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Articles 1711 - 1740 of 2298

Full-Text Articles in Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Federal Trade Commission - Jurisdiction Over Intrastate Commerce Affecting Interstate Commerce, John C. Johnston May 1941

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Federal Trade Commission - Jurisdiction Over Intrastate Commerce Affecting Interstate Commerce, John C. Johnston

Michigan Law Review

Appellee, an Illinois corporation engaged in manufacturing and selling candy within the state of Illinois, used in marketing its product a method of "break and take" packages involving an element of chance. The Federal Trade Commission had found that this practice constituted "unfair competition" and had ordered one hundred twenty of appellee's competitors who were engaged in interstate commerce to cease using it. The commission issued a like order against appellee on the theory that its activities, although wholly intrastate, "affected" interstate commerce. Appellee appealed from the order, contending that the Federal Trade Commission Act did not authorize the commission …

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Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Scope Of Federal Power Over Intrastate Activities-Fair Labor Standards Act, Michigan Law Review May 1941

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Scope Of Federal Power Over Intrastate Activities-Fair Labor Standards Act, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Authority of Congress to regulate intrastate activities through the commerce clause is derived from two principal sources: (1) the federal power to preserve the flow of commerce by eliminating potential burdens and obstructions; (2) the federal power to prohibit the interstate transportation of goods resulting in the spread of conditions which Congress considers detrimental to the general welfare. Utilization of the first source of authority over intrastate activities is exemplified by the National Labor Relations Act, enabling the federal government to regulate an aspect of local production likely to burden commerce. Utilization of the second source of authority is exemplified …

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Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Labor Law - Power Of State To Enjoin Unfair Labor Practices Of Employees In Industries Engaged In Interstate Commerce, Michigan Law Review May 1941

Constitutional Law - Commerce Clause - Labor Law - Power Of State To Enjoin Unfair Labor Practices Of Employees In Industries Engaged In Interstate Commerce, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The appellant (defendant in the case below) and certain of its members were found guilty of unfair labor practices as defined by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Act. Plaintiff-appellee issued a cease and desist order, which was sustained by the lower court despite defendant's contention that the statute was unconstitutional on the ground that Congress had precluded such state legislation affecting interstate industries by enacting the National Labor Relations Act. Held, plaintiff's order sustained. State legislation not repugnant to the Wagner Act is operative in this field so long as the National Labor Relations Board has not acted in the …

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Constitutional Law - Validity Of State Use Tax On Mail Order Sales Of Foreign Corporation, Michigan Law Review Apr 1941

Constitutional Law - Validity Of State Use Tax On Mail Order Sales Of Foreign Corporation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The respondent, a New York corporation licensed to do retail business in Iowa, did a large mail order business there also. Iowa customers sent orders by mail to the company's warehouses located outside that state, and the merchandise was shipped directly to the purchaser. On these mail order sales the company neither collected from its customers, nor paid to the state, the Iowa use tax. The petitioner, chairman of the state tax commission, threatened to cancel the respondent's license as a retailer and its permit to do business in Iowa unless such use tax were paid. Respondent obtained an injunction …

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Constitutional Law-Appropriation For A Public Purpose, Michigan Law Review Apr 1941

Constitutional Law-Appropriation For A Public Purpose, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Wisconsin statute authorized the appropriation of state funds to the American Legion 1941 Convention Corporation of Milwaukee, for the purpose of paying the expenses attendant upon obtaining and holding the national convention in Milwaukee during 1941. The national organization of the American Legion was allowed to decide whether a deposit should be made with them to secure the payment of the expenses, and if so, how much the deposit should be. The Legion required that the city extending an invitation tender to the national organization a certified check for $27,050 to insure payment of estimated expenses. At the request …

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Constitutional Law - Federal Power To Dispose Of Property - Use Of Imposed Conditions To Induce State Conformity To Congressional Policy, Michigan Law Review Apr 1941

Constitutional Law - Federal Power To Dispose Of Property - Use Of Imposed Conditions To Induce State Conformity To Congressional Policy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A federal grant of public land to the city of San Francisco, on condition that the land be used for municipal production and distribution- of water and electricity, contained an express prohibition against the sale of electric energy to any private company for resale. The United States sought to enjoin the city from carrying out a contract with a private corporation whereby the latter distributed the electricity to consumers at rates set by the state railroad commission. The federal circuit court of appeals declared the relationship between the city and corporation was that of agency, rather than vendor and vendee. …

