The United States Supreme Court - 1948-1949

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1-1-1949
Te United States Supreme Court: 1948-1949
John P. Frank
Yale Law School
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HeinOnline -- 17 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1 1949-1950
TI-lE
UNIVI:RSITY OF CI-IICAGO LAW REVIEW
VOLUME 17
AUTUMN 1949
NUMBER I
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49*
JoHN P. FRANKt
I
F Supreme Court Justices ever wish they had a more interesting
way to make a living, then the thought must have occurred to them
frequently during the October, 1948 term; for as terms go, it was
rather dull. If a social, an economic, and a political historian were each to
write a volume on America in the decade of the 194o's, it is highly pos-
sible that, without being careless draftsmen, none of them would include
any reference to the work of the Supreme Court at the 1948 term. The
sole event certain to be chronicled is the tragic death of Justice Murphy
shortly after the close of the term. Termination of his judicial work is of
considerably more importance in the history of the Supreme Court as an
institution than any other event of the y e a r . ~
I. HIGH SPOTS OF THE YEAR
The year's excitement, by no means intense, was concentrated in the
area of labor relations, which provided one-sixth of the year's cases. Per-
haps the most important development of the year was labor's discovery
that the Constitution would not save it from restrictive legislation. How-
ever, this could have been a surprise only to those labor lawyers who had
read the decisions of recent years with blind optimism.
Of the :five cases of greatest importance, three concerned labor: Giboney
v. Empire Storage&- Ice Co.,X Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern
* This article purports to be as much a social survey as a legal analysis of the work of the
Supreme Court at the last term. It is the third in a contemplated annual series and is written
in part for the legal, social, and economic historians of the future who may :find it useful to
have a contemporary view of the last term's work. The preceding articles on the 1946 term,
IS Univ. Chi. L. Rev. I (1947), and the I947 term, 16 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. I (1948), will here-
after be cited as 1946 Term Article and 1947 Term Article.
t Associate Professor of Law, Yale University.
t The death of Justice Rutledge occurred after this article went to press.
I 336 u.s. 490 (1949).
I
2
THE UNIVERSITY OF CIDCAGO LAW REVIEW
Iron&- Metal Co./ and International Union, UAWv. WERB.3 The unani-
mous decision in the Giboney case upheld restrictions on peaceful picket-
ing; the Lincoln Federal case upheld a Nebraska anti-closed-shop statute.
While both have a quality of inevitability, the Giboney case in particular
begins a major new chapter in the constitutional law of labor relations. It
opens wide for discussion the question of how far governments may go in
restraining picketing. However, in terms of immediate results the U A W
decision, involving the extent to which the right to strike is protected by
the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts, has proved the most important case
of the year; for already three states have found in it an apparently un-
limited right to forbid strikes.
The other two cases of most significance are Wolf v. Colorado4 and Ter-
miniello v. Chicago.
5
The Wolf case called for the first determination by
the Court of the extent to which the states are limited by the 14th Amend-
ment in making unreasonable searches and seizures. The Court in effect
compromised on the issue, holding that the states are forbidden as a mat-
ter of due process from permitting unreasonable searches and seizures,
but that evidence thus obtained would be admissible. In the Terminiello
case, an unfrocked priest sponsored by Gerald L. K. Smith made some
nasty observations in a Chicago auditorium to a group of adherents. The
place was surrounded by a hostile crowd. 'Lhe speaker was convicted of
disorderly conduct, essentially for having incited the mobs within and
without. In setting aside his conviction, the Court was faced with the
vital problem: Under what circumstances, if any, may speech be sup-
pressed because it incites those who hear to lawless acts against the speak-
er and his adherents?
II. REGULATION OF LABOR AND BUSINESS
LABOR
Had the general counsels of the two major labor federations sent brief
memoranda to their executive committees at the close of the 1948 term
of the Supreme Court, those memoranda could well have read something
like this:
To the Executive Committee of the AFL (or CIO):
It is now apparent that organized labor cannot rely upon the federal courts to set
aside the restrictive labor legislation of recent years. If we are to escape hostile legis-
lation hereafter, we must rely even more heavily than before upon political rather than
legal action.
335 U.S. 525 (r949). A related case was AFL v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538
(r949).
3 336 u.s. 245 (I949).
4
6g s. Ct. I359 (I949). s 6g s. Ct. 894 (I949).
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49
3
This is the lesson of the Lincoln Federal and Giboney cases, for they in-
volved fundamental decisions in constitutional law. But there were many
minor labor cases as well.
6
National Labor Relations Board orders were
reviewed in three instances. The only case of any novelty held that an
employer-owner of a company town could not discriminate against unions
by refusing permission to use the company's meeting hall, the only in the
town.
7
The more important cases interpreting the Wagner and Taft-Hartley
Acts involved the jurisdictional relationship of state and national labor
boards. Three cases arising from orders of the Wisconsin Board, all involv-
ing industries in interstate commerce, produced these results: (r) A state
board could not determine the appropriate bargaining unit in an inter-
state telephone company and certify a representative, even though the
national board had not acted. Since the two boards might give directly
conflicting orders, the situation was "too fraught with potential conflict to
permit intrusion of the state agency."
8
(2) A state board could penalize
an employer who enforced a closed-shop agreement which was contrary
to state law, since such action under state authority did not conflict with
the Wagner or Taft-Hartley Acts.
9
(3) A state board could declare as an
unfair labor practice a series of sporadic work stoppages intended to co-
erce an employer, but which did not amount to a conventional strike. The
latter case, International Union, UAW v. WERB,Z
0
is of such striking im-
portance that it will be discussed at length below.
