Telecom Immunity-Why is this not a regulatory taking for which Fed. Govt will be liable?

[Gothmog]

As I understand the proposed telecom bill, the Federal government is going to take the property rights of the individual plaintiffs who are suing the telecoms away with a stroke of the pen. These individual plaintiffs have a right to monetary damages that is being taken away from these plaintiffs by the actions of the goverment. That is also a regulatory taking and if this happens, the Federal Government could be sued by these plaintiffs for the property rights eliminated by the act of the federal goverment. A number of savings and loan associations were successful in a similar argument when the goverment took away many of the benefits of the old Southwest Plan deals and had to pay these savings and loans for the lost benefits.

The federal goverment actions here will be to shift any exposure for the violations of the law by the telecoms from these companies to the federal goverment.

[crickets]

1. Interesting.

I'd love to hear what some of our lawyerly members have to say.

[Gothmog]

3. I am a lawyer also

The regulatory taking issue came up in a case that I worked on which caused me to think of this.

[librechik]

2. kick