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Contested Places, Utility Pole Spaces: A Competition and Safety Framework for Analyzing Utility Pole Association Rules, Roles, and Risks
Get PDFAs climate change augurs longer wildfire seasons, safe, reliable, and competitive energy and communications markets depend on sound infrastructure and well-calibrated regulation. The humble wooden utility pole, first deployed in America in 1844 to extend telegraph service, forms the twenty-first century’s technological scaffold. Utility poles are increasingly contested places where competition, safety, and reliability meet. Yet, regulators and academics have largely overlooked the risks posed by century-old private utility pole associations in California, composed of private and public utility pole owners and some entities who attach facilities to utility poles. No academic articles have examined the rules, roles, and risks Joint Pole Committees (JPCs) pose for energy and communications safety, service, competition, and regulation. This article fills that academic and regulatory gap by examining JPCs’ history and function and offering a framework to put safety, competition, and accountable governance at the forefront of utility regulation.
This article lifts the veil over JPC practices obscured through their failure to register as non-profits and operation without government supervision. It examines potential harms to safety and competition posed by the Northern California Joint Pole Association\u27s rules that confer incumbents with effective veto power over potential competitors authorized to attach to utility poles by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Neither JPCs nor their members enjoy immunity from federal antitrust or state unfair competition laws, nor are they legally entitled to undermine CPUC competition policy or utility pole safety and reliability rules. Neither the CPUC nor competition authorities owe any deference to JPC standards, rules, functions, or decisions. This Article recommends CPUC and competition authority action and regulatory principles to address the competition and safety risks raised by JPC rules and roles
Whose Highest and Best? Including Economic Development and Individual Landownership in the Highest and Best Use Standard
Get PDFReal property is a finite resource. As a result, two theories of land use most frequently in tension are economic development and individual land ownership. In tracing key places in American history where these two theories conflict, it is seen that economic development is often prioritized over individual land ownership. This Comment analyzes the connections between the Founding Era philosophy on property law, Native American land takings, and eminent domain takings and proposes a new definition of the highest and best use valuation standard, one that accounts for both economic development and individual land ownership. This new standard allows both theories to have balanced consideration in eminent domain valuation
Examining United States Retirement Savings Policy through the Lens of International Human Rights Principles
No full textMay 12, 2021, marked the penultimate program in the spring season of Contemporary Challenges in American & Global Law. The event focused on “Examining United States Retirement Savings Policy through the Lens of International Human Rights Principles.” Catholic Law Professor Regina T. Jefferson provided remarks from the American perspective while comments were made by prof. UKSW dr hab. Elżbieta Karska (IBTSLP 2000), Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland
Lawrence v. Texas: 18 Years Later
No full textAt an April 6 event co-sponsored by the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), the Women\u27s Law Caucus (WLC), and the Student Bar Association (SBA), Catholic Law students, faculty, and staff gathered virtually for a discussion regarding “Lawrence v. Texas: 18 years later,” led by the litigator who argued the case before the Supreme Court—Paul M. Smith. Smith is a Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law, as well as the Vice President for Litigation and Strategy at the Campaign Legal Center. Until 2017, Smith worked in private practice at Jenner & Block LLP. He has presented oral arguments in 21 Supreme Court cases, Lawrence v. Texas among them
The Attorney-Client Privilege and Former Employees
Get PDFAttorney-client relationships are infused with confidentiality, and the attorney-client privilege is critical to the protection of sensitive and important communications between clients and their lawyers. Organizational clients, like individuals, are entitled to assert the attorney-client privilege concerning communications that fall within its scope.
In the organizational context, a common problem is determining who among the entity’s employees speaks on its behalf, such that communications between the entity’s lawyers and those employees may be protected against discovery by the organization’s adversaries and other third parties. And, of course, as organizations experience the inevitable turnover in their workforces, another issue surfaces: when, if ever, does the attorney-client privilege attach to communications between the organization’s lawyers and former employees of the organization? This Article answers that question to the extent possible and further provides related recommendations for practicing lawyers
Love, Healing, and Justice in Washington
No full textOn November 17, 2021, Catholic Law hosted the first Faith in Action event of the 2021-2022 academic year. The program featured Louis Brown, Executive Director of the Christ Medicus Foundation. In his talk, “Love, Healing, and Justice in Washington,” Brown spoke about his journey of pursuing a legal and government career that led him more deeply to encounter God, to discover his own identity in Christ, and to seek to be an instrument of God’s love and justice through protecting human dignity in health care, law, and public policy
Liberalism and Disagreement in American Constitutional Theory
Get PDFFor forty years, American constitutional theory has been viewed as a clash between originalists and non-originalists. This depiction misunderstands and oversimplifies the nature of the debate within constitutional theory. Although originalism and non-originalism describe important differences between families of constitutional methodologies, the foundations of the disagreement among theorists are the justifications that they offer for those methodologies, not the methodologies themselves. Once the debate is refocused on the justifications that theorists offer for their constitutional methodologies, it becomes clear that the debate within constitutional theory is ultimately a debate about liberalism as a political theory. Specifically, it is a debate about two propositions that are central to the liberal tradition: individualism and rationalism. Viewed in this way, constitutional theorists often thought to be opposed to each other are, in fact, allies in the debate over liberalism, even if they disagree about whether their shared theoretical premises imply an originalist or non-originalist methodology. Conversely, theorists often seen as allies profoundly disagree about the premises of their constitutional theories because they disagree about liberalism. Reorienting American constitutional theory to focus on the disagreement over liberalism will help us identify which constitutional theory is best and better understand the outcomes in important constitutional cases
Times They Are A Changin\u27 - Can the Ad Tech Industry Survive in a Privacy Conscious World?
Get PDFThe ad tech ecosystem is a web of interconnected technologies and intermediaries that facilitate targeted advertising based on consumer data, and supports the free internet while providing users with promotional content relevant to their interests. However, in recent years, lawmakers and consumer advocates have highlighted the dangers associated with the unregulated use of consumer data for advertising purposes, prompting a flurry of legislative action at both the state and federal levels. These various laws and proposed bills impose new challenges on the ad tech industry--threatening to fundamentally change the way the business operates. However, through innovation and creative thinking, the industry will be able to retain the many benefits of targeting advertising, while respecting consumer privacy and complying with legislative guardrails
Life After Graham
No full textThe final panel of the day moved away from abstract discussion of the Graham decision and provided those in attendance the opportunity to hear from individuals who have been directly impacted by Graham v. Florida. After reading a letter from Terrance Graham—whose case and victory set all of this change in motion despite still being incarcerated himself—Alonzo Turner-Bey and Roy Middleton spoke to the group. Both men shared their experiences with juvenile sentencing, their vulnerability as adolescents in an adult system, and how they changed and evolved throughout their sentences and subsequent releases