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State and Local Government Law

Michigan Law Review

Journal

Public interest

Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Law

Lawyers, Judges, And The Public Interest, John M. Payne May 1998

Lawyers, Judges, And The Public Interest, John M. Payne

Michigan Law Review

Chares Haar, the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law Emeritus at the Harvard Law School and a certified elder statesman of the housing and land-use community, was one of those scholar-politicians of the 1960s who spun out innovative theories in law reviews and then moved into government to see them applied. His generation inspired mine to pursue law as a means to serve the public interest. But the days of the Kennedy brothers' Camelot are long past. Today, big government and "big courts" alike are seen as parts of the problem. In the more austere political climate of the 1990s, …


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 …


Municipal Corporations-Collective Bargaining Contracts-Implied Power To Bargain With A Labor Union, Joseph R. Brookshire S.Ed. Feb 1946

Municipal Corporations-Collective Bargaining Contracts-Implied Power To Bargain With A Labor Union, Joseph R. Brookshire S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Under the Ohio Constitution the City of Cleveland had the power to own and operate a street railway system. The city charter authorized the Transit Board to supervise, manage and control the transit system. The authorization included the power to establish wages and working conditions in accordance with the provisions of the charter. An action for a declaratory judgment was brought in order to determine whether the board had the power to contract with a union as the exclusive bargaining agent of the transit system employees, or the power to contract with a union for arbitration of disputes, and finally, …


Zoning - Municipal Corporations - Due Process - Restrictions On Power To Change Zoning Plan Previously Adopted, Edmund R. Blaske Jan 1940

Zoning - Municipal Corporations - Due Process - Restrictions On Power To Change Zoning Plan Previously Adopted, Edmund R. Blaske

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff owned several lots in a subdivision which the defendant city changed from a class "B" residence district to a class "C" residence district. In an action for a declaratory judgment the plaintiff asked the court to pronounce the amendment making pie change void. The declaration contained the following allegations: that there was already sufficient undeveloped class "C" property to satisfy present and future building needs; that the change was made at the instance of private persons, for their benefit, and not in the public interest; that the new classification would decrease the value and enjoyment of the plaintiff's …


Bankruptcy-Corporate Reorganization - Fraternal Benefit Society Entitled To Benefits Of Section 77b, Russel T. Walker May 1939

Bankruptcy-Corporate Reorganization - Fraternal Benefit Society Entitled To Benefits Of Section 77b, Russel T. Walker

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff's right to petition for reorganization under section 77 B of the Bankruptcy Act was challenged on the ground that plaintiff was an "insurance corporation" within the meaning of section 4 of the Bankruptcy Act and therefore excepted from the benefits of the act. Held, that when Congress used the words "insurance corporation" in the Bankruptcy Act, it meant a corporation authorized by the law of its creation to do an insurance business. As Congress knew that the various States had authorized the formation of fraternal benefit societies, described as such in enabling statutes, when Congress passed this statute …


Municipal Corporations - Official Misconduct As Ground For Removal Of Officer, Leonard D. Verdier Jr. Dec 1938

Municipal Corporations - Official Misconduct As Ground For Removal Of Officer, Leonard D. Verdier Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a member of the council of the city of Highland Park, Michigan, was removed by the council, as provided in the charter because of membership in the Black Legion. The Black Legion was a secret society founded on principles of racial, religious, and political discrimination. Its members took an oath to further these purposes by any means ordered by the officers of the organization, including violence and terrorism. Members were forbidden to expose the organization under penalty of death, and membership was supposedly permanent. The council found that membership in such a society rendered Wilson incompetent to perform the …


Police Power - Validity Of A State Statute Fixing Maximum Charges For Tobacco Warehousemen, Peter S. Boter Jun 1937

Police Power - Validity Of A State Statute Fixing Maximum Charges For Tobacco Warehousemen, Peter S. Boter

Michigan Law Review

A statute of the state of Georgia prescribed maximum charges for handling and selling leaf tobacco. In this action, warehousemen sought to restrain the enforcement of the act, attacking it as an arbitrary exercise of state power contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and also as placing a substantial burden on interstate commerce in violation of the commerce clause. Held, that the statute was a constitutional exercise of the state's police power. Townsend v. Yeomans, (U.S. 1937) 81 L. Ed. 840.


Revenue Financing Of Public Enterprises, E. H. Foley Jr. Nov 1936

Revenue Financing Of Public Enterprises, E. H. Foley Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Courts have been slow to take judicial notice of the growing needs of local communities. Legislatures have restrained municipal corporations from engaging in business enterprises upon the assumption that the object was mere hope of gain, that the investment of municipal funds in such enterprises was simply a speculation, or that the effect was to divert municipal corporations from their legitimate ends and to poach upon the preserves of private enterprise. Novel municipal undertakings have been feared as an entering wedge of state socialism or governmental paternalism. Even when the instrumentality of private adventure was disposed to leave a need …


Corporations-Amendment Of Corporate Charters-Power Of The Legislature To Authorize Changes In Intracorporate Affairs Jan 1936

Corporations-Amendment Of Corporate Charters-Power Of The Legislature To Authorize Changes In Intracorporate Affairs

Michigan Law Review

In 1819, in the leading Dartmouth College case, Justice Story suggested that a state might easily retain control over its corporations by the simple expedient of reserving the power to alter, amend, or repeal the charter. The states were quick to accept the suggestion, but the real extent of this reserved power has never been definitely ascertained. A minority of the state courts, led by New Jersey, have held that this reserved power extends only over the contract between the state and the corporation; whereas a great majority have adopted the view that it extends over the contract between the …


Constitutional Law-Conservation Of Waters-Validity Of Statute Limiting Riparian Rights Dec 1935

Constitutional Law-Conservation Of Waters-Validity Of Statute Limiting Riparian Rights

Michigan Law Review

By the common law a riparian owner on a non-navigable stream has a vested right in the continuous natural flow of the stream on or bordering his land. An Oregon statute undertakes to cut down this right; it provides that a riparian owner's vested right to the continuous flow of the stream is limited to such flow as is necessary to preserve to him the beneficial uses to which he is already putting the water. Inasmuch as the right to the full continuous flow as against non-riparian appropriators is really a right to insist upon the availability of the stream …


Public Utilities-Street Railway Regulation By State Commission In Home Rule City-Permission To Withdraw From Service Nov 1934

Public Utilities-Street Railway Regulation By State Commission In Home Rule City-Permission To Withdraw From Service

Michigan Law Review

A street railway company, located in a city with a home rule charter adopted in accordance with the state constitution, petitioned the state railway commission and was granted authority to curtail its transportation by buses. The company had been in bad financial condition during recent years; the number of passengers carried had been substantially decreasing, and the company was not able to pay full interest on bonded debt. Upon the insistence of the city, the company had put bus lines in operation several years earlier and these had continually been operating at a deficit. Upon appeal, the court held that …


Executive Power In Emergencies, Maurice S. Culp Jun 1933

Executive Power In Emergencies, Maurice S. Culp

Michigan Law Review

The events of the last few months indicate that the American chief executive is capable of vigorous action in emergencies. The executive frequently has to use the armed forces of the State or Nation in the performance of his duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed in troubled districts, but it is a new experience to have the governors and the President take emergency measures in combatting a depression. The banking crisis, which first received executive notice in Nevada last November and which attained alarming proportions with Governor Comstock's "bank holiday" in Michigan, culminated in the national holiday …