascertain and fix the fair value of the whole or any part of the property of any public utility.” Public Utility Law, §311, 66 P.S. §1151 (emphasis supplied) . PG&W further contends that this statutory norm of “fair value” either incorporates by reference the meaning of that term as adumbrated in Smyth v. Ames, [ 169 U.S. 466 (1898)] or, in the alternative, is bottomed on the continuing validity of Smyth as a standard for adjudicating the constitutionality of rate regulation under the Federal Constitution.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.