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Constitutional Law - Regulation Of Small Business, Alfred G. Ellick Jr. Mar 1941

Constitutional Law - Regulation Of Small Business, Alfred G. Ellick Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Ever since the development of the guild system the small tradesman or shopkeeper has attempted in various ways to reduce the number of his competitors. The time-honored method, in theory at least, has been to give better service for less money. The more modern method is to select a delegation from the trade itself whose duty it will be to proceed to the state capitol, there to urge the passage of "protective legislation." As a result, legislators have found themselves beseiged by lobbyists who show altruistic concern for the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. Strangely enough, the …

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Constitutional Law - Due Process - Federal Price Control Under Commerce Clause For Milk And Coal Industries, Stark Ritchie Feb 1941

Constitutional Law - Due Process - Federal Price Control Under Commerce Clause For Milk And Coal Industries, Stark Ritchie

Michigan Law Review

As a natural concomitant of the prevailing laissez-faire economic philosophy, a strong feeling against any governmental regulation of business prevailed in American legislatures until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. Prices were considered to be especially immune to governmental tampering. The first step in the breakdown of the notion that government had no power over prices was the case of Munn v. Illinois. This decision introduced the doctrine that the legislature had the right to regulate prices in any business which the courts should find to be "affected with a public interest." Posed as a deceivingly …

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Labor Law - Constitutional Law - National Labor Relations Act- Right Of Employer To Disparage Labor Unions And To Advise His Employees Against Joining Them, William C. Wetherbee Feb 1941

Labor Law - Constitutional Law - National Labor Relations Act- Right Of Employer To Disparage Labor Unions And To Advise His Employees Against Joining Them, William C. Wetherbee

Michigan Law Review

In the spring of 1937 the respondent distributed anti-union literature to its employees. Some of the material specifically denied any design on the part of the employer to prevent the employees from joining a union, and none of the literature pretended to be more than the advice and opinions of the employer. Nevertheless, the unions were thoroughly condemned as rackets, controlled by Communists, which deprive the workingman of his economic freedom and force him to pay for the privilege of working. The National Labor Relations Board found that the distribution of this literature interfered with, restrained, and coerced the employees …

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Council And Court: The Handbill Ordinances, 1889-1939, James K. Lindsay Feb 1941

Council And Court: The Handbill Ordinances, 1889-1939, James K. Lindsay

Michigan Law Review

The extent to which a municipality may regulate or prohibit the distribution of handbills and circulars on its streets and from house to house has been thoroughly considered by the courts in the last two years. These recent cases reveal one phase of a battle historically rich and presently important to the American people. It is the thrust of a principle-the right of free speech and press-against the encroachments of municipal governing bodies concerned with the practical problem of keeping their streets clean. The municipal official sees the problem thus: "One of the small but aggravating nuisances which most cities …

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Constitutional Law- Eminent Domain - Power Of State To Condemn Land For Low-Cost Housing And Transfer To The United States, Oscar Freedenberg Jan 1941

Constitutional Law- Eminent Domain - Power Of State To Condemn Land For Low-Cost Housing And Transfer To The United States, Oscar Freedenberg

Michigan Law Review

Public low-cost housing legislation on a national scale in this country began with title II, section 202 of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which authorized the administrator to embark upon a program for "construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regulation or control of low-cost housing and slum-clearance projects." But soon thereafter, in United States v. Certain Lands in the City of Louisville, a majority of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided that the N.I.R.A. was unconstitutional so far as it attempted to authorize the condemnation of land by the United …

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Constitutional Law - Criminal Law And Procedure - Right To Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Walter Muller Jan 1941

Constitutional Law - Criminal Law And Procedure - Right To Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Walter Muller

Michigan Law Review

Robbery of a Federal Reserve Bank and jeopardizing lives by the use of dangerous weapons were the charges brought against defendant in a federal district court. Ten months after being taken into custody, he was finally brought to trial. On the latter date, for the first time, the defendant expressed to the court a desire to engage different counsel because of recent difficulties he had had with his original choice. The defendant was the complaining petitioner in a pending disbarment proceeding against his attorney. But the record did not show that the defendant disclosed the nature of those differences to …

