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Foreword, Louis H. Pollak

Michigan Law Review

Introduction to the Symposium Reflections on United States v. Lopez

"A Government Of Limited And Enumerated Powers": In Defense Of United States V. Lopez, Steven G. Calabresi

Michigan Law Review

The Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Lopez marks a revolutionary and long overdue revival of the doctrine that the federal government is one of limited and enumerated powers. After being "asleep at the constitutional switch" for more than fifty years, the Court's decision to invalidate an Act of Congress on the ground that it exceeded the commerce power must be recognized as an extraordinary event. Even if Lopez produces no progeny and is soon overruled, the opinion has shattered forever the notion that, after fifty years of Commerce Clause precedent, we can never go back to the …

Commerce!, Deborah Jones Merritt

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I explore the Supreme Court's new definition of "Commerce ... among the several States."9 In Part I, I examine three new principles that Lopez announces and that could significantly rework the Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Part II, however, shows that these principles must be understood in the context of almost a dozen factors narrowing the Supreme Court's Lopez decision. Part II also demonstrates that the lower courts have understood the contextual uniqueness of Lopez and already have distinguished the decision in upholding more than half a dozen broad exercises of congressional authority. Part III then shows that …

Enumerated Means And Unlimited Ends, H. Jefferson Powell

Michigan Law Review

United States v. Lopez can be read as a fairly mundane disagreement over the application of a long-settled test. The Government defended the statute under review in the case, the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, along familiar lines as a permissible regulation of activity affecting interstate and foreign commerce.

In this essay, I do not address the question whether Lopez was an important decision. My concern instead is with the problem that underlies Lopez's particular issue of the scope of the commerce power: Given our commitment to limited national government, in what way is the national legislature actually limited? …

Second Generation State Takeover Legislation: Maryland Takes A New Tack, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the approach recently adopted by the Maryland legislature in special session one year after the Supreme Court's decision in MITE. Maryland has departed radically from the regulatory approach of first generation statutes; however, this Note argues that the statute has failed to escape the constitutional infirmities of its predecessors. Part I outlines the various mechanisms that regulate acquisition of corporate control: the federal tender offer regulatory mechanism known as the Williams Act, state takeover legislation such as the Illinois statute invalidated in MITE, and the new Maryland statute. Part II analyzes the debate concerning the …

Regulation Of Business - Fair Trade Laws - Application Of The Mcguire Act To Mail Order Sales Emanating In A Non-Fair Trade Jurisdiction, Lawrence W. Sperling S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant's store was located in the District of Columbia, a jurisdiction which does not have a statute permitting resale price maintenance. The defendant sent advertising and made mail order sales of plaintiff's product to consumers in Maryland, at prices below the resale price established by the plaintiff in accordance with the Maryland Fair Trade Act. Plaintiff sued to enjoin such advertising and sales on the ground that they were violations of the Maryland statute. On defendant's motion to dismiss, held, overruled without prejudice. On the main point in issue, however, the court ruled that neither the Maryland Fair Trade …

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Federal Jurisdiction In Trade-Mark Infringement Proceedings Under The Lanham Act, Richard R. Dailey

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff's trade-mark, "Minute Maid," had been registered under the Lanham Act in 1952 and had been used in interstate commerce in connection with the sale of frozen fruit juice concentrates since that time. Defendant's trade-mark consisted in part of the words "Minute Made." Defendant used its mark wholly within the State of Florida in the processing and sale of frozen meat products. Both plaintiff and defendant were Florida corporations. In a suit for trade-mark infringement, jurisdiction of the federal district court depended. on the provisions of the Lanham Act. The complaint alleged damage to plaintiff's good will established in interstate …

Coverage Of The Fair Labor Standards Act, Malcolm M. Davisson

Michigan Law Review

The writer published an article dealing with the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in the June, 1943 issue of the Michigan Law Review. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the most important decisions since the preparation of that article (March, 1943) and to examine the applicability of the act to certain activities not there discussed.

Securities Legislation - Securities Act - Stop Order Proceedings - Administrative Tests Of Materiality, Bertram H. Lebeis

Michigan Law Review

With a view toward correcting many of the abuses which had accompanied the distribution of securities, the Congressional mandate embodied in the Securities Act of 1933, together with the regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted in pursuance thereof, require the publication of much information previously withheld from the investing public. The basic objective of the act is the full disclosure of every essentially important element attending issues of securities in interstate commerce or through the mails, and to that end the commission is empowered to issue a stop order suspending the effectiveness of a registration statement if it …

"Extra Time For Overtime" Now Law, Frank E. Cooper

Michigan Law Review

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 presents a great many legal and practical problems of importance commensurate with the comprehensiveness of the act itself, which is probably the most far-reaching of the New Deal statutes since the N. R. A. The act is conceived on the theory that any physical handling of goods destined to be subsequently shipped to another state is an act so closely and substantially related to the flow of interstate commerce as to be subject to Congressional regulation, and thus depends for its validity upon an extension of the theories approved in the Wagner Act …

Corporations - Interpretation Of The "Public Offering" Exemption Of The Federal Securities Act And State Blue-Sky Laws, Gerald L. Stoetzer

Michigan Law Review

Section 5 of the Federal Securities Act of 1933, as amended, declares that it shall be unlawful to use any means of transportation or communication in interstate commerce or of the mails to dispose of securities or transmit a prospectus thereon unless a registration statement as required by the act is in effect and unless the prospectus meets the statutory requirements. However, certain securities and transactions are expressly exempted from application of the act. Among the exemptions set out in section 4 are those "transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering."

The Patman Act In Practice, Blackwell Smith

Michigan Law Review

A recent act of Congress directed against price discrimination and related phases of buying and selling has already become famous as the Robinson-Patman Act, so named for its two principal sponsors in Congress. This act has been much written about, and yet those whose law practice confronts them with daily problems in its application to the actuality of the business world find daily new aspects. The act has something to say with reference to every business transaction (in or related sufficiently to interstate commerce) which involves a price or a service or a facility in connection with the sale of …

Federal Incorporation, Myron W. Watkins

Michigan Law Review

Since the beginning of our national history the Constitution, which is essentially the source of the law rather than its framework, has with more or less promptitude fulfilled the function of sanctioning new rules of action which will permit a fairly symmetrical institutional development in the face of the changing conditions of the environment in which the people live and think and act. Always the habits of the people are changing, always the situation facts are being modified, and the Constitution in its widest and truest meaning but provides the means whereby thru this flux the body of the people …

The Constitutionality Of Federal Legislation Concerning Employer And Employee Engaged In Interstate And Foreign Commerce, Carl V. Wisner

Michigan Law Review

To what extent does the relation of employer and employee, when engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, come within the regulating power of Congress? The power of Congress to legislate concerning employer and employee, where the service is rendered in interstate or foreign commerce, has been recently questioned in several important Federal decisions. The ground on which such legislation has been challenged is that it is an attempt by Congress to regulate what is not commerce, that "creating new liabilities growing out of the relations of master and servant on the one hand and regulating commerce on the other are …