California Court of Appeal

The decision by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) concerning the refund of a portion of the fees the petitioners collected from certain companies for transporting oil through petitioners' pipeline, which included privately owned truck racks and storage tanks in the pipeline assets subject to regulation as a public utility, is affirmed, where: 1) the PUC properly interpreted its earlier decision that held the petitioners had dedicated the pipeline to public use; and 2) although that decision addressed the pipeline as a whole and did not include dedication findings on an asset-by-asset dedication basis and did not explicitly mention the truck racks and storage tanks, the PUC's interpretation that those assets were covered by its dedication decision was consistent with the broad statutory definition of "pipe line" and the axiom that the "greater contains the less."

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/11/2013
• Published 12/11/2013

Judges

• FRANSON

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel