Earlier this month, a unanimous Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Ninth District Court of Appeals holding that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) has exclusive jurisdiction over certain claims asserted by three natural gas producers.
In E. Ohio Gas Co. v. Croce, 2026-Ohio-75, three natural gas producers filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and other natural gas producers against Dominion Energy Ohio claiming that Dominion had failed to pay for natural gas delivered into their system. Dominion moved to dismiss, arguing, among other things, that the PUCO had exclusive jurisdiction over those claims. And while Judge Croce dismissed the conversion claim (on other grounds), he concluded that the court had jurisdiction over the other claims. After an appeal from Judge Croce’s order was dismissed by the Ninth District, Dominion requested a writ of prohibition to compel Judge Croce to cease exercising jurisdiction over the case and to vacate all orders previously issued. The Ninth District found that the claims asserted in the class action fall within PUCO’s exclusive jurisdiction and granted the writ. The producers then appealed the Ninth District’s judgment to the Supreme Court of Ohio.
On appeal, the Supreme Court applied the two-part test that it adopted in Allstate Ins. Co. v. Cleveland Elec. Illum. Co., 2008-Ohio-3917 to determine whether a claim falls within the PUCO’s exclusive jurisdiction. Part one of the test asks whether the PUCO’s administrative expertise is required to resolve the issue in dispute. The Court concluded that part one of the test was satisfied because (i) R.C. 4905.26 grants exclusive jurisdiction to the PUCO over various matters involving complaints filed against public utilities like Dominion and (ii) the underlying dispute (i.e., whether the producers’ natural gas was correctly measured and accounted for) concerns the type of misconduct contemplated by the statute. Part two of the test asks whether the act complained of constitutes a practice normally authorized by a public utility. Here, the Court concluded that part two of the test was also satisfied because the acts complained of (i.e., Dominion’s practices of receiving natural gas into its pipeline system, measuring it, pooling it, and conducting the reconciliation process) are regulated by the PUCO and, therefore, are practices normally authorized by a public utility. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Ninth District’s judgment granting a writ of prohibition ordering Judge Croce to cease exercising jurisdiction over the producers’ class action and to vacate the orders that she previously issued in that case.