Clearview Electric, Inc. v. Public Utilities Regulatory Authority

── Clearview Electric, Inc. v. Public Utilities Regulatory Authority ── Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut Date: April 14, 2026 Author: Mullins Category: General ************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecti- cut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ************************************************  Clearview Electric, Inc. v. Public Utilities Regulatory Authority CLEARVIEW ELECTRIC, INC. v. PUBLIC UTILITIES REGULATORY AUTHORITY (SC 21121) Mullins, C. J., and D’Auria, Ecker, Alexander, Dannehy and Bright, Js. Syllabus Pursuant to the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (§ 4-166 (5) (A)), a “final decision” is “the agency determination in a contested case,” and a “contested case,” for purposes of that act (§ 4-166 (4)), is “a proceeding . . . in which the legal rights, duties or privileges of a party are required by state statute or regulation to be determined by an agency after an opportunity for hearing or in which a hearing is in fact held . . . .” The plaintiff electric supplier, C Co., appealed from the judgment of the trial court, which had dismissed C Co.’s administrative appeal from the denial by the defendant, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), of C Co.’s motion to withdraw its electric supplier license. In 2014, PURA had opened a docket to redesign the standard billing format for residential customers, and, in 2023, PURA issued a final decision in that docket, allocating the cost of the redesign among the state’s licensed electric suppliers and ordering C Co. specifically to pay an assessment of approximately $179,000. Prior to that 2023 allocation decision, C Co. had entered into a settlement agreement pursuant to which C Co. agreed, inter alia, to voluntarily withdraw from the Connecticut electric supplier market for six years in order to resolve certain allegations and claims against it. Shortly after PURA issued its allocation decision, C Co. filed the motion to withdraw its electric supplier license. PURA denied the motion without prejudice and directed C Co. to pay the assessment. The trial court dismissed C Co.’s administrative appeal from PURA’s ruling on the motion to withdraw for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding, inter alia, that PURA’s denial of C Co.’s motion to withdraw its license was not appealable under the provision (§ 4-183 (a)) of the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act allowing appeals from final agency decisions insofar as PURA’s ruling was not a final decision in a contested case for purposes of § 4-166 (4) and (5) (A). On appeal to this court, C Co. claimed that the trial court had incorrectly concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over C Co.’s administrative appeal. Held: C Co. waived its claim that PURA’s denial of C Co.’s motion to withdraw its electric supplier license co