Opinion

Gustafson v. City of Lake Angelus

  • 76 F.3d 778
  • 1996 WL 80531
Court
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Filed
Feb 27, 1996
Status
Published
Author
Batchelder
On the bench
Batchelder, Contie, Jones
Cited by
61 cases

finding the Federal Aviation Act did not preempt a municipality exercising its authority to regulate the creation of new airports because “the designation of plane landing ... is a matter left primarily to local control,” and noting that “[t]he FAA has acknowledged that land use matters within the federal aviation framework are intrinsically local”

How later courts described this case

  • finding the Federal Aviation Act did not preempt a municipality exercising its authority to regulate the creation of new airports because “the designation of plane landing ... is a matter left primarily to local control,” and noting that “[t]he FAA has acknowledged that land use matters within the federal aviation framework are intrinsically local”
  • according Chevron deference to an FAA interpretation and noting that “[a]s a reviewing court, we must give great deference to the views of a federal agency with No. 04-4089 Cleveland Nat’l Air Show v. FAA, et al. Page 6 regard to the scope of its authority”
  • stating in dictum that “[federal] regulations preempt local law in regard to aircraft safety, the navigable airspace, and noise control”
  • stating in dicta that "[federal]] regulations preempt local law in regard to aircraft safety, the navigable airspace, and noise control"

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,

concurring.

I write separately only to observe that Judge Jones’s separate concurrence serves to remind us how very far we have strayed from the government described by its founders during this nation’s birth.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

The FEDERALIST No. 45, at 238 (James Madison) (G.W. Carey & J. McClellan eds., 1990).

If those who meet in the name of federalism seek, as Judge Jones puts it, “to see power wrenched from the hands of the federal government,” to devise “strategies to transfer certain areas under federal control to the states,” and “suggest[] proposals for interjecting state lawmakers into national rulemaking processes,” they do so because the national government has usurped that power from the states and the people, to whom it was originally reserved. Compare U.S. Const, art. I, § 8 with U.S. Const. amend X.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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