CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - PUBLIC UTILITIES - STANDING OF PUBLIC UTILITIES TO CHALLENGE THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE TVA

Authors

Michigan Law Review, University of Michigan Law School

Abstract

Eighteen electric utilities, with non-exclusive franchises and in direct competition with the TVA in selling power wholesale to municipalities, cooperatives and large industrial plants, sought to enjoin the activities and projects of the TVA and its directors as being unconstitutional and as contravening their rights under the fifth, ninth, and tenth amendments. Fraud, duress, and misrepresentations in securing customers were charged. A court of three judges dismissed the bill, holding that there was no fraud or duress and that the TVA was constitutional. Fourteen utilities appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Held, with Justices Butler and McReynolds dissenting, that the utilities had no standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statutory grant of power merely because the exercise thereof resulted in competition. Tennessee Electric Power Co. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, (U.S. 1939) 59 S. Ct. 366.

Recommended Citation

Michigan Law Review, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - PUBLIC UTILITIES - STANDING OF PUBLIC UTILITIES TO CHALLENGE THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE TVA, 37 Mich. L. Rev. 1134 (1939).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol37/iss7/16