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Constitutional Law in 1917–1918. II: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1917
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
There is little or no homogeneity to the questions to be considered under the head of retroactive legislation. A dispute whether a state has passed a law impairing the obligation of contracts may turn on a question as to the proper interpretation or application of language, or on opposing views of what is sufficient consideration or what agreements are against public policy. It was under the obligation-of-contracts clause that the Pennsylvania Hospital case decided that the power of governmental authorities to exercise eminent domain could not be bargained away. The crucial question is more often whether alleged rights existed than whether undoubted rights have been impaired. The Fourteenth Amendment and the doctrine of vested rights combine to make the obligation-of-contracts clause almost superfluous, as it is difficult to think of any impairment of the obligation of contracts which that clause inhibits which could not equally well be held deprivations of liberty or property without due process of law.
This is apparent from the fact that retroactive legislation by Congress is questioned under the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment, a contract being regarded as a property right that can be interfered with only when there is sufficient justification for what is done.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1919
References
72 Note 69, supra.
73 (1918) 246 U. S. 227.
74 (1918) 246 U. S. 88.
75 (1918) 247 U. S. 288.
76 (1918) 247 U. S. 484.
77 (1917) 245 U. S. 105. See 31 Harvard Law Review 491.
78 (1918) 247 U. S. 63.
79 Note 68, supra.
80 (1918) 245 U. S. 574. See 31 Harvard Law Review 879. This note also deals most helpfully with Cincinnati v. Cincinnati & Hamilton Traction Co., note 89, infra.
81 (1918) 246 U. S. 413.
82 But in City of Mitchell v. Dakota Telephone Co., (1918) 246 U. S. 396, holding that a later franchise did not supersede or modify an earlier one, Mr. Justice McKenna said that the conclusions reached “have the support of principles declared by this court that grants of rights and privileges by the state or of any of its municipalities are strictly construed ‘and whatever is not unequivocally granted is withheld; nothing passes by mere implication.’” In the Mitchell case it was conceded that a franchise had expired unless it had been extended by a later one. Jurisdiction to determine the effect of the later ordinance on the former one was obtained under the claim raised under the obligation-of-contracts clause. The Supreme Court reversed the district court, holding that it incorrectly decided that the earlier franchise had been superseded and that it incorrectly failed to give effect to a prior judgment between the parties on this question.
83 (1917) 245 U. S. 315. See 86 Central Law Journal 79 and 31 Harvard Law Review 650.
84 See Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police, (1917) 245 U. S. 128, for a decision holding that a person arrested in an asylum state, who conceded that he was in the demanding state at the time the alleged crime was committed, is not entitled to habeas corpus on the ground that the statute of limitations of the demanding state prevented his punishment, as that defense can be asserted only at the trial. See 18 Columbia Law Review 70, 2 Minnesota Law Review 304, and 27 Yale Law Journal 422.
85 (1918) 247 U. S. 7.
86 Note 70, supra.
87 (1918) 247 U. S. 402.
88 (1917) 245 U. S. 510.
89 (1918) 245 U. S. 446. See 31 Harvard Law Review 879.
90 In the note in 31 Harvard Law Review 879, the decision is supported on the ground that, since the ordinance “provided for a reduction of the rates with an alternative threat of legal action to eject the company from the streets,” there was an exercise of coercive power by reason of the fact that “the law would have been practically self-enforcing since the public would have refused to pay more than the new rates until the companies had established their rights at law.” But if that is a ground for entertaining jurisdiction, it would seem to afford a reason why the federal court should adjudicate the constitutionality of the ordinance, since after the decree as modified by the Supreme Court, the public may still refuse to pay the old rate of fare.
91 (1918) 246 U. S. 634.
92 (1918) 247 U. S. 201.
93 (1918) 246 U. S. 8. See 86 Central Law Journal 147, 18 Columbia Law Review 352, 3 Southern Law Quarterly 147, and 27 Yale Law Journal 714.
Questions of restraint of trade and of fair competition were passed upon in four other important cases, in which, however, no disputed constitutional issues appeared.