The Lincoln Federal case, one of the two cases categorized above as of
outstanding importance to labor, also involved a state statute forbidding
6
Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U.S. 3777 (1949), held the Fair Labor Standards Act
applicable to workers employed under federal government contracts on a lend-lease base in
Bermuda. But Foley Bros. v. Filardo, 336 U.S. 281 (1949), held the Federal Eight Hour Law
inapplicable to United States citizens employed in Iran. Urie v. Thompson, 69 S. Ct. 1018
(1949), held that both the FELA and the Federal Boiler Inspection Act covered occupational
diseases.
7 NLRB v. Stowe Spinning Co., 336 U.S. 226 (1949). The other two Board cases were
NLRB v. Crompton-Highland Mills, Inc., 69 S. Ct. 960 (1949), holding that an employer who
by-passed collective bargaining negotiations then in progress to give a wage increase without
reference to the negotiators had committed an unfair labor practice; and NLRB v. Pittsburgh
Steamship Co., 69 S. Ct. 1283 (1949), considering alleged bias of a trial examiner.
8
LaCrosse Telephone Co. v. WERB, 336 U.S. 18 (1949). The case called for and received
routine application of Bethlehem Steel Co. v. N.Y. State Lab. Rei. Bd., 330 U.S. 767 (1947).
On the general subject of the relation of state and national labor laws see State Labor Laws in
the National Field, 61 Harv. L. Rev. 84o (1948). There are numerous industries over which
the NLRB does not normally take jurisdiction, with an estimated labor force in 1940 of thir-
teen million workers. Killingsworth, State Labor Relations Acts 3 (1948).
9 Algoma Plywood Co. v. WERB, 336 U.S. 301 (1949).
10
336 u.s. 245 (1949).
4
THE:UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
the closed shop. With the decline and fall of the New Deal, the states be-
gan to pass restrictive labor legislation which served as a forerunner for
the Taft-Hartley Act. Statutes of North Carolina and Nebraska forbade
both the yellow-dog contract and the closed shop, by making it illegal for
an employer to discharge his employees because they were or were not
union members. In the Lincoln Federal case, the Court, speaking through
Justice Black, held these statutes valid.u
This closed-shop case had elements in common with the picketing case,
Giboney v. Empire Storage&' Ice Co.,
12
which involved the picketing of an
ice company by independent door-to-door peddlers in Kansas City, Mis-
souri. About So per cent of the ice peddlers were in a union, and as part
of an organizing campaign, they determined to picket those ice com-
panies which sold to nonunion handlers. Empire obtained an injunction
in a Missouri state court against the pickets. On appeal the Missouri
Supreme Court, upholding the injunction, reasoned that if Empire re-
fused to sell ice to nonunion handlers, it would violate the state restraint-
of-trade statute and thus commit a crime. The United States Supreme
Court affirmed in a unanimous opinion by Justice Black. In both the
Giboney and Lincoln Federal cases the underlying labor arguments claimed
denial of freedom of speech, press and assembly, due process, equal pro-
tection, and perhaps freedom from involuntary servitude.
As an attempt to invalidate the anti-closed-shop statute, these argu-
ments are unsubstantial. It is almost impossible to comprehend just how
the freedoms of communication protected by the First Amendment can
be involved in a restraint on closed shops. In the due process argument
the union claimed that the anti-closed-shop statutes deprived it of the
right to make any contract it chose with the employer; an attempt, in a
sense, to resurrect the now obsolete theory under which laws forbidding
yellow-dog contracts were once invalidated.x
3
Today's fixed conviction
that the states' power to legislate must not be put into a strait jacket by a
broad interpretation of the due process clause leaves no room for the un-
ion's argument on this point.r4
n Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co., decided together with
Whitaker v. North Carolina, 335 U.S. 525 (1949). The companion case, AFL v. American Sash
& Door Co., 335 U.S. 538 (1949), upheld a similar Arizona statute.
12
336 U.S. 490 (1949). See Free Speech and Picketing for "Unlawful Objectives," r6 Univ
Chi. L. Rev. 701 (1949).
1
3 Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. I (1914); Adair v. United States, 2o8 U.S. r6r (1907).
1
4 This now familiar view was expressed again by the Court this year in Daniel v. Family
Sec. Life Ins. Co., 336 U.S. 220, 224 (1949), in upholding a South Carolina statute requiring
separation of the undertaking and insurance businesses: "We cannot say that South Carolina
is not entitled to call the funeral insurance business an evil. Nor can we say that the statute
5
The equal protection argument is somewhat more tenable. Where an
anti-closed-shop statute is accompanied by an anti-yellow-dog contract
statute, union and nonunion men, as a matter of form at least, concededly
stand on an equal footing. The contention here, however, was that the
statute denied equality by discriminating between organized labor and
employers. The statute obviously does, as a practical matter, throw the
weight of the state to some extent on the side of the employers. The Court
declined to consider this contention seriously, since the acts forbade dis-
charges either to encourage or discourage unions. "This circumstance
alone," said the Court, answers the equal protection argument.'
5
The free speech argument, however, has greater force in the Giboney
picketing case. "Peaceful picketing is the workingman's means of com-
munication," the Court had said,
16
and had protected it by the free
speech concept.'
7
The Giboney case adds a major limitation to previously
stated conceptions of the limits of picket-speech. No one had ever serious-
ly contended that all picketing under all circumstances was beyond re-
straint. There may be "many restrictions upon peaceful picketing. Rea-
sonable numbers, quietness, truthful placards, open ingress and egress,
suitable hours, or other proper limitations ... may be required," Justice
Reed once summarized.
18
But in this case, none of those conditions was
violated. The picketing here was enjoined because it attempted to induce
conduct which was itself a violation of a valid state law. This decision,
while not in conflict with any previous holding,Z
9
nonetheless makes sharp
has no relation to the elimination of those evils. There our inquiry must stop." For careful
analysis of the status of due process, and of the Daniel case see Broad Scope of State Regula-
tory Power Reaffirmed, 24 Ind. L.J. 451 (1949).
