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PSC legal counsel outlines multiple pending cases, including Molnar litigation
Summary
Chief legal counsel Amanda Webster summarized several pending lawsuits involving the Montana Public Service Commission — including a remanded Nolan case, ongoing challenges to class D garbage-hauling authority, and three matters brought by Brad Molnar — and asked the commission to consider designating an approval authority to expedite filings.
Amanda Webster, the commission's chief legal counsel, gave a public-facing update on the agency's litigation and asked the commission to consider designating a commissioner as the approval authority for filings in the most recent Molnar case. "My intent with this update is for it to be public facing information that's publicly available in these litigation cases," Webster said as she opened the briefing.
Webster reported the Nolan case, which challenges the class D scheme of motor carrier regulation, was decided by the Montana Supreme Court in December and remanded to district court; she said oral argument in that matter occurred in Kalispell last week and that the court has taken the matter under advisement. She also told commissioners that a Lewis and Clark County court is considering whether the commission acted arbitrarily or beyond statutory authority when it granted class D garbage-hauling authority to M.T. Rolloffs LLC, a decision the commission made in 2023, and that Allied Waste Services had submitted a stipulation to dismiss a separate Lake County case.
Webster then summarized three cases brought by Brad Molnar against commissioners and the commission. She said one state-court case has seen no substantive developments since last fall, a federal case is in discovery with a pretrial conference set for Sept. 3 and a pretrial statement due Aug. 27, 2026, and a third case filed in late June has an amended complaint and no substantive order yet. "We have received no order from the court on that yet," Webster said, and she added that the court recently granted the plaintiff's motion to exceed page limits for an over-length brief and that motions for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction remain outstanding.
Webster closed by urging that, because filings and other documents often require prompt action, the commission consider appointing a designated approval authority so that legal staff and outside counsel have a single point of contact for time-sensitive approvals; she offered to take questions about how an approval authority would operate in practice. "If any commissioner has a question about legal advice or what may happen in the future, I encourage that you meet with me afterwards so that we can keep this portion of the meeting open to the public," Webster said.
