Northwest Natural Gas Co. v. City of Portland

How courts have described this case

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

• explaining that a municipality cannot bargain away its authority to act for the public’s general welfare and that doubtful franchise terms are to be “construed strictly against the grantee and liberally in favor of the public”
• discussing the “less than tranquil life” of the governmental/ proprietary distinction
• municipality’s power to act for the public’s general welfare cannot be bargained away to a public utility
• public utility could not maintain takings claim for costs of relocating utility facilities to make room for light-rail construction because utilities never possessed a property right to locate their facilities at any particular place

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).