United States v. United Shoe Machinery Co., (1918) 247 U. S. 32, gave the defendant a clean bill of health, over the dissent of Justices Day, Pitney and Clarke. Inasmuch as Justices McReynolds and Brandeis did not sit, both having been of counsel, the case was decided by a minority of the court. See 27 Yale Law Journal 1060, 1084.
In Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, (1918) 246 U. S. 231, a rule of the plaintiff in error to the effect that after a certain hour in the day, “grain to arrive” should not be sold or bought at a price other than the closing bid at that hour, was held not to impose unreasonable restraint of trade. See 31 Harvard Law Review 1154, and 27 Yale Law Journal 1094.
In Hitchman Coal and Coke Co. v. Mitchell, (1917) 245 U. S. 276, and Eagle Glass & Mfg. Co. v. Rowe, (1917) 245 U. S. 276, officials of a labor union were enjoined from seeking to unionize a nonunion mine by securing secret promises to join the union from employees who had agreed to notify their employer and relinquish their employment in case they altered their nonunion status. Justices Holmes, Brandeis and Clarke dissented. See Cook, W. W., “Privileges of Labor Unions in the Struggle for Life,” 27 Yale Law Journal 779 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Powell, T. R., “Collective Bargaining before the Supreme Court,” 33 Political Science Quarterly 396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also 52 American Law Review 95, 6 California Law Review 302, 86 Central Law Journal 39, 18 Columbia Law Review 252, 3 Cornell Law Quarterly 317, 31 Harvard Law Review 648, 16 Michigan Law Review 250, 3 St. Louis Law Review 54, and 27 Yale Law Journal 578.
94 (1918) 246 U. S. 289.
95 (1918) 247 U. S. 102.
96 (1918) 246 U. S. 199.
97 (1918) 247 U. S. 372.
98 (1918) 246 U. S. 335.
99 (1918) 246 U. S. 297. See 86 Central Law Journal 259, 18 Columbia Law Review 611, and 27 Yale Law Journal 812.
100 (1918) 246 U. S. 304. See 31 Harvard Law Review 1167.
101 For three cases holding that the complaint against alleged state action did not draw in question the validity of any statute or of any authority exercised under a state, as the phrase is used in the Judicial Code authorizing writs of error from the Supreme Court, and that review of the questions raised could be obtained, if at all, only “under that clause of the certiorari provision which reads ‘or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, etc.,” see Stadelman v. Miner, (1918) 246 U. S. 544; Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. v. Gilbert, (1917) 245 U. S. 162; and Ireland v. Woods, (1918) 245 U. S. 323.
102 (1918) 246 U. S. 79. See 86 Central Law Journal 305.
103 (1917) 245 U. S. 154.
104 (1918) 247 U. S. 464.
105 (1917) 245 U. S. 328.
106 (1918) 247 U. 8. 204.
107 (1918) 247 U. S. 142. See 17 Michigan Law Review 90, and 28 Yale Law Journal 282.
108 (1918) 245 U. S. 520. See 86 Central Law Journal 151.
109 (1918) 247 U. S. 16.
110 (1917) 245 U. S. 146. See 87 Central Law Journal 2, and 27 Yale Law Journal 406, 547.
111 (1915) 237 U. S. 531. See 12 American Political Science Review 663.
112 (1918) 246 U. S. 357.
113 (1917) 245 U. S. 345. See 2 Cornell Law Quarterly 126, 31 Harvard Law Review 644, and 27 Yale Law Journal 715.
114 (1918) 245 U. S. 463.
115 (1918) 245 U. S. 467. See 86 Central Law Journal 95, 257, 16 Michigan Law Review 387, 63 Ohio Law Bulletin 141, and 27 Yale Law Journal 572.
116 For cases sustaining administrative action in relation to Indian lands, see Anicker v. Gunsberg, 246 U. S. 110; Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Wismer, 246 U. S. 283; and United States v. Ferguson, 247 U. S. 175, all decided in 1918.
For a case in which tests used for ascertaining the quality of tea were held to be outside the power delegated to the secretary of the treasury, see Waite v. Macy, (1918) 246 U. S. 606.
117 (1918) 245 U. S. 605. See 16 Michigan Law Review 540.
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