Alvin Lucas, on Behalf of Himself and All Others Similarly Situated v. Wisconsin Electric Power Company, a Wisconsin Public Utility Company

STEVENS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal arises out of a dispute over plaintiff’s monthly billing of $9.89 for residential electric service for November, 1969. The question presented is whether the Power Company’s proposed method of resolving the dispute— by terminating plaintiff’s service unless the disputed bill is paid within five days — is proscribed by § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, now 42 U.S.C. § 1983.1 The statute protects *641the plaintiff from deprivation of his federal constitutional rights by a defendant acting “under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom,…