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Constitutional Interpretation And Judicial Self-Restraint, Vincent M. Barnett Jr. Dec 1940

Constitutional Interpretation And Judicial Self-Restraint, Vincent M. Barnett Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The newly reconstituted Supreme Court of the United States has become the center of an earnest controversy with respect to the true role of the Court in constitutional interpretation. The general controversy is, of course, far from new. What makes it of more than ordinary significance is that the Court itself is revealing a tendency substantially to alter the extent, if not the nature, of judicial review. This tendency has not yet become clearly dominant, but it is apparent enough to shake the implicit faith in the Court of many of those to whom, before 1937, any criticism of the …

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Constitutional Law - Labor Law - Peaceful Picketing Guaranteed By Due Process Clause Of Fourteenth Amendment, Eugene T. Kinder Nov 1940

Constitutional Law - Labor Law - Peaceful Picketing Guaranteed By Due Process Clause Of Fourteenth Amendment, Eugene T. Kinder

Michigan Law Review

In the recent Thornhill and Carlson decisions the Supreme Court of the United States declared an Alabama statute and a California county ordinance prohibiting all picketing, peaceful or otherwise, unconstitutional on the ground that such broad legislation deprived employees and union members of their right of free speech, guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In holding that employees and workers have a constitutional right to publicize the facts of a labor dispute, the Court was but taking another step in its recent crusade for the preservation of civil liberties. …

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Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - State Regulation Of Exports Of Intoxicating Liquor, Michigan Law Review Jun 1940

Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - State Regulation Of Exports Of Intoxicating Liquor, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

On being refused a license, a carrier operating under the provisions of the Federal Motor Carrier Act sought to enjoin public officials of Kentucky from enforcing the penal and contraband portions of the Kentucky Liquor Law, which required a license from the state as a prerequisite to the right to transport liquor. Plaintiff claimed that the state act was a violation of its rights under the commerce clause in that the requirement of the license placed an unconstitutional burden on its right to transport liquor in interstate commerce. On appeal from a federal three-judge court's ruling sustaining a motion to …

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Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - Validity Of Ordinance Requiring Drummer's License, Michigan Law Review Jun 1940

Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - Validity Of Ordinance Requiring Drummer's License, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, a door-to-door salesman, solicited orders in Minnesota for goods, which were later shipped from his employer's factory in Wisconsin to his house in Minnesota. There he broke the original packages and filled his customers' orders by delivering the goods in a truck provided him by his employer. Defendant was convicted of violating a municipal ordinance requiring a license of all door-to-door canvassers. Held, the ordinance was unconstitutional as an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce, and the conviction should be set aside. City of Waseca v. Braun, (Minn. 1939) 288 N. W. 229.

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Constitutional Law - Psychopathic Proceeding - Due Process And Jury Trial, Michigan Law Review Jun 1940

Constitutional Law - Psychopathic Proceeding - Due Process And Jury Trial, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Proceedings were brought against appellant under a Minnesota statute providing for commitment of psychopathic persons who showed habitual sexual misconduct. Appellant appealed to the state supreme court for a writ of prohibition, claiming denial of due process. Appellant's contentions were overruled and he appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Held, the statute did not deny due process. Minnesota ex rel. Pearson v. Probate Court, (U.S. 1940) 60 S. Ct. 523.

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The Constitution And A "Planned Economy", Henry Rottschaefer Jun 1940

The Constitution And A "Planned Economy", Henry Rottschaefer

Michigan Law Review

A little more than a decade has passed since the collapse of the wildest speculative orgy ever indulged in by a nation not markedly given to underestimating its own economic and financial potentialities. It came at a time when the conjuncture of world-wide economic forces combined with almost world-wide unsound practices in the fields of international trade and finance had created an extremely unstable economic situation throughout the world. It would require a degree of optimism as large as that entertained by the speculative community during the "boom period" to believe that the measures and policies adopted and followed during …

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Constitutional Law - Eminent Domain - Value As Fixed By Agreement Between The Parties - When Is Property Taken For Purpose Of Determining Payment Of Interest?, John H. Pickering May 1940

Constitutional Law - Eminent Domain - Value As Fixed By Agreement Between The Parties - When Is Property Taken For Purpose Of Determining Payment Of Interest?, John H. Pickering

