Law Commons^™

Why Is This Man A Moderate?, Richard A. Epstein

Michigan Law Review

A Review of William A. Fischel, Regulatory Takings: Law, Economics, and Politics

Territoriality And The Perils Of Formalism, Mark P. Gergen

Michigan Law Review

Recently in this journal Donald Regan published a pair of essays on CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of America. Much of the first essay elaborates his theory that what the Supreme Court should be doing and what it is doing under the dormant commerce clause is checking state laws adopted with a substantial protectionist purpose. The rest of the first essay and all of the second essay develop a different check on state lawmaking power in interstate affairs: a rule that states may not regulate conduct beyond their borders. He calls this the extraterritoriality principle. Elsewhere I have questioned …

Liquor Price Affirmation Statutes And The Dormant Commerce Clause, Ward A. Greenberg

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Note examines the current state of the law in the liquor affirmation area. Part II argues that the twenty-first amendment may not be invoked to justify the extraterritorial impact of these statutes. The amendment does not preempt the commerce clause in the liquor area. While it gives the states free rein over liquor internally, it provides no basis for any extraterritorial projection of liquor price regulation. Part III considers the commerce clause analysis of Brown-Forman and argues that any interstate effects of these statutes will cause them to violate the commerce clause. This section argues that …

Powerline: The First Battle Of America's Energy War, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War by Barry M. Casper and Paul David Wellstone

Regulation Through The Looking Glass: Hospitals, Blue Cross, And Certificate-Of-Need, Sallyanne Payton, Rhoda M. Powsner

Michigan Law Review

A clear focus on the commitment of the public health and hospital establishments to the large teaching hospital and their belief in rationalizing the health care system through community-based planning allows us to understand the ideas and institutions that have produced our present system of hospital regulation. It can also help us to understand the structure and behavior of the hospital industry and can illuminate current controversies over health care policy.

What follows is a narrative account of the development of regional planning and certificate-of-need legislation. As part of that story, we trace the evolution of the Blue Cross, explain …

Federal Preemption Of State Law: The Example Of Overbooking In The Airline Industry, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Such complexity is common in the airline context, both because the Federal Aviation Act1 (FAA) and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) do not purport to regulate all aspects of the industry and because airline activities are so varied that they come within the reach of numerous state statutory and common-law rules. This Note will consider the power of the CAB to preempt state law and thereby to insulate airline activities from state-law liability. It will suggest a framework for analyzing the problems of preemption by focusing on airline concealment of overbooking practices. Section I explains airline overbooking and demonstrates that …

The Role Of The Local Comprehensive Plan In Land Use Regulation, Daniel R. Mandelker

Michigan Law Review

This article will deal with the enlarged role of the comprehensive plan in the local land use control process. Part I examines traditional judicial views of the role of the comprehensive plan as a guide to zoning administration. Part II suggests that innovations in land use control and comprehensive planning techniques evidence a need for mandatory planning. Subsequent sections examine changes in the judicial attitude toward the role of the comprehensive plan in land use control administration, and survey some enacted and proposed state legislation that modifies the early planning acts by requiring comprehensive planning. This legislation is analyzed to …

Jurisdiction--Atomic Energy--Federal Pre-Emption And State Regulation Of Radioactive Air Pollution: Who Is The Master Of The Atomic Genie?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Pending litigation between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Northern States Power Company presents a potential federal-state conflict over the right of a state to impose upon operators of nuclear power plants more exacting pollution control standards than those required by regulations of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC issued Northern States Power Company a permit to construct a nuclear power generating plant in Monticello, Minnesota. The regulations under which that permit was issued place a ceiling on the amount of radioactive effluents which can be discharged into the air during the course of the plant's operations. But under …

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution: State Authority And Federal Pre-Emption, David P. Currie

Michigan Law Review

The problem of state authority over motor vehicle air pollution was recently highlighted when the Illinois Air Pollution Control Board, for the first time, adopted regulations to deal with vehicle emissions. Those regulations are disappointingly feeble. Except for outlawing visible smoke and for making it unlawful to dismantle pollution control devices, the new rules do nothing but state that the Board may decide to do something in the future about pollution from automobiles.

In attempting to improve upon these regulations, however, one is struck with a sense of considerable futility. Given the present limits of technology and the necessarily legislative …

Constitutional Law-Relation Of Federal And State Governments- Applicability Of State Minimum Price Regulations To Federal Procurement, Alexander E. Bennett

Michigan Law Review

The United States accepted the lowest bids for the supply of milk at three military installations in California. Because these bids were below the minimum prices for wholesale milk prescribed by state law, California instituted proceedings in the state courts for civil damages and injunctive relief against the successful bidders. The United States brought a separate action in a federal district court asking that the state be enjoined from applying its minimum price regulations to milk purchases by the armed services on the grounds that the military installations were federal enclaves over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction and …

State Control Of Radiation Hazards: An Intergovernmental Relations Problem, Samuel D. Estep, Martin Adelman

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this article is to set forth the nature of the intergovernmental problem. This involves an analysis of the extent and limitations of federal power, a determination of congressional intent on the issue of federal pre-emption, and an appraisal of the steps now being taken by the Atomic Energy Commission to turn over part of the radiation safety regulatory program to the states.

Competitive Operation Of Municipally And Privately Owned Utilities, Charles M. Kneier

Michigan Law Review

Public utility services for cities are usually provided on the principle of regulated monopoly. It has been found that by the very nature of the utility business, better service can be had and at cheaper rates by the use of one supplier rather than by the use of competing plants: This one plant having a monopoly of the business may be either privately or municipally owned. If the service is furnished by a privately owned utility, regulation is usually by a state commission, but in a few states regulation is still largely by the city in which the company operates. …

Municipal Corporations-Validity Of Juke Box Licensing Ordinance As Exercise Of Police Power, Edward S. Tripp S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff owned and operated coin-operated phonographs, commonly known as juke boxes, in the City of New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The city enacted an ordinance making the possession of coin-operated phonographs or music boxes within the city without a license illegal. An annual license fee of $25.00 per machine was imposed and violators were subjected to fine and imprisonment, each day of illegal operation constituting a separate offense. Plaintiff sought to enjoin enforcement of the ordinance, alleging that it would cause him irreparable injury and that it was unconstitutional because beyond the legislative power of the city council. An injunction was granted …

Constitutional Law-Freedom Of Speech For Labor Organizers-Registration Requirement Invalid, Francis Powers

Michigan Law Review

Collins v. Thomas decided by the Supreme Court in January is a decision of great practical importance in that it falls at a point where three recently developed constitutional doctrines enmesh or intersect with one another. The case makes it necessary that the Court integrate these doctrines and distinguish the areas in which they are respectively applicable.

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Labor Law - Power Of State To Enjoin Unfair Labor Practices Of Employees In Industries Engaged In Interstate Commerce, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The appellant (defendant in the case below) and certain of its members were found guilty of unfair labor practices as defined by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Act. Plaintiff-appellee issued a cease and desist order, which was sustained by the lower court despite defendant's contention that the statute was unconstitutional on the ground that Congress had precluded such state legislation affecting interstate industries by enacting the National Labor Relations Act. Held, plaintiff's order sustained. State legislation not repugnant to the Wagner Act is operative in this field so long as the National Labor Relations Board has not acted in the …

Municipal Corporations - Licenses - Amount Of Fee, S. R. Stroud

Michigan Law Review

The defendant, a sandwich peddler, was convicted in the justice court of violation of an ordinance requiring peddlers to have a license. Upon appeal to the circuit court the conviction was set aside on the ground that the ordinance requiring a peddler to obtain a license at $150 per vehicle per year was invalid since the fee was unreasonably high. Held, the circuit court should be reversed and the conviction sustained since the amount of the license fee could not be considered unreasonably excessive in view of all the circumstances. People v. Riksen, 284 Mich. 284, 279 N. …

Insurance - Supervision By The State - What Constitutes The Insurance Business, Thomas E. Wilson

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a corporation, advertised that any person who bought goods from certain selected stores would be entitled to receive coupons, and when his coupons amounted to a certain sum he would be entitled to certain death and security benefits up to specified amounts. Plaintiff brought suit against the Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania to enjoin him from interfering with the plaintiff's business. Held, that the plaintiff was carrying on an insurance business and was subject to supervision by the Insurance Commissioner. Hunt v. Public Mutual Benefit Foundation, (C. C. A. 3d, 1938) 94 F. (2d) 749, certiorari denied (U. …

Growth And Development Of The Police Power Of The State, Collins Denny Jr

Michigan Law Review

The police power of the state is one of the most difficult phases of our law to understand, and it is even more difficult to define it and to place it within any bounds. In speaking of this power the court has recently said: "It extends not only to regulations which promote the public health, morals, and safety, but to those which promote the public convenience or the general prosperity. * * * It is the most essential of powers, at times the most insistent, and always one of the least limitable of the powers of government."' The term is …

Rent Regulations Under The Police Power, Alan W. Boyd

Michigan Law Review

Conditions resulting from the widespread housing shortage caused by the cessation of building during the war have given rise to legislation which must seem startling indeed to much of the legal talent surviving from a generation ago. The outstanding example is to be found in the New York laws which so far have succeeded admirably in eluding the constitutional pitfalls relied upon to nullify them. Three provisions have borne the brunt of the attack. The first prevents the recovery of an unreasonable rent in an action at law, and places the burden of showing reasonableness upon the landlord." Another suspends …

State Regulation Of The Canal Corporation In Colorado, Leonard P. Fox

Michigan Law Review

Inapplicability of the common law doctrine of riparian rights to conditions in the arid region moved the first territorial legislature of Colorado to recognize the counter doctrine of prior appropriation. In fact, the right to the water in the streams of Colorado, by prior appropriation, antedated any legislation. "It was the common law of the people, and legislation, both national and territorial, was but a recognition declaratory of the right as it had theretofore and then existed."-1 Adhering to territorial precedent, Colorado was the first state to incorporate the priority doctrine in its organic law.