1
5 Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron &Metal Co., 335 U.S. 525, 532 (1949).
1
6 Milk Wagon Drivers Union of Chicago v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U.S. 287, 293 (1941).
1
1Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 103 (1940), begins the line, and AFL v. Swing,
312 U.S. 321 (1941), is perhaps its high spot.
IS Carpenters and Joiners Union of America v. Ritter's Cafe, 315 U.S. 722, 738-39 (1941).
1
9 The union relied principally on the Thornhill and Swing cases, the Ritter's Cafe case,
the Meadowmoor case, and Bakery & Pastry Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U.S. 769 (1942). The
Thornhill case is clearly distingnishable, since it involved a total restraint on peaceful picketing
which violated no law. The Swing case held that freedom of speech in peaceful picketing over-
rode a common-law policy against stranger picketing, a point not here involved. The Meadow-
moor and Wohl cases are very close because eaclz involved strikes by vendors of the same sort
as was involved here. Thus, these two cases and the instant case are equally attempts to re-
strain trade by keeping producers from selling to nonunion vendors. But the Meadowmoor
case approved an injunction because of violence in the strike, and the dissent emphasized that
there was no state statute aimed at the alleged restraint. 312 U.S. 275, 3o6 (1941). In the Wohl
case, the state court had upheld an injunction because such picketing was found not to be a
"labor dispute," and the Supreme Court found this an insufficient ground; but both the ma-
jority and a concurring opinion in that case reserved the possibility that the picketing might be
6 THE UNIVERSITY OF CIDCAGO LAW REVIEW
and clear something not fully perceived before: the sj:ates may properly
limit picketing not only because of what the pickets do while they are
picketing, but also because of the object for which they picket. The specific
limitations mentioned by Justice Reed above are all directed against the
act of picketing itself; in the Giboney case, the limitation is directed
against the pickets' purpose.
The vital question raised is: What constitutional status is left to
picketing? Can the states without restraint now prohibit picketing by
systematically illegalizing all the types of employer conduct which pickets
might seek to induce? If a state made it illegal (a) to have a closed shop;
(b) to give wage increases beyond a certain point; or (c) to bargain col-
lectively, could picketing for these objects then be restrained? If so, then
the "workingman's means of communication" may be shut off entirely.
Under the Giboney rule, the answers to the foregoing questions may re-
quire an examination into the validity of the state law prohibiting the
employer's conduct. Because the restraint-of-trade statute in this case
was valid, picketing to induce its breach could be restrained. Presumably
if anti-closed-shop statutes are valid, as the Lincoln Federal case holds
them to be, picketing to induce their breach may also be restrained. The
Court in the Giboney case mentioned no specific limits to this rule, except
that the picketing must be "an integral part of conduct in violation of a
valid criminal statute," and that the illegal object was the "sole" object of
the picketing. The Court also stressed the fact that the restraint-of-trade
statute was not aimed merely at a "slight public inconvenience or annoy-
ance."20
These reservations give little aid in determining what are the constitu-
restrained if, aside from violence or disorder, it were aimed at conduct otherwise unlawful.
315 u.s. 769, ns, 776 (1942).
In the Ritter's Cafe case, a construction union picketed the business place of a contractor's
customer to induce the customer to withdraw his business from the contractor because the
contractor was employing nonunion labor. Texas upheld an injunction against such picketing,
in part because it violated the state anti-trust laws. The Supreme Court affirmed, not on this
ground but on the ground that the place of business being picketed was too far removed from
the actual dispute to give constitutional protection to the picketing. In the instant case the
union seems to argue that since the majority in the Ritter's Cafe case did not rely on the anti-
trust argument, it rejected it. Appellant's Brief, at 30, 31. The Court in the Giboney case de-
scribed the Texas anti-trust contention as an afterthought of the Texas court, and in any case
it was not seriously considered by the dissenters in the Ritter's Cafe case.
The Giboney case gains added significance because it was very ably briefed by the union,
and thus amounts to a rejection of the best arguments that can be made for its point of view.
As the text states, the Giboney case reaffirms the "unlawful purpose" test as the measure
of the validity of picketing. For extended analysis of that standard see 49 Col. L. Rev. 7II
(1949), noting Mayer Bros. Poultry Farms v. Meltzer, So N.Y.S. 2d 874, 274 App. Div. 169
(1948).
Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 502 (1949).
7
tionallimitations on a state's power to make illegal ordinary objects of
picketing. In this respect, the two concurring opinions in the Lincoln
Federal case may be helpful. Justice Frankfurter, in his concurrence, re-
viewed the role of the closed shop in labor history. Dealing with the issue
in terms of the classical Holmes approach to due process, he found the ob-
jectives of closed-shop prohibition "not so unrelated to the experience and
feelings of the community as to render legislation addressing itself to them
wilfully destructive of cherished rights." He did explore the factual issue
of whether the legislation was" fatal to the survival of organized labor,"
22
and concluded that it was not. Unless we assume that this portion of his
opinion was for no purpose, we must conclude that if he had found the
legislation "fatal" to labor, he might have found it unconstitutional.
Justice Rutledge, in a concurrence joined by Justice Murphy, made
very clear that in passing upon the right to restrain picketing, he was not
passing upon the right to restrain strikes. Strikes, he thought, might well
have a protected position under the Thirteenth Amendment, whether or
not they were for the very same purpose as the picketing in the Giboney
case.J Conceivably the argument may be developed that restraints on
labor activities other than a restraint on strikes also compel involuntary
servitude.
The Giboney case, along with the Terminiello case, indicates that the
legal protection of free speech may well develop along the lines advocated
by Professor Meiklejohn in his recent book, Free Speech and Its Relation
to Self-government. He calls for a broader conception of free speech as ap-
plied to political matters and a narrower conception as applied to econom-
ic matters, such as labor disputes.
Since labor must find its basic legal protections not in the Constitution
but in the statutes which its political influence helps pass, the case of
International Union, UAWv. WERB points the direction for future ef-
forts. Section 7 of the Wagner Act and the corresponding provision of the
Taft-Hartley Act, provide that employees shall have the right "to engage
in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining."
4
The
2
' Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron &Metal Co., 335 U.S. 538, 550 (1949).
22
Ibid., at 547
2
3 Ibid., at 557 Compare Pollock v. Williams, 322 U.S. 4 (1944). This is not to suggest that
there was a neatly chiseled Thirteenth Amendment argument. The union argued generally,
"A state may not, to serve its notions of public policy, exempt from the area of economic con-
flict such issues as satisfactory wages, hours, working conditions, and the bargaining power in-
dispensable to their attainment, or treat the peaceful efforts of working men to attain these
objectives as evils within the allowable area of state control." Appellant's Brief, at 32.
2
4 The text language is from the Wagner Act. Section 7 of that Act as amended by the Taft-
Hartley Act is not significantly different for the purposes of this case.
8 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW REVIEW
unions contended that these provisions gave federal legal basis to a right to
strike, "filling the :field," and negating contrary state laws. In the instant
case, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Board enjoined a series of re-
current work stoppages engaged in ostensibly for the purpose of holding
"union meetings." The work stoppages involved were unquestionably
"concerted activity" and were undoubtedly for the statutory purpose. The
issue was thus narrowed to whether some kinds of "concerted activity"
were outside the general protection of the federal statute because of some
implied exception.
Justice Jackson, speaking for a majority of :five, held that there were
some implied exceptions. Sit-down strikes, mutinies, and strikes against
the government, for example, had previously been held not protected by
this provision, even though they had the required concert and purpose."
5
At this point, unfortunately, the opinion becames somewhat ambiguous.
It is not clear whether recurrent intermittent work stoppages are outside
the protection of Section 7 because (a) they are unprotected as a matter of
federal-law, and thus ineligible for the immunity afforded by federal labor
legislation, or because (b) they are illegal as a matter of state law; i.e., il-
legal because Wisconsin chose to make them so. If the latter theory is the
correct interpretation, then Section 7 has been given a narrow scope: the
right to engage in concerted activity as a federal privilege lasts only until
a state makes it illegal, and thus a state can remove any concerted union
activity from the protection of Section 7 if it chooses.
The point is vital. If labor activities are outside the scope of major con-
stitutional protections, and if such labor activities are now also removed
from the protective covering of the Taft-Hartley Act, then states may do
as they will with labor's" concerted activities." The showdown may come
upon review of recent state laws forbidding strikes in public utilities,
which, like any other strikes, are also "concerted activities for the pur-
pose of collective bargaining." New JerseT
6
and Wisconsin
27
courts have
recently held that under the instant decision the states are free to take
public utility strikes out of the protection of Section 7 by declaring such
activities"illegal." Even more significantly, the Supreme Court of Michi-
25 NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 3o6 U.S. 240 (1939); Southern Steamship Co. v.
NLRB, 316 U.S. 31 (1942); and United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258 (1947),
respectively.
26
State v. Traffic Telephone Workers, 27 L.R.R.M. 2071 (1949). Chief Justice Vanderbilt
quotes the UAW case extensively, and concludes, "Thus the power still resides in the States
in a proper case to prohibit strikes notwithstanding federal legislation."
7WERB v. Elec. Ry. Employees, 24L.R.R.M. 2009 (1949), appears to construe the UAW
case as giving the states unlimited power to limit the Wagner and Taft-Hartley provision by
making illegal any strikes they choose.
9
gan has interpreted the U A W decision to uphold the requirement of Mich-
igan law that strikes be approved by a majority vote of all employees in a
bargaining unit.
28
But it is extremely doubtful that the U A W decision, al-
though ambiguous, meant the Taft-Hartley Act protection to be depend-
ent to this extent upon state predilections.
2
9
MONOPOLY AND FREE ENTERPRISE
Unlike the preceding term, in which a very large portion of the cases
arose from the trade laws, the I948 term presented almost no
such disputes. A quarrel over the decree in long standing proceedings
against the Ford Motor Company, and a case against clothing makers in
Massachusetts are of limited significance beyond their particular facts.
30
The most important feature of the latter case was a renewed and unani-
mous assertion that the Sherman Act reaches not only activities "in com-
merce," but also those which" affect commerce." This quiet expansion of
the Act gives it a reach far greater than some members of the present
Court had previously thought it possessed.
31
The two major anti-trust matters were theN ational City Lines and the
Standard Oil cases.
32
Of the two, the former is probably the more impor-
tant, since it can affect most anti-trust suits. The National City Lines case
had been before the Court during the preceding term on contention that
the defendant was entitled to a change of venue in the trial stage under the
doctrine of forum non conveniens, a doctrine which the Court then held
inapplicable to anti-trust suits.
33
Almost immediately thereafter, Con-
gress passed the revised judicial code, which permitted the transfer, on a
forum non conve1tiens theory, of "any civil action."
34
National City Lines
28
''It is difficult, if not quite impossible, to-read the decision in the Wisconsin case, the
U.A.W. case, without coming to the conclusion that in the exercise of its police power a state
may, by legislation, regulate the exercise of the right of employees to strike; providing such
regulations are not in conflict with, or inconsistent with, federal regulation." International
Union, UAW v. McNally, 24 L.R.R.M. 226r, 2266 (1949).
