Pennington v. ZionSolutions LLC

ComEd closed its Zion nuclear power plant in 1998. A decommissioned nuclear must be “decommissioned” and not be dangerously radioactive. Decommissioning is supervised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which requires the operator to finance the decommissioning. The details of the trust fund are left to the state agency, in this case the Illinois Commerce Commission, which (220 ILCS 5/9‐201.5(a)), authorized ComEd to create a trust to be funded by $700 million in charges levied by ComEd on its customers. The Act entitles ComEd customers to the return of money not spent when the decommissioning is completed. In 2001, with the permission of the ICC, ComEd transferred ownership of the Zion plant and the trust assets, to ComEd’s parent, Exelon. Neither Exelon nor its subsidiary is a public utility. Ordinarily the utility (ComEd) would have owned the plant after shutting it down, but transaction costs would be reduced by uniting financing and decommissioning in the same company. After several transfers, plaintiffs brought suit, claiming that the trust funds are being misused in violation of the Illinois Public Utilities Act and common law of trusts. The district court, without deciding whether to certify a class, dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that that none of the plaintiffs are beneficiaries of the trust. View "Pennington v. ZionSolutions LLC" on Justia Law