3. The Petition for Modification
Several weeks after SoCalGas sent its November 22 notice of rescission to the landowners4, CSD filed a Petition for Modification of D.00-09-034 on December 12, 2000. The petition requests the Commission to clarify that the decision allows the mineral owners to elect rescission and to pursue civil litigation against SoCalGas if they believe rescission alone is an inadequate remedy. CSD primarily relies upon Finding of Fact 10, which it argues modified and clarified the settlement agreement so that affected landowners are not required to sign a general release before obtaining rescission of the mineral interests. According to CSD, this reading of the decision reserves all other rights for the landowners. In other words, if landowners elect rescission, they are only precluded from pursuing rescission alone in another forum, and not from pursing other remedies. CSD believes that only this reading of the decision will restore landowners to their previous condition and that these landowners should not have to elect between a partial remedy and lengthy litigation.
CSD specifically requests that this Commission order SoCalGas to: (1) retract its cover letter and election to rescind and release agreement immediately; (2) nullify any releases that have already been signed; and (3) order SoCalGas to pay unspecified fines for noncompliance with D.00-09-034.
4 The notice consisted of a November 22, 2000, letter offering rescission. The end of this letter includes a "Statement of Non-Acceptance." The letter also states that if SoCalGas does not receive a response after 120 days, it will assume that the recipient has decided not to accept the offer. The notice also contains a separate document entitled "Election to Rescind and Release Agreement." D.00-09-034 also required SoCalGas to include some environmental information regarding Montebello. SoCalGas therefore also included the following information in the notice: Executive summary of the revised supplement of the proponent's environmental assessment dated September 2000; deficiency letter and completeness reports dated May 10, 2000 and August 22, 2000, respectively; and a postage prepaid envelope.