2
9 The dissents by Justices Murphy and Douglas do not interpret the majority as going so
far, although Justice Douglas does interpret the majority as giving the states unlimited power
to determine "the manner of calling of strikes." 336 U.S. 245, 266 (1949). Justice Rutledge
joined both dissents, and Justice Black concurred with Justice Douglas.
J Ford Motor Co. v. United States, 335 U.S. 303 (1948), and United States v. Women's
Sportswear Mfrs. Ass'n, 336 U.S. 460 (1949), respectively.
3
1
This topic is enlarged upon in connection with Mandeville Island Farms v. American
Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U.S. 219 (1948), in the 1947 Term Article, at 6-7.
32 United States v. Nat. City Lines, Inc., 69 S. Ct. 955 (1949), and Standard Oil Co. v.
United States, 69 S. Ct. 1051 (1949), respectively.
33 United States v. Nat. City Lines, Inc., 334 U.S. 573 (1948), discussed in the 1947 Term
Article, at 1o-II.
34 28 u.s.c.A. 1404(a.) (1948).
IO THE UNIVERSITY OF CIDCAGO LAW REVIEW
thereupon renewed its motion, and this time was upheld by the Supreme
Court in the instant case.
Chief Justice Vinson, author of this year's forum non conveniens opin-
ions, considered the effect of the new code on the Clayton Act, together
with the Federal Employers' Liability Act, under both of which the appli-
cability of the forum non conveniens doctrine had been denied.
35
It is quite
clear from the legislative history that the experts who drafted the revised
Code intended, as the Court held, to permit change of venue under that
doctrine in FELA cases,
36
but there is no evidence that anyone had any
such intention of affecting anti-trust suits. The Chief Justice's observation
in the National City Lines case that "the change in anti-trust practice
seems no more radical than the change in Federal Employers' Liability
Act practice"
37
overlooks the fundamental difference in defense strategy
in the two categories of cases.
Since FELA cases usually involve simple torts, it is not ~ c u l t to de-
termine the most sensible place to bring the suit. Anti-trust cases, and
particularly treble damage suits brought by private persons, are very dif-
ferent. If they involve conspiracies over large areas, the proper place for
suit may be very doubtful. Suppose, for example, that the plaintiff is an
independent motion picture theater owner with theaters in two districts,
and that he complains of a conspiracy by twelve defendant corporations
located in various jurisdictions, the overt acts of which were planned in
New York and California and were committed in the districts in which his
theaters are located. Where should he sue?
This problem is accentuated because the defense strategy, where the
defendant is a large corporation, is frequently to wear out the plain-
tiff by protracting the suit indefinitely. Modern procedural devices, meant
to facilitate litigation, are thus used to obstruct it.
38
Experienced anti-
trust lawyers estimate that the National City Lines case will add some
months to the already interminable period of litigation in such matters.
as The FELA problem was considered in Ex parte Collett, 69 S. Ct. 944 (1949), and Kil-
patrick v. Tex. & P.R. Co., 69 S. Ct. 953 (1949).
36 There may be doubt as to whether it was generally perceived that a change was being
made in the FELA, but $e official notes cite Bait. & 0. R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U.S. 44 (1941),
the case holding forum non conveniens inapplicable in FELA cases, as being an example of
what was changed by the revision.
a1 69 S. Ct. 955, 957 (1949).
as Interviews with attorneys in several firms involved in treble damage suits reveal numer-
ous instances in which more than two years have intervened between filing suit and trial.
What with the range of motions to strike, to dismiss, for bill of particulars, plus now the
change of venue, each of which permits of briefs and arguments, opportunities for delay are
large; and interrogatories and depositions, complicated by motions to strike interrogatories,
can make the pre-trial period interminable.
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49 II
Suits have recently been transferred from district courts where they had
already been pending for two years. Some district judges are transferring
cases to get such clumsy matters off their dockets as much as for any other
reason.
39
These are extensive consequences to result from interpretation of
a Code revision which does not declare any deliberate intention on the
point.
The other outstanding anti-trust case was Standard Oil Co. v. United
States.4 Standard sold about 25 per cent of the gasoline in several western
states, much of it for industrial purposes. Half the gasoline it sold through
service stations was sold through those it owned and the other half
through "independents" which had contracts with Standard to sell its
products exclusively. Standard's competitors had similar exclusive con-
tracts with their independents. The action was brought by the government
to enjoin Standard from utilizing these exclusive contracts.
Section 3 of the Clayton Act specifically forbids exclusive distribution
contracts where their effect "may be to substantially lessen competition
or tend to create a monopoly." Standard's principal defense was that
these contracts did not in fact lessen competition; indeed, it contended
that competition was aided by keeping independents in the distribution
field, by assuring them a regular :flow of gas, and by other means.
The issue was drawn in terms of the quantum of evidence which the
defendants were allowed to introduce to substantiate their claims. The
District Court in substance held that the government had proved its case
when it showed that a "substantial" number of outlets and a "substan-
tial'' volume of products were involved. The court thereupon excluded
evidence generally directed toward showing that Standard's method was
used in good faith and was a generally beneficial method of meeting a diffi-
cult marketing problem. The Supreme Court, in a careful opinion by
Justice Frankfurter, affirmed, declaring that a requirements contract vio-
lates Section 3 when "competition has been foreclosed in a substantial
share of the line of commerce affected."4
1
The opinion appears to establish
a general rule, which may have very wide application to American trade
practices: if any producer negotiates exclusive requirement contracts with
a substantial number of distributors or controls a substantial portion of
the market by such contracts, he violates Section 3 of the Clayton Act.
As Justice Frankfurter shows, this appears to be exactly the result con-
templated by the framers of the Act. 4
2
39 See, e.g., Shore Amusements, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., No. n2o-47 (D.C. D.C.,
1949), transferred June 27, 1949, by Judge Holtzoff; Cinema Amusements, Inc. v. Loews, 18
U. S. L. Week 2o2o (1949).
4 69 S. Ct. 1051 (1949). 4' Ibid., at 1o62. "'Ibid., at zo6I n. 15.
I2 THE UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
The significance of the opinion is limited because a producer can so
easily obtain the same benefits by other devices. To list only three: per-
haps the oil companies will buy up the retailers, a course which the
Court's opinions leave open to them;4
3
or perhaps agency contracts will
be used;44 or-and informal conversations with persons acquainted with
the problem indicate that this is a most likely possibility-the distributors
wifi, as a matter of practice, continue to buy exclusively from one com-
pany whether or not they have contracts.
Justice Douglas, dissenting, protested that the opinion would compel
vertical integration, thus forcing the independents out of the field. His
fear was that other decisions of the Court had so weakened the operation
of the anti-trust laws
45
that this practice (which he seemed to consider
a violation of the Clayton Act, but an unimportant one) would be re-
placed by what he would consider more extreme violations of the Sherman
Act. The independent would be supplanted, he feared, by the clerk.
One may doubt that the fate of the independent gas retailer is depend-
ent to this extent on the life or death of the requirements contract; and
one may also doubt that his status now is truly distinct from that of a
clerk. As the Supreme Court itself has pointed out, the resort to small inde-
pendent distributors by large concerns may be motivated by the handy
insulation thus afforded from social security legislation, workmen's com-
pensation, and other employer discomforts. 4
6
In short, the large concerns
continue the independent status of some of their retailers for many rea-
sons, and there is no way to know with assurance that the existence or
nonexistence of requirements contracts controls its continuance. But it is
ttue that other decisions to which Justice Douglas dissented have acceler-
ated the growth of monopoly and make easy the avoidance of the Standard
Oil rule.
TAXATION
There were two cases at the 1948 term involving the power of the states
to tax exports. In one, the taxpayer was exporting a cement plant piece-
meal. The California comity in which he had purchased it assessed a prop-
43 United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495 (1948), is a recent case in point.
44 FTC v. Curtis Pub. Co., 26o U.S. 568 (1923).
4SHe listed United States v. United Shoe Mach. Co., 247 U.S. 32 (1918); United States v.
U.S. Steel Corp., 251 U.S. 417 (1920); United States v. Int. Harvester Co., 274 U.S. 693 (r927);
United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495 (1948); and his own opinion in United States
v. Paramount Pictures, 334 U.S. 131, 173-74 (1948), insofar as he was unable to muster a
majority for an i=ediate divestiture order. It was argued in the 1947 Term Article, at r2,
that in anti-trustlaw, "much of modem doctrine is merely a series of fleabites to the elephant
of 'unification.' "
46 Bakery & Pastry Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U.S. 769, 771 (1942).
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49 13
erty tax on segments of the property dismantled and crated for shipping,
but not yet shipped on the tax assessment day. Justice Douglas for the
Court held that until "the entrance of the articles into the export stream,"
there is no tax immunity.47 The second case arose when the taxpayer,
planning to ship oil to Canada, gathered a large quantity at Dearborn,
Michigan, where it stayed 15 months because of wartime shipping re-
strictions. Dearborn claimed a property tax. Justice Frankfurter, for the
Court, held that so long a storage broke the shipment and subjected the
oil to tax, reducing the shipper's plan to the mere "intent" which had been
insufficient in the cement plant case. 4
8
The result moves the export cases
toward accord in this respect with the cases arising over state taxes on
goods in interstate commerce.
49
Two decisions interpreting the Internal
Revenue Code, Comm'r v. Estate of Church
50
and Estate of Spiegel v.
Comm'r,
51
attracted widespread attention, but as in the past an extended
discussion of this subject is outside the scope of the article. 5
2
OTHER PROBLEMS OF BUSINESS
a) Power and Eminent Domain
Closely related to the public interest, the future development of govern-
ment power projects may be dependent upon a question in eminent domain
and constitutional law touched on by the Court in its 1948 term. This year,
in Grand River Dam Authority v. Grand-Hydro,
5
3 as in many terms before,
the Supreme Court came close to dealing with the ultimate question, but
did not decide it.
The background law in the :field can be analyzed in part by dealing with
only two of the many distinguishable areas-the obligation of the govern-
ment to pay for power rights and for irrigation rights.
Under well established principles, no one can own rights in the flowing
water of navigable streams except by acquiescence or grant of the federal
government. In the leading case, United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Co.,
47 Empress Siderugica, S.A. v. Merced County, 69 S. Ct. 995 (1949).
4B Joy Oil Co. v. State Tax Comm'n, 69 S. Ct. 1075 (1949).
49 :Minnesota v. Blasius, 290 U.S. I (1933), is the leading case in respect to the relation of
delays and taxation of shipments under the commerce clause.
so 335 U.S. 632 (1949).
5
' 335 U.S. 701 (1949).
52 The cases have already received thorough analysis in the legal periodicals. See Bittker,
The Church and Spiegel Cases, 58 Yale L.J. 825, 838 (1949); Conway, I.R.C. 8n(c)-The
Church and Spiegel Interpretation, 34 Corn. L.Q. 376 (1949); Looker, Estate Taxation of Liv-
ing Trusts: The Church and Spiegel Decisions, 49 Col. L. Rev. 437 (1949); Schrenk and Well-
man, The Church and Spiegel Cases, 47 Mich. L. Rev. 655 (1949); Church and Spiegel in
Perspective, 16 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 7II (1949).
Sl 335 U.S. 359 (1948).
14
the Court said, "Ownership of a private stream wholly upon the lands of an
individual is conceivable; but that the running water in a great navigable
stream is capable of private ownership is inconceivable." 54 On the other
hand, in United States v. Cress
55
the Court recognized private ownership of
the running water in a non-navigable stream.
