A. Precedents Cited

1) Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. v. Oklahoma Corp. Comm’n, 2025 OK 15, 565 P.3d 418 [People’s]

People’s is the controlling precedent and supplies the dispositive rule: RESCTA’s “Large Load” exception does not authorize a supplier to “extend” service by tapping third-party transmission facilities to reach a customer located in another supplier’s certified territory. In this opinion, the Court treats that question as “now settled” and applies People’s to conclude OG&E’s method of service is not permitted under RESCTA.

But People’s also announced prospective-only application to avoid inequity and wasteful duplication where suppliers and customers had already made substantial investments in reliance on prior regulatory understandings. This case uses that prospective-only limitation to explain why OEC cannot obtain an injunction compelling OG&E to cease existing service to the Plant.

2) Oklahoma Gas & Elec. Co. v. State ex rel. Oklahoma Corp. Comm'n [CKenergy 1], 2023 OK 33, 535 P.3d 1218

The opinion describes the doctrinal path that led to People’s. In CKenergy 1, the Court had held the Large Load exception did not prohibit the use of open-access transmission lines and vacated a Commission order that had enjoined OG&E. People’s later overruled CKenergy 1, adopting the opposite statutory interpretation. This case reinforces that CKenergy 1 is no longer the governing rule on third-party transmission “extensions.”

3) Oklahoma Gas & Elec. Co. v. Oklahoma Corp. Comm'n, 2025 OK 43, 571 P.3d 729

Although not central to the third-party transmission issue, the Court references this companion decision for interpretive context: it defined “connected load” under RESCTA’s Large Load exception as “the total electric power-consuming rating, or ‘nameplate rating,’ of all devices connected to a distribution system.” The citation illustrates the Court’s broader engagement with RESCTA’s technical vocabulary and reinforces that statutory meaning in this area is being clarified through a coordinated set of companion cases.

4) Mootness and justiciability authorities

The Court relies on established Oklahoma mootness doctrine to avoid adjudicating issues that cannot yield effective relief:

• Rogers v. Excise Bd. Of Greer Cty., 1984 OK 95, 701 P.2d 754 (no decision on abstract/hypothetical questions where no practical relief may be granted).
• Westinghouse Elec. Corp. v. G.R.D.4., 1986 OK 20, 720 P.2d 713 (moot issues are not decided).
• Chicago, R.1. & P. Ry. Co. v. Territory, 1908 OK 110, 97 P. 265 (declining to decide moot/abstract propositions).
• State ex rel. Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Ret. Sys. v. City of Spencer, 2009 OK 73, 237 P.3d 125 (defining mootness as a condition preventing effective appellate relief; controversy must persist through review).
• Baby F. v. Oklahoma Cty. Dist. Ct., 2015 OK 24, 348 P.3d 1080 (recognizing exceptions: broad public interest; capable of repetition yet evading review).

The Court applies these to conclude that, given People’s prospective-only rule, OEC’s equitable-defense challenges cannot alter the remedy, rendering those issues moot. It further holds neither mootness exception applies because People’s resolves the underlying statutory controversy and there is no meaningful likelihood the Commission will repeat the specific action.

5) Constitutional standard of review for Commission orders (Okla. Const. art. IX, § 20)

The opinion reiterates the special posture of Commission appeals under Okla. Const. art. IX, § 20, including a limited de novo lens for statutory interpretation (the Court gives “some regard” but does not treat Commission interpretations as binding precedent) and otherwise asks whether the Commission “regularly pursued its authority” and whether findings are sustained by law and substantial evidence. This framework matters because it situates how People’s validated a Commission interpretation of RESCTA, and how this case treats the statutory question as settled while bypassing fact-intensive equitable disputes.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The statutory rule is supplied by People’s, not by re-litigating RESCTA here

The Court makes a clean doctrinal move: rather than re-deriving RESCTA’s meaning, it imports the controlling construction from People’s. Under that settled interpretation, “extending its service” in the Large Load exception refers to the lengthening of a supplier’s own retail distribution system—not reaching through third-party transmission facilities to penetrate another supplier’s certified territory.

2) Remedy turns on prospective-only application

Even after concluding OG&E’s method of service is not permitted by RESCTA as construed in People’s, the Court emphasizes the remedial limit: People’s applies prospectively only and “shall not apply to existing retail electric services and facilities which have already been established” under the Large Load exception. The Plant had been served since May 7, 2018. Therefore, an injunction would contradict the forward-looking nature of the new rule.

3) Mootness as a decisive procedural filter

The Commission denied OEC relief on equitable defenses (laches/estoppel/waiver). OEC attacked those findings on appeal, arguing it lacked timely knowledge of OG&E’s intended service method. The Supreme Court declines to decide those disputes because they cannot change the outcome: regardless of who “wins” the equities, no injunction can issue without violating People’s prospective-only limitation.

Notably, the Court also acknowledges a practical symmetry: the equitable considerations that motivated prospective-only application in People’s (avoiding hardship and wasteful duplication after substantial investment) substantially overlap with the equitable defenses on which OG&E prevailed before the Commission. Thus, although the Court labels the equitable-defense issues “moot,” it recognizes the Commission’s equities point in the same direction as People’s remedial limitation.

4) Concurring view

Justice Jett concurred in result, agreeing affirmance follows from People’s, but stating “the resolution of this case does not implicate the mootness doctrine.” The concurrence signals a methodological disagreement: one can affirm purely by applying People’s prospective-only remedial rule without characterizing the remaining issues as constitutionally or prudentially “moot.”

C. Impact

1) Prospective-only “no third-party transmission extension” rule becomes operational in future disputes

The combined effect of People’s and this decision is to lock in a forward-looking regulatory boundary: new large-load service into another supplier’s territory cannot be achieved by using third-party transmission lines as the mechanism of “extension.” The Commission and utilities now have a clear rule for structuring future large-load arrangements.

2) Existing large-load service arrangements are effectively grandfathered

This opinion underscores the stability function of prospective-only application: it avoids forced service discontinuation and prevents “wasteful duplication of facilities” that RESCTA was enacted to reduce. For customers and utilities with established investments, the practical effect is continuity of service despite a newly clarified statutory limitation.

3) Litigation strategy and timing: remedies may be constrained even when liability is clarified

The case illustrates a recurring regulatory-litigation dynamic: even where a statutory interpretation ultimately favors one side (OEC’s view that the conduct is not permitted), remedial limits (prospective-only application) may prevent disruptive relief. Parties challenging established service configurations may find that the most consequential remedy—an injunction—is unavailable once the Court chooses prospective application to balance reliance interests.

4) Administrative adjudication: narrowed role for equitable defenses in future similar cases

Because People’s now resolves the statutory issue, future Commission cases will likely turn less on equitable defenses and more on whether a challenged service is new (and therefore barred if it relies on third-party transmission tapping) or already established (and therefore not subject to shutdown under the prospective-only rule).