Michigan Law Review

Defendant's land, situated between the riverside and set-back levees of the proposed floodway extending along the western bank of the Mississippi from Bird's Point to New Madrid, Missouri, was inundated in the flood of 1937, at which time the floodway, with its system of fuse plugs (whereby the riverbank levee was to be lowered to allow flood waters to spend their destructive force by spreading over larger areas) was not yet in operation. Thereafter the United States, under authority conferred by the Flood Control Act of 1928, instituted condemnation proceedings to secure flowage rights over defendant's land. Defendant claimed that …

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Constitutional Law - Privileges And Immunities Of Federal Citizenship - Discriminatory Tax On Out-Of-State Bank Deposits - Colgate V. Harvey Overruled, C. Eugene Gressman Mar 1940

Constitutional Law - Privileges And Immunities Of Federal Citizenship - Discriminatory Tax On Out-Of-State Bank Deposits - Colgate V. Harvey Overruled, C. Eugene Gressman

Michigan Law Review

A Kentucky statute imposed on its citizens an annual ad valorem tax on their bank deposits outside the state at the rate of fifty cents per $100 and at the same time imposed on their bank deposits within the state a similar tax at the rate of ten cents per $100. Decedent, a resident and citizen of Kentucky, died in 1929. On several prior tax assessment dates, he had large funds on deposit in New York banks which he failed to report for taxation purposes. The state brought suit against the executor to recover the tax, interest, and penalties. The …

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Taxation - Constitutional Law - Power Of Congress To Exempt Federal Instrumentalities From Taxation, Michigan Law Review Mar 1940

Taxation - Constitutional Law - Power Of Congress To Exempt Federal Instrumentalities From Taxation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation instituted a mandamus proceeding against the clerk of the superior court of the city of Baltimore to compel the recording of a mortgage upon payment of the ordinary recording charge and without affixing stamps in compliance with the state recording tax. The lending process of the HOLC is expressly declared by Congress to be exempt from taxation. Held, the tax is invalid in so far as it purports to cover the lending process. All justices concurred. Pittman v. Home Owners' Loan Corp., 308 U. S. 21, 60 S. Ct. 15 (1939).

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Constitutional Law - Original Jurisdiction Of United States Supreme Court - Availability As A Procedural Remedy To Avoid Multiple Taxation, Benjamin W. Franklin Mar 1940

Constitutional Law - Original Jurisdiction Of United States Supreme Court - Availability As A Procedural Remedy To Avoid Multiple Taxation, Benjamin W. Franklin

Michigan Law Review

The state of Massachusetts instituted an original proceeding against the state of Missouri and individual citizens of Missouri for leave to file a bill of complaint, alleging that M. B. Blake died domiciled in Massachusetts; that she had created three trusts of securities, reserving a power of revocation over two; that the securities were held in Missouri where the trustees resided; that both states had statutes subjecting to taxation property passing by deed, grant or gift, made or intended to take effect in possession or enjoyment after the donor's death; that the Massachusetts statute taxed intangible property only when owned …

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Constitutional Law - Delegation Of Legislative Power - Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, Edward S. Biggar Feb 1940

Constitutional Law - Delegation Of Legislative Power - Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, Edward S. Biggar

Michigan Law Review

The declared policy of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 was to raise the purchasing power of agricultural commodities and, at the same time, to protect the interest of the consumer. The Secretary of Agriculture was empowered to issue orders which, in his belief, based upon a consideration of evidence introduced at a public hearing, would tend to effectuate this policy. Certain minimum requirements as to the provisions of the orders were imposed. For any order to be effective, it must have been approved by a proportion of the producers of the commodity concerned. Pursuant to the provisions of …

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Constitutional Law - Equal Protection Of The Laws - Discrimination Against Transients Vending Purchased Produce, Michigan Law Review Feb 1940

Constitutional Law - Equal Protection Of The Laws - Discrimination Against Transients Vending Purchased Produce, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Minneapolis ordinance required transient dealers in farm produce to procure a license, but exempted farmers selling their own produce. The appellant was fined for selling butter without the necessary transient merchant license as provided by the ordinance. On appeal, appellant contended that the ordinance was unconstitutional because of class discrimination since (1) sellers in established places of business paid one type of fee while the transients paid another, and (2) farmers selling produce grown by themselves were exempt while other transients were required to pay a fee and furnish bond. Held, that the ordinance was unconstitutional because the …

