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Full-Text Articles in Law

Telegraph Torts: The Lost Lineage Of The Public Service Corporation, Evelyn Atkinson Jun 2023

Telegraph Torts: The Lost Lineage Of The Public Service Corporation, Evelyn Atkinson

Michigan Law Review

At the turn of the twentieth century, state courts were roiled by claims against telegraph corporations for mental anguish resulting from the failure to deliver telegrams involving the death or injury of a family member. Although these “telegraph cases” at first may seem a bizarre outlier, they in fact reveal an important and understudied moment of transformation in the nature of the relationship between the corporation and the public: the role of affective relations in the development of the category of the public utility corporation. Even as powerful corporations were recast as private, rights-bearing, profit-making market actors in constitutional law, …


Medicine As A Public Calling, Nicholas Bagley Oct 2015

Medicine As A Public Calling, Nicholas Bagley

Michigan Law Review

The debate over how to tame private medical spending tends to pit advocates of government-provided insurance—a single-payer scheme—against those who would prefer to harness market forces to hold down costs. When it is mentioned at all, the possibility of regulating the medical industry as a public utility is brusquely dismissed as anathema to the American regulatory tradition. This dismissiveness, however, rests on a failure to appreciate just how deeply the public utility model shaped health law in the twentieth century— and how it continues to shape health law today. Closer economic regulation of the medical industry may or may not …


Toward Legitimacy Through Collaborative Governance: An Analysis Of The Effect Of South Carolina's Office Of Regulatory Staff On Public Utility Regulation, William H. Ellerbe Jan 2011

Toward Legitimacy Through Collaborative Governance: An Analysis Of The Effect Of South Carolina's Office Of Regulatory Staff On Public Utility Regulation, William H. Ellerbe

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

In 2004 the South Carolina General Assembly instituted a major reform to its system of public utility regulation. Previously, the Public Service Commission, the administrative agency in charge of regulating public utilities, both adjudicated utility proceedings and, through its staff,a advocated for the public interest. A scandal concerning revelations of extensive ex parte communications between regulated utilities and members of the Public Service Commission led to the 2004 reform, which created the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) as a separate agency to perform the Commission's advocative functions. In my research, I use data on fuel factor proceedings before and after …


Atoms And The Law, E. Blythe Stason, Samuel D. Estep, William J. Pierce Jan 1959

Atoms And The Law, E. Blythe Stason, Samuel D. Estep, William J. Pierce

Books

Early in 1951 a group of interested members of the faculty of The University of Michigan Law School conceived the idea of a research project, the purpose of which would be to investigate the principal unique legal problems being created and likely to be created in the future by peaceful uses of atomic energy. The group planned the preparation and publication of a series of manuscripts which might ultimately emerge as one or more printed volumes dealing with the legal problems affecting this new form of energy. Many phases of the subject were scrutinized, including the rule-making and licensing powers …


Municipal Tort Liability, Allan F. Smith Nov 1949

Municipal Tort Liability, Allan F. Smith

Michigan Law Review

Municipal government in the United States is big business. In 1946, the 397 cities having a population of 25,000 or more spent a total of nearly 3 billion dollars for general governmental expenditures. In 1947 the total increased by 17 per cent to $3,477,000,000. Of that amount, 2½ billion were actual operational expenses for such activities as public safety, public health, sanitation, hospitals, local street and highway maintenance, and schools. Since the figures do not include the amounts expended in connection with municipal water works or municipal street railways, they lend weight to the assertion that our municipal governments are …


Competitive Operation Of Municipally And Privately Owned Utilities, Charles M. Kneier Mar 1949

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. …


Labor Law-Compulsory Arbitration Of Labor Disputes, James A. Sprunk S.Ed. Dec 1948

Labor Law-Compulsory Arbitration Of Labor Disputes, James A. Sprunk S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In 1947, seven states adopted legislation for compulsory arbitration of labor disputes in public utilities. Four more provide for seizure of such industries in cases of strikes or lockouts, and one prohibits picketing or interference with the service of a public utility. In addition, procedures for conciliation, mediation, or voluntary arbitration with suspension of the right to strike or lockout during such procedures, are provided by still others. Such legislative activity reflects the growing public concern regarding labor disputes and indicates that many state legislators are convinced that to secure industrial peace more is required than the mere imposition of …


Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer Oct 1943

Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.


The Delegation Of Federal Legislative Power To Executive Officials, Theodore W. Cousens Feb 1935

The Delegation Of Federal Legislative Power To Executive Officials, Theodore W. Cousens

Michigan Law Review

It will be the purpose of this article to attempt (1) a chronological survey of the previous Supreme Court cases relating to alleged delegations of legislative power, and (2) an analysis and discussion of the Panama Refining Co. decision in the light of this background. No discrimination is made between delegations of state and of federal legislative power, as the Supreme Court makes no such discrimination.


Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1923

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

It has been so often remarked that the "valuation" of public utilities is determined by no rule of thumb, that there are no fixed rules or formulas to guide courts or commissions, that determination of value as a rate base is matter of judgment and discretion in each case, Minnesota Rate Cares, 230 U. S. 352, 434, that the statement has come to be believed by reason in part of its much repetition. It is usually accepted as axiomatic. The glorious uncertainty resulting from such an admission will continue so long as judgments of one man or set of men …


Is A Municipal Fuel Yard A 'Public Service Plant'?, Evans Holbrook Jan 1923

Is A Municipal Fuel Yard A 'Public Service Plant'?, Evans Holbrook

Articles

In Consumers' Coal Co. et al. v. City of Lincoln, et al. (Neb. 1922) 189 N. W. 643, the supreme court of Nebraska held that a municipal fuel-yard, selling fuel at retail to the inhabitants of the city, was not a "public service plant" authorized by a section of the city charter which empowered the city to acquire, own and operate gas and electric plants, street railways, telephone plants, "and any and all other public service plants and properties, for the purpose of supplying the city and the inhabitants thereof with such service and public utilities." The suit was brought …


Book Reviews, Edwin C. Goddard, Edwin D. Dickinson Nov 1921

Book Reviews, Edwin C. Goddard, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

The plight of the public utilities following the World War has been shouted in a babel of demands for increased rates from one and all. The public has turned a doubting or hostile ear to these demands, and the utilities have overwhelmed the utility commissions with a vast mass of evidence to prove their case. None seem to have been harder hit than the electric railways. Some have ceased to operate, automobiles have already made deep cuts in their revenues, and there are not wanting those who predict that the electric railways, operating on fixed tracks, are already out of …


Public Utility Valuation - Cost Of Reproduction Theory And The World War, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1920

Public Utility Valuation - Cost Of Reproduction Theory And The World War, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

The very grave objections to the cost-of-reproduction theory of valuation of public utilities was pointed out at large in 15 MICH. L. REV. 205. The violent price changes following the World War have greatly increased the weight of these objections to calling anything a base which rests on such uncertainties and fluctuations as cost-of-reproduction. A base should be stable, but this has the stability Of a flying machine. There had been a rising curve of costs from 1893 to 1916, but since that date the rise has been almost vertical. The public utilities by- the thousands desire to take advantage …


Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1918

Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

What is the effect of a city ordinance which proposes to a public utility company the terms on which it may dispose of its product to the users, but which is rejected by the company? As to a company not yet doing business it is clear that the ordinance when rejected becomes a mere legal nullity. It never was more than an offer that might ripen into a binding contract by acceptance. That it is by no means a nullity as to a utility actually operating in the city after the expiration of its franchise and as a mere tenant …


Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1917

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

EVERY consideration of valuation of a public utility, whether for the purpose of condemnation for purchase or as a basis for fixing rates or permitting the issue of stock or bonds, must start from Sinyth v. Ames, and the rule therein laid down by HARLAN, J., at page 546: "We hold, however, that the basis of all calculations as to the reasonableness of rates to be charged by a corporation maintaining a highway under legislative sanction must be the fair value of the property being used by it for the convenience of the public. And in order to ascertain that …


Liability Of Water Companies For Losses By Fire In Actions Of Tort, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1910

Liability Of Water Companies For Losses By Fire In Actions Of Tort, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In Fisher v. Greensboro Water Supply Company, 128 N. C. 375, it was held that the defendant water company was liable in damages in an action of tort for negligent failure to furnish sufficient water pressure in the mains of the city, by reason of which negligence the plaintiff's house was burned. The only duty on the part of the defendant to furnish water grew out of a contract made by the company with the city and the fact that the defendant had entered upon the business of supplying water pursuant to such contract.


Valuing Property And Franchises Of Public Service Corporations For Fixing Rates, Horace Lafayette Wilgus Jan 1909

Valuing Property And Franchises Of Public Service Corporations For Fixing Rates, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently decided two important cases relating to the proper valuation of the property of public service corporations for the purpose of fixing rates to be charged for their services. These are Knoxille v. Knoxville Water Company, 211 U. S.--. 29 S. C. 148, and Willcox Y. Consolidated Gas Co.. -- U. S. --. 29 S. C. 192,a both decided January 4, 1909.


Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1906

Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

In two recent articles published'in this Review, the question of the liability of water companies for fire losses was somewhat exhaustively discussed. The majority of the actions wherein it has been sought to hold water companies liable for fire losses suffered by private property owners, have been brought for breach of contract. In a few cases the theory adopted was that the water company owed a duty to all property owners, by reason of the public character of its service; and the fact that it was under contract with the city to furnish an adequate water supply and pressure for …


The Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1905

The Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

It is a general principle, of very wide application, that a municipal corporation, in the absence of a statute, is not obliged to undertake the execution of governmental functions respecting the health, peace or property of its citizens. Nor is such corporation liable for the insufficient or negligent execution of such functions in case it undertakes to perform them. The ground of this exemption is that the municipality, in these matters, exercises discretionary powers conferred upon it by the state, and acts, not for itself in its corporate capacity, but for the general public as an agent of the central …