Coalition for Safe Power v. Oregon Public Utility Commission

These four consolidated cases are actions to set aside orders issued by the Oregon Public Utility Commission (the PUC). The actions — or “suits,” as they are styled by statute— were filed pursuant to ORS 756.580(1).1 All four were filed in the Multnomah County Circuit Court in the mid-1980s and were prosecuted in that court without any challenge to that court’s jurisdiction for several years. In 1993, however, the Multnomah County Circuit Court concluded that, under ORS 756.580(2), set out below, 325 Or at 451, it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the proceedings. It therefore dismissed…