Justice Albert Angstman graduated from St. Paul College of Law in 1912. He was the first person attending any of Minnesota’s night schools to serve on a state supreme court.
After graduating from law school and passing the Minnesota and Montana bar examinations Angstman moved to Helena, Montana. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserves in World War I. Prior to his service on the Montana Supreme Court, Angstman was a first assistant attorney general from 1921-1928.
He was described in a eulogy given in front of the Montana Supreme Court as kind, wholesome, a man of integrity, logic, and sympathetic “for the man struggling against adversity.”
Angstman served 28 years as an elected official of the Montana Supreme Court between the years 1929-1961, with two short interruptions. He stood for election in 1934 and was defeated by Claude F. Morris, but he ran successfully for election again in 1936 and served until Hugh R. Adair beat him in 1942. Once again, he ran for office and was elected, serving from 1944 to April 10, 1961. He served on the court for longer than any other Montana Supreme Court Justice at the time and had a great influence on Montana jurisprudence.
Angstman cared especially for disadvantaged children. For more than thirty years, he served as a chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Intermountain Deaconess Home for Children. He was a trustee of the Shodair Hospital for Crippled Children and the Montana Children’s Home and Hospital. Mr. Angstman was also an ardent golfer and member of Green Meadow Country Club and belonged to the Kiwanis and American Legion, as well as being a Mason. Justice Angstman served as the commencement speaker at St. Paul College of Law in 1948.
Justice Angstman was born to Joseph and Emma (Trout) Angstman on March 23, 1888, on a farm in Farmington, Minnesota, and died on February 29, 1964. He was married to Mary Frances Chirgwin on September 16, 1919. They had four children: Albert C., Virginia Dawn, Dorothy May, and Joan Frances.
The Mountain States Power Company case
During his first hiatus from the Supreme Court, Angstman worked as a lawyer for the state railroad and state public service commission and in that capacity was an advocate for the State of Montana. In 1936, Angstman represented the Public Service Commission of Montana on the side of the appellees in Mountain States Power Co. v. Public Service Commission, 299 U.S. 167 (1936).
The Mountain States Power Co. lawsuit began after the Public Service Commission of Montana issued an order requiring Mountain States Power, an electric power company, to reduce its charges for electricity. The power company filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Montana challenging the order, but the case was dismissed for lack of federal jurisdiction under the Johnson Act of 1934. On the power company’s appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Mountain States Power Co.’s cause of action was within the federal court’s jurisdiction.
Although the power company mounted due process and fair trial claims, Mountain States Power Co. v. Public Service Commission grapples with the Johnson Act’s attempt to keep state utility challenges in state court, where it would be easier for states to regulate utility companies’ prices. The Johnson Act of 1934 became law after a long struggle with federal court interference with state public utility regulation. The Act denied federal court jurisdiction over any lawsuit challenging a utility rate set by a state agency, as long as certain conditions were present. One of these conditions was that a “plain, speedy, and efficient remedy” must be available in state courts. The majority of cases have interpreted a “plain, speedy, and efficient remedy” to include utilities’ option of putting a hold on the new utility rate until the lawsuit is resolved.
The courts have recognized that the Johnson Act’s purpose was to channel litigation involving utility rates into state courts rather than federal courts, thereby prevent federal court interference with the fiscal affairs of a state. The statute was also designed to prevent utilities from litigating in federal court because their odds of winning were higher and to create a national hands-off policy relating to state rate-making. The Act was passed after years of hostilities generated from jurisdictional issues in state and federal court systems.
Mountain States Power was only the second U.S. Supreme Court case interpreting the Johnson Act. In deciding for the utility company, the Supreme Court looked to Section 3906 of the Revised Code of Montana 1921, which provided that any party dissatisfied with an order of the commission’s rates could sue in state courts within 90 days, but limited relief to the company by stipulating that utilities could not suspend a utility rate until a final determination had been made by the court. The state commission argued that 3906 would not have any bearing on Mountain State Co.’s ability to receive relief in state court because other Montana statutes could give the utilities relief, and to the extent section 3906 conflicted with them, it was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court recognized that the Johnson Act had no application unless there was a “plain, speedy, and efficient remedy” in the state courts. Since it was impossible to know what position the state courts would take regarding the interpretation and constitutionality of Section 3906, a “plain, speedy, and efficient remedy” could not be guaranteed. Until it was authoritatively condemned by the Montana courts, it must be considered valid, and thus the Johnson Act did not apply and the federal court had jurisdiction over the case. Although Justice Angstman lost the Mountain States Power Co. v. Public Service Commission case, he did continue to advocate for the State of Montana as a Montana Supreme Court Justice.
—Kayla Herpers, J.D. 2021
References
*The quotations in this biography are taken from the references below.
Douglas R. Heidenreich, With Satisfaction and Honor: William Mitchell College of Law 1900-2000 (1999)
Lester H. Loble, Mont. Supreme Court Justice, Memorial to the Late Albert H. Angstman, Address before the Montana Supreme Court (June 15, 1964), in 143 Montana Reports xxiv-xxxi (1964)
State Law Library of Montana, Biographies and Histories of Montana’s Justices, Judges and Courts (2020), https://courts.mt.gov/external/library/docs/judgesbio2.pdf
References for Mountain State Power Co. vs. Public Service Commission case
Legislation, The Johnson Act: Defining a “Plain, Speedy, and Efficient Remedy” in the State Courts, 50 Harv. L. Rev. 813 (1937)
Annotation, Validity, Construction, and Application of Johnson Act (28 U.S.C.A. § 1342), Prohibiting Interference by Federal District Courts with State Orders Affecting Rates Chargeable by Public Utilities, 28 A.L.R. Fed. 422 (1976)
Mountain States Power Co. v. Public Service Commission, 299 U.S. 167 (1936)
Phipps v. School Dist. of Pittsburgh, 111 F.2d 393 (3d Cir. 1940)
Tennyson v. Gas Service Co., 506 F.2d 1135 (10th Cir. 1974)