Posted by Eugene Volokh:
"Would a Super-Tax on AIG Bonuses Be an Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder?"
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_15-2009_03_21.shtml#1237328196
[1]David Kravitz (Blue Mass Group) -- a very smart appellate lawyer
and a former law clerk for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- writes on
the subject. The most recent case I know of involving bills of
attainder in the business law context is [2]Consolidated Edison Co. v.
Pataki, 292 F.3d 338 (2d Cir. 2002), which struck down as a bill of
attainder the following New York statute:
§ 1. Declaration of legislative findings. The operator of a
nuclear generating facility has a high duty of care to protect the
health, safety and economic interests of its customers. Rate
regulation of nuclear operators should discourage the taking of
risks with regard to potential threats to public health and safety.
By continuing to operate steam generators known to be defective,
and thereby increasing the risk of a radioactive release and/or an
expensive plant outage, the Consolidated Edison Company failed to
exercise reasonable care on behalf of the health, safety and
economic interests of its customers. Therefore it would not be in
the public interest for the company to recover from ratepayers any
costs resulting from the February 15, 2000 outage at the Indian
Point 2 Nuclear Facility.
§ 2. With respect to the February 15, 2000 outage at the Indian
Point 2 Nuclear Facility, the New York state public service
commission shall prohibit the Consolidated Edison Company from
recovering from its ratepayers any costs associated with replacing
the power from such facility. Such prohibition shall apply to any
such costs incurred until the conclusion of such outage, or
incurred at any time until all defective steam generation equipment
at the facility has been replaced, whichever occurs later. Such
prohibition shall apply to automatic adjustment mechanisms as well
as base rates or any other rate recovery mechanism. The commission
shall order the company to refund any such costs which have been
recovered from ratepayers.
I can't say anything beyond that, since I'm not an expert on bills of
attainder, and unfortunately don't have the time right now to get up
to speed on the subject.
References
1. http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=15098
2.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=2nd&navby=case&no=009358&exact=1
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