Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, Inc v. Dept. of Motor Vehicles

Syllabus

The plaintiff, a towing company, appealed to the Superior Court from the decision of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles (commissioner) grant- ing certain towing and storage rate increases, which were generally less than what the plaintiff requested in its petition filed pursuant to statute (§ 14-66 (a) (2)). The plaintiff claimed that the final decision of the commissioner was not supported by substantial evidence in the record. The court rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiff's appeal, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The commissioner's balancing of the relevant statutory and regulatory factors was within the commissioner's discretion and the exercise of this discretion was not unreasonable, arbitrary or illegal; both § 14-66 (a) (2) and the regulation (§ 14-63-36a) governing tow and storage rates included the word ''may,'' and provided the commissioner with the discretion to consider and weigh certain factors as the commissioner saw fit in order to achieve a just and reasonable result, and, if the commissioner were required to weigh the factors in a particular manner, the term ''may'' would effectively be rendered meaningless, depriving the commissioner of the discretion vested in the commissioner by the legislature; moreover, it was not for this court to substitute its own judgment for that of the administrative agency on the weight of the evidence or questions of fact. 2. The plaintiff could not prevail on its claim that the commissioner's decision was not supported by substantial evidence in the record: in light of the record and the considerable discretion granted to the commissioner, and contrary to the plaintiff's argument, the commissioner did in fact consider implementing a rate increase beyond the Consumer Price Index; moreover, because the plaintiff merely challenged the manner in which the commissioner weighed the facts, it asked this court to retry the case and substitute its judgment for that of the commissioner, which thi