City of Chattanooga v. BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a utility franchise fee was a tax because “the City [] made no effort to relate the franchise fee to its costs in maintaining its rights of way,” indicating “that it would be used to pay the City’s general debts and obligations”
• holding that a utility franchise fee was a tax because “the City [ ] made no effort to relate the franchise fee to its costs in maintaining its rights of way,” indicating “that it would be used to pay the City’s general debts and obligations”
• “When courts are faced with cases that lie near the middle of this spectrum, the courts tend to emphasize and focus on the revenue’s ultimate use and the reason why the revenue is being taken or collected.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).