Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch

Pennsylvania law required that rates for electricity be fixed without consideration of a utility’s expenditures for electrical generating facilities which were planned but never built, even though the expenditures were prudent and reasonable when made. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that such a law did not take the utilities’ property in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We agree with that conclusion, and hold that a *302state scheme of utility regulation does not “take” property simply because it disallows recovery of capital investments that are not…