The result of the Chandler-Dunbar rule is that there are at least two situa-
tions in which, when the government adversely affects private power hold-
ings on navigable streams, it incurs no liability for compensation under the
Fifth Amendment. First, if the government condemns land which others had
thought might one day be used for a power project, it need not pay the so-
called a power value" of the land, for the power value is an attribute of the
flowing water, which already belongs to the government. 5
6
This means that
normally the government must pay only the so-called "farm value" of the
land. Second, if the government, by down-stream activities on a navigable
stream, raises the water level of the whole stream within the high-water
boundaries, thus depriving an up-stream private power project of its fall of
water, the government is not required as a matter of constitutional law to
pay for that loss.57
On non-navigable streams, however, opposite results will be obtained
when the Cress rule is applied. Thus under the Cress rule the government
would be required to pay the power value of land it condemns along non-
navigable streams and also would have to pay for the loss of water power
resulting from raising the level of a non-navigable stream. 5
8
The same problems arise as to irrigation rights. If the irrigator has a
vested interest in the use of the water, then the government must pay
extra if it condemns his land, or must compensate him if, without con-
demning his land, it reduces the quantity of his irrigation water by alter-
ing the flow of the stream.
The same constitutional principles apply both to power rights and irri-
54 United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U.S. 53, 69 (1913). See also
Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U.S. 141, 163 (1900); United States v. Appalachian Electric Power
Co., 3II U.S. 377, 427 (1940).
ss 243 u.s. 316 (1917). See note 58 infra.
5
6
United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Co., 229 U.S. 53, 69 (1913). Indeed, if develop-
ments have been made by private persons in a navigable stream without a federal license, they
may be destroyed by the Government without cost to it. Ibid., and see United States v. Chi-
cago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 312 U.S. 592, 599 (1941).
57 United States v. Willow River Power Co., 324 U.S. 499 (1945), is the most recent such
case.
5
8
The latter is the Cress situation. The government raised the water level on a navigable
stream, incidentally raising the level on a non-navigable stream and depriving Cress of a fall
of water. The government was required to pay for this power loss.
gation rights.
59
Nor is the Chandler-Dunbar rule qualified in the western
states by the fact that those states have the" appropriation" rather than
the" riparian" system of water rights.
60
However, there may be a very im-
portant statutory difference between the law applicable to power rights
and the law applicable to irrigation rights. A whole series of federal
statutes dealing with water systems in the west, from the early Acts of
1866 and 1877 to the recent Flood Control Act of 1944, may well have es-
tablished legal rights in the users of irrigation water which were never
granted to power companies.
61
In the past seven years, the government has twice asked the Court to
extend the Chandler-Dunbar rule to non-navigable streams in power-right
controversies.
62
While the Chandler-Dunbar case was carefully considered,
and has been repeatedly followed, the Cress opinion on this point was brief
and almost offhand, and subsequent decisions have held that it "must be
confined to the facts there disclosed." Whether the Court will extend the
Chandler-Dunbar rule remains a mystery. If it does so, the extension may
follow markedly different courses as to the rights of users of water for
power and the rights of users of water for irrigation by virtue of the statu-
tory history in the latter :field.
If the Chandler-Dunbar rule were extended to non-navigable streams,
the right to compensation for both power claimants and irrigation claim-
ants could be left to statutory control. Congress could regulate the com-
pensation to be made for losses with an eye to realities which are not fully
recognized by the broad constitutional principle of just compensation. If
the Chandler-Dunbar rule were not extended, and power companies had to
be paid for the loss of the flowing water as a matter of constitutional law,
existing principles of the law of eminent domain would probably give them
s9 United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co., 174 U.S. 690, 706 (1899).
6o On the distinctions between the two systems see generally Hutchins, Selected Problems
in the Law of Water Rights in the West, U.S. Dept. Ag. Misc. Pub. No. 418 (1942). The "ap-
propriation" doctrines apply equally to navigable and non-navigable streams, ibid., at 35 et
seq., and are the product of state law. The Chandler-Dunbar rule, on the other hand, is a prod-
uct of national constitutional law, and the plenary power of the federal government as to navi-
gable streams at! east is not qualified by the state law. United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Ir-
rigation Co., 174 U.S. 69o, 703-9 (1899); Oklahoma v. Atkinson Co., 313 U.S. 5oS, 534-35
(1941).
6rThe basic early statutes are the Act of July 26, 1866, 14 Stat. 253, 43 U.S.C.A. 661
(1928); Act of July 9, 1870, 16 Stat. 218, 43 U.S.C.A. 661 (1928); and the Desert Land Act
of Mar. 3, 1877, 19 Stat. 377, 43 U.S.C.A. 321 (1928). See also the Reclamation Act of 1902,
32 Stat. 388, 43 U.S.C.A. 391 t1928). The most recent basic statute is the Flood Control
Act of 1946, 6o Stat. 641. Arguably, e.g., Section 8 of the Reclamation Act, 32 Stat. 390 (1902),
43 U.S.C.A. 383 (1928), yielded the federal plenary power as to irrigation interests.
62 United States ex rei. TVA v. Powelson, 319 U.S. 266 (1943); United States v. Willow
River Co., 324 U.S. 499 (1945). Both times the Supreme Court avoided the problem.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
grossly excessive compensation. For example, under current principles of
market value as the basis of constitutional just compensation, power value
might be appraised on the basis of rates charged by power companies,
which might in turn, perhaps due to defective state regulation, have been
beyond all reason.
6
3
In the Grand River case this year the Court once again put aside unan-
swered the question of whether it would overrule the Cress case. An Okla-
homa state development authority condemned land for a hydro-electric
project on a stream which was non-navigable but affected navigation on
other streams. The state was licensed by the Federal Power Commission
to proceed with its project, and it claimed by virtue of the federal license
the right to stand in the same position as would the United States. The
farm value of the land in question was $28I,ooo and the o w ~ r value was
$8oo,ooo. The Oklahoma Supreme Court awarded the latter figure.
The sole question before the Supreme Court was whether anything in
federal law should affect the condemnation price of a state project oper-
ating under state law solely because of the federal license. The majority
was thus able to avoid the Chandler-Dunbar and Cress alternatives by
holding that since the federal license did not carry with it federal eminent
domain principles, the valuation was left to Oklahoma law. Justice Burton
for the Court specifically reserved the question as to the valuation if the
United States had been the taker: "The United States enjoys special
rights and power in relation to navigable streams and also to streams
which affect interstate commerce."
6
4 Justice Douglas, for Justices Black,
Murphy, and Rutledge, dissented, arguing that the license required that
63 Valuation of utility property for condemnation purposes is complicated to such an ex-
tent that at least one state has held that ordinary condemnation proceedings may not be used
for the purpose. Lone Star Gas Co. v. City of Fort Worth, 128 Tex. 392, 98 S.W. 2d 799 (1936).
While valuation for eminent domain purposes is never simply a capitalization of utility earn-
ings, those earnings are considered highly relevant. See Orgel, Valuation Under Eminent
Domain, cc. xvii-xvix, and especially cases p. 708 n. 223. For a briefer statement see IS Am.
Jur. 293 For an example of a claim that a "power right" on a non-navigable stream should
be paid for on a basis of a hypothetical sales rate, see United States ex rei. TVA v. Powelson,
319 U.S. 266, 275 (1943). In a letter to the author, dated August 22, 1949, Joseph C. Swidler,
General Counsel for TV A, stated: "Two problems need to be distinguished. If a court should
allow power-site value as reflected in the market value of the land, that might, of course, result
in substantially higher awards than would be made if power-site value were excluded alto-
gether. If the courts were to go a step further and permit proof of power value by a showing
of the capitalized earnings from a project which might be constructed on the site, as the land-
owners urged in the Powelson case, the results would be much more serious. To determine
power value by the capitalization method requires making assumptions as to all the con-
tingencies which would be involved in constructing and operating a project which does not
exist and never will exist. The trial becomes a field day for expert witnesses and the result is
pure speculation."
64
335 u.s. 359, 373 (1948).
federal valuation rules be applied and, more important, that therefore the
Chandler-Dunbar rule should be invoked.
There are of course possible solutions to the valuation problem other
than the basic approaches suggested above. The Court might undercut the
whole difficulty by a progressively broader definition of "navigable," thus
pulling more and more rivers under the Chandler-Dunbar rule.
6
s It might
avoid much of the problem by rigid adherence to the rule that power value
need not be paid for land taken unless the power project for which the
private owner claims compensation is either actually in existence or ab-
solutely certain of completion, thus avoiding payment for power value
which is at best a speculator's dream.
66
The latter method, of course, can
apply only to valuation of land taken, and not to the situation in which
private projects lose the fall of water by alteration of stream levels.
TABLE 1
Land Amount Total Amount
%Land to
Total
Norris Project ........ $8,740,000 S32,269,ooo 27.1
Appalachia Project .... 467,000 23,762,000 2.0
Ocoee No. 3 Project ... 125,000
8,793,000 !.4
Nottely Project. ...... 441,000 5,384,000 8.2
Chatuge Project ....... 1,151,000 7,036,000 16.4
The relation of land costs to other costs in project construction varies
because different amounts of land are required for reservoir purposes at
different projects, and because land values themselves vary. A few com-
parisons from the TV A showing the wide range in proportion of land
costs are made in Table 1.
6
1
The range in these :five projects of from 1.4 per cent to 27.1 per cent for
land costs is attributable to many factors. The Norris land was not only
great in quantity but was, compared to the other four, rich and settled.
Appalachia and Ocoee are in deep gorges forming natural reservoirs and
requiring comparatively little land. Chatuge is in a comparatively flat
area, requiring a much larger reservoir.
68
And yet the most important
factor causing variation in land cost proportions may be compensable
6s United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 3II U.S. 377 (1940).
66
McGovern v. City of New York, 229 U.S. 363,372 (1913); TVA v. Powelson, 319 U.S.
266 (1943).
6
7 These data are taken from two reports of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Norris
Project, Tech. Rep. No. r, at 612 (1939); and the Apalachia, Ocoee No.3, Nottely, and
Chatuge Projects, Tech. Rep. No.5, vol. 2, 579, 598, 614, 626 (1948).
68 Ibid., passim.
I8 THE UNIVERSITY OF ,CHICAGO LAW REVIEW
power value. The four projects other than Norris are all in what is gen-
erally called the Hiwassee Valley project of the TVA. They are part of the
project considered in TVA v. Powelson,
69
the 1943 Supreme Court deci-
sion which held that, since Powelson's project was incomplete, TVA need
not pay the power value of the land. Had the Powelson case been decided
the other way, the land cost in each of these Hiwassee projects might have
run to about four times what was actually paid.
70
Under such a result the
ratio of land cost to total project cost would have remained comparatively
low at Appalachia and Ocoee No.3, but at Nottely and Chatuge it would
have been extremely high.
This problem is most acute in the Missouri Valley, where over IOO proj-
ects are now in various stages of authorization or of dream. Hardly any
has yet been started. It is obvious that a very large proportion of the
tributaries of the Missouri are not navigable in any real sense. Many of
them are completely dry for large parts of each year. Many of the projects
are in :fiat lands, where large reservoirs will be required. Many are in little
populated areas, where total power sales will be much smaller than in the
populous Tennessee area. 7x
At the present time, costs must be figured so closely on Missouri Val-
ley projