Forty years ago today, when cable television was in relative infancy, the Appellate Division decided In re Promulgation of Rules of Practice and Regulations for the Office of Cable Television, 132 N.J. Super. 45 (App. Div. 1974). The Legislature had passed the Cable Television Act, N.J.S.A. 48:5A-1 et seq., which established the Office of Cable Television within the Department of Public Untilities, in 1972. The Office then promulgated regulations to govern cable television companies. The New Jersey Cable Television Association objected to the regulations, but the Office adopted them anyway. The Association appealed, but the Appellate Division (Judges Leonard, Seidman, and Bischoff) upheld the regulations in a per curiam opinion.
Especially for the many people today who are dissatisfied with their cable companies, the regulations at issue seem innocuous or a bare minimum of the sort of protections to which consumers should be entitled. They required that (1) “deposits to insure credit” be maintained in separate accounts and used only for the maintenance of subscriber accounts; (2) simple interest at a rate of at least 6% per year be paid on deposits held for over six months; (3) a customer be given at least fifteen days to pay a bill; and (4) at least fifteen days notice of intent to terminate service be given if the termination is for non-payment of bills.
The Association offered a somewhat convoluted argument as to why, in its view, the Office lacked power to promulgate these regulations. The panel was not persuaded. N.J.S.A. 48:5A-10(b) contained a broad grant of power to adopt regulations regarding the “prohibition and prevention of any unjust or unreasonable, unjustly discriminatory or unduly preferential individual or joint rate, charge or schedule for any service supplied or rendered by a CATV company within this State, or the adoption of any unjust or unreasonable classification in the making or as the basis of any individual or joint rate, charge or schedule for any service rendered by a CATV company within this State.” Under settled principles of administrative law, that grant of authority was to be “liberally construed so as to enable [the] agency to discharge its statutory responsibilities.” Accordingly, the challenged regulations were “well within the authority of the PUC to adopt.”
The Association also asserted that the record contained no evidence in support of the regulations adopted. But the panel ruled that the agency’s role was “essentially legislative in nature in this situation. Facts sufficient to justify rules and regulations thus promulgated are assumed and the burden is on the one who asserts the contrary.” Unlike in a case cited by the Association, the cable television regulations “deal with customer relations, [and] do not involve technical expertise.” In other words, common sense and experience justiifed the need for these rather elemental regulations, and the Association had offered nothing to the contrary.
The panel also tersely rejected the Association’s contention that the regulations were arbitrary and unreasonable. There was no evidence of arbitrariness sufficient to overcome the presumption of validity of administrative regulations.
Cable television has since assumed huge proportions in the lives of many people, though more recently it has begun to be eclipsed in some circles by services such as Netflix and Hulu. The idea that regulations such as those at issue in this case could be invalid seems at least as unlikely now as it did to the Appellate Division forty years ago.