📧 to Jim Belshe, Linn County Court Administrator
I write to place in the administrative record my concerns regarding the conduct of proceedings in the above-captioned matter. I do not submit this correspondence as a request for reconsideration of the judgment, which I understand is not within your office's authority. I submit it to create a contemporaneous written record of specific procedural irregularities prior to further action, including appeal and referral to the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability.
I. The Court Did Not Address the Controlling Legal Question
The central and repeatedly-stated legal question in this proceeding was whether OAR 860-021-0335(5) prohibits a regulated utility from conditioning a new service application on a balance the applicant did not incur while present and operating at the address. This question was stated in my original complaint filed January 2, 2026, in my opening statement submitted May 20, 2026, and in my Notice of Procedural Concern filed the same date.
In both my Notice and Opening Statement, I explicitly stated that even accepting the defendant's version of the July 2025 telephone call as entirely true, the regulatory prohibition independently governs the October 2025 service refusal. The opinion's legal analysis (Section B) dismissed OAR 860-021-0335 in two paragraphs without quoting the operative text of subsection (5), without citing any regulatory history or interpretive guidance from the Oregon Public Utility Commission, and without engaging with the specific argument I presented. The opinion addressed a wrongful-billing theory I did not advance. It ignored the regulatory-violation theory I explicitly and repeatedly stated.
II. Hearing Time Was Consumed on Matters Plaintiff Had Already Conceded
As documented in my Notice of Procedural Concern, filed May 20, 2026:
Neither party was advised of a time limitation at the commencement of the hearing.
The defense devoted the substantial portion of their hearing time to disputing the facts of the July 2025 telephone call, which I had already conceded in my original complaint and were beside the controlling legal question.
My relevancy objections to this testimony were overruled.
When the court indicated approximately five minutes before the conclusion of the hearing that time was limited, I had not yet fully addressed damages or completed my presentation.
These facts are in the written record and are not disputed in the opinion.
III. The Post-Trial Supplemental Filing Was Not Substantively Addressed
My Notice of Procedural Concern and concurrent supplemental filings were submitted May 20, 2026, for the express purpose of completing a record that was cut short during the hearing. The opinion does not address the legal arguments raised in those filings. Section E of the opinion addresses only the hearing-time question and does not engage with the substantive OAR argument restated in the supplemental filing.
IV. The Opinion's Characterization of Plaintiff's Position Is Inconsistent With the Written Record
The opinion states that plaintiff "repeatedly shifted positions throughout the litigation." The written record does not support this characterization. My original complaint, filed January 2, 2026, stated that I did not understand billing would begin immediately and that I could not verify the precise content of the July call. This was not a later-developed position adopted under pressure; it was the position stated in the first document filed. The credibility finding in the opinion does not account for this.
I am forwarding this correspondence and the case record to media contacts covering utility regulation and access to justice. I intend to file an appeal within the statutory period and will be filing a complaint with the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability.
