CAZIER v. GEORGIA POWER COMPANY

A group of Georgia Power customers, led by a man named Cazier, challenged how the company and the Public Service Commission interpreted two terms, "usage revenue" and "total revenue," in a rate order that affects what customers pay. In an earlier stage of this same lawsuit, the Supreme Court of Georgia had already ruled that because the terms were technical, courts should treat their meaning as a factual question decided with deference to the trial court and the agency. Relying on that earlier ruling, the Court of Appeals of Georgia sided with Georgia Power, and the customers asked the Supreme Court of Georgia to take another look. The court declined to review the case further. Presiding Justice Peterson wrote separately to say he now doubts the Georgia deference rules the courts relied on, but explained that a legal rule called the law of the case doctrine, which locks in earlier rulings within the same lawsuit, prevented the court from revisiting those rules here.

The court denied certiorari because the law of the case doctrine, which binds courts to their own earlier rulings within the same lawsuit, barred reconsideration of the deference standard the Court of Appeals applied, even though a concurring Justice expressed doubt about that standard.

The ruling leaves the Court of Appeals' decision favoring Georgia Power's revenue interpretation in place, affecting how the rate dispute concludes for the customers involved. It also flags for future litigants and courts that Georgia's rules on deferring to agencies may be reexamined in a case not bound by prior rulings in the same lawsuit.

Petition for certiorari denied

1. The court recognized that in an earlier ruling in this same case, it had already held that when contract or order terms require technical, extrinsic evidence to interpret, the question becomes one of fact and discretion, to be resolved with deference to the trial court and agency.
2. Because the law of the case doctrine (OCGA § 9-11-60(h)), which requires courts to follow their own prior rulings in the same lawsuit, applied, the court could not revisit whether that earlier deference standard was correctly decided.
3. The concurrence traced how the court's more recent decisions had claimed this deference approach mirrored the federal Chevron doctrine, under which courts defer to a federal agency's reasonable reading of an ambiguous statute, but found the cases cited for that claim did not actually support it.
4. The concurrence further found that historical Georgia precedent on deference varied widely in its justification, its binding force, and whether it required a long-standing agency practice rather than a single interpretation, undermining the idea of a consistent Chevron-style rule in Georgia.
5. Because the law of the case doctrine controlled regardless of these doubts, the court concluded it could not reach the customers' broader separation-of-powers arguments and denied the petition for certiorari.

• Georgia Power rate dispute
• judicial deference
• separation of powers
• Public Service Commission
• certiorari denial