Necec Transmission LLC v. Bureau of Parks and Lands

Summary

The court held that retroactively applying the initiative's legislative-approval requirement and geographic prohibition to the project's final certificate of public convenience and necessity would violate the Maine Constitution's due process protection of vested rights if the developer proves that it undertook substantial construction in good-faith reliance on the certificate before enactment. The court adopted a three-part vested-rights framework for large-scale infrastructure projects and remanded for factual findings on good faith, substantial construction, and whether the construction schedule was designed to create a vested-rights claim. The court accepted the interlocutory report only as to the due-process question and declined to decide other claims.