‘Fair and reasonable’ compensation for use of public rights- of-w...
“Fair and reasonable” compensation for use of public rights- of-way is limited to municipalities recouping costs directly incurred through their use, U.S. Dist. Court, Newark, N.J., ruled in invalidating franchise fee formula of Town of West N.Y. for public…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
payphone franchises that’s based on percentage of provider’s gross revenues. “Plainly, a fee that does more than make a municipality whole is not compensatory in the literal sense and risks becoming an economic barrier,” Judge Alfred Wolin said. Court enjoined town from enforcing ordinance that would establish exclusive franchise for placement of payphones on public rights- of-way based on compensation of percentage of gross revenue from provider after finding that exclusive franchise was barrier to entry under Communications Act. Rejecting town’s argument that it had right to charge fee for public rights-of-way because it’s town property, court said local govt. holds public rights-of-way “easement in trust for the public” and doesn’t possess ownership rights “as a proprietor of the streets and sidewalks.” Highest bidder arrangement under exclusive franchise has no logical link at all to costs or to any other measure of what might be deemed fair and reasonable, court said. Ordinance was challenged by N.J. Payphone Assn.