I almost passed over this article about HB 543 in today’s Herald-Leader because it was hiding back inside the City/Region section on page 2. It should be on the very first page because whenever legislators are thinking about stomping around on the U.S. Constitution, it should get a LOT of attention.
No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
HB 543 is threatening to take contracts between powerful companies and landholders and impair the obligations of those contracts in the powerful gas companies favor. I wonder who donates to the campaign fund of the sponsor of this bill?
I apologize for not doing a recent review of the Supreme Court decisions regarding this contract clause, but what I do recall from Professor Paul Salamanca at law school is that the prohibition on states passing such laws is not absolute, but they must pass a three-part test (the Supremes love 3 part tests by the way):
1. Is there a substantial impairment worked by the statute? If yes then go on to next question. To determine if substantial:
a) Parties expectations in contract
b) Centrality of affected part to whole contract.
c) Economic consequences to the party harmed
d) Extent the subject matter of contract is already subject to regulation.
2. Does the impairment serve a significant (broad) and legitimate state interest? That is, does it address a broad social/economic issue?
3. Is the impairment based on reasonable conditions of a character appropriate to the problem addressed? (495 U.S. 400)
In my opinion, rewriting contracts so that landholders get messed over is a substantial impairment in that it affects the very heart of the deal. Proponents will argue that it serves a legitimate state interest simply because gas prices are high and keeping them lower will help the war on terror, etc. This is certainly a stretch. The real interest is keeping the gas companies profit margins high. Lastly, stealing from the poorer and giving to the richer is not appropriate answer to the problem of skyrocketing gas prices.
Please contact your legislators and ask them to vote against HB 543.
I was recently presented with a question about child support. An unrepresented party had been asked to her ex-spouse’s attorney’s under the pretext of clearing up some questions about child support. While at this meeting, the lawyer stated that the child would be turning 18 and would she be okay with stopping child support at that time. Believing that this was the standard time for child support to end anyway, she said ’sure’. This is exactly the kind of underhanded tactics that gives lawyering a bad name.
Kentucky law (KRS 403.213(3)) provides for child support to continue past age 18 for any dependent child that is still in high school. Child support continues on through the school year in which the child turns 19 unless spelled out differently in the Decree of Dissolution. This woman had two more years of child support coming to her. The shameless lawyer did not advise her of this nor of the desirability for her to obtain advise of counsel before agreeing.
I so wish that I could advise people that they can trust lawyers because of our high ethical standards. I hope that by and large that they can, but these few bad lawyers makes such advise inadvisable. Instead, I must advise everyone to seek counsel for yourself before agreeing to something with opposing counsel.
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names with small American flags mounted on either side of it. The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, “Good morning Alex.”
“Good morning Pastor,” he replied, still focused on the plaque. “Pastor, what is this?” he asked the pastor.
The pastor said, “Well, son, it’s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.” Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque. Finally, little Alex’s voice, barely audible and trembling with fear, asked, “Which service, the 9:45 or the 11:15 ?”
This joke puts me in mind of an attorney I know whose favorite word is “clearly”. In his arguments, nearly every point is prefaced with “Clearly the facts . . .” or “Clearly the law . . .” I am either not nearly as bright as this fella or he has some power of prescience beyond my mere mortal limits because the things that are so “clear” to him always appear to be in just the opposite condition or very ambiguous to me. It occurs to me that taking time to be sure each party is talking about the same thing would greatly reduce the frequency and duration of arguments in or out of court.