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Constitutional Law - National Firearms Act - Usurpation Of Police Power Of States - Constitutional Right To Bear Arms, Michigan Law Review Jan 1940

Constitutional Law - National Firearms Act - Usurpation Of Police Power Of States - Constitutional Right To Bear Arms, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendants were indicted for violating section 11 of the National Firearms Act by transporting a firearm in interstate commerce without having registered it, and without having in their possession a stamp-affixed written order for the firearm. Their demurrer alleged that the act was unconstitutional because it was not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the states, and because it infringed the constitutional right to bear arms. The district court sustained the demurrer on the ground that this section of the act violated the constitutional right to bear arms. Held, on appeal, that the …

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Contempt - Constitutional Law - Pardons - Power Of A Governor To Pardon For Contempt, W. Wallace Kent Jan 1940

Contempt - Constitutional Law - Pardons - Power Of A Governor To Pardon For Contempt, W. Wallace Kent

Michigan Law Review

Dolan and Quinn were indicted for crime, and while awaiting trial were cited for contempt because of alleged attempts to influence members of the jury panel who might be drawn to sit on the jury in the trials of Dolan and Quinn. They were convicted of contempt and committed to jail, from which they petitioned the governor for pardon. The governor and his council adopted an order requiring the opinion of the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court on the question whether the governor had power to pardon such a contempt. Held, these contempts were criminal in their nature …

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Evidence - Constitutional Law - Use Of Statutory Presumptions In Criminal Cases, Edward M. Watson Jan 1940

Evidence - Constitutional Law - Use Of Statutory Presumptions In Criminal Cases, Edward M. Watson

Michigan Law Review

The recent efforts on the part of state legislatures to increase the effectiveness of their criminal codes has resulted in extending the use of the statutory presumption to new fields of criminal law. The reaction which necessarily follows such an innovation upon traditional practice has appeared in the form of renewed attacks upon the constitutionality of the device, accompanied by the usual expressions of alarm concerning the "threat to liberty" that lurks in the use of this "mechanistic" instrument of "arbitrary oppression."

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Dicey's Law Of The Constitution: A Review, William A. Robson Dec 1939

Dicey's Law Of The Constitution: A Review, William A. Robson

Michigan Law Review

The first edition of this celebrated work appeared in 1885; and such was its vogue until ten or fifteen years ago that there is scarcely anyone over thirty-five years of age who studied law, politics or constitutional history at a university or professional law school in England and the British Dominions who was not "brought up" on Dicey. "Dicey on the Constitution" was regarded for generations not merely as a perfect, accurate and comprehensive statement of the principles of the British system of government; but also as a reliable explanation of its superior virtues and liberties. The book attained an …

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Constitutional Law- State Regulation Of Hours Of Labor - Police Power And Due Process, Michigan Law Review Dec 1939

Constitutional Law- State Regulation Of Hours Of Labor - Police Power And Due Process, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A South Carolina statute prohibited labor of employees in enumerated manufacturing and mercantile establishments for more than fifty-six hours per week or more than twelve hours in any one day. Plaintiffs were druggists who brought suit to restrain the commissioner of labor from enforcing the statute. A temporary restraining order was issued and the commissioner of labor appealed. Held, the statute was unconstitutional as in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses in both state and federal constitutions. Gasque, Inc. v. Nates, (S. C. 1939) 2 S. E. (2d) 36.

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Retroactive Application Of Law-A Problem In Constitutional Law, Edward S. Stimson Nov 1939

Retroactive Application Of Law-A Problem In Constitutional Law, Edward S. Stimson

Michigan Law Review

May an overruling decision be applied to ascertain the legal effect of prior conduct? In cases arising under the diversity of citizenship jurisdiction, the United States Supreme Court has held that the federal courts should apply earlier state court decisions, and not a decision overruling them, whenever the retroactive application of the new rule would adversely affect a party who had changed his position in reliance on the decisions overruled. In the absence of such reliance and change of position it has sustained the retroactive application of a new rule. If the basis of the first principle is elemental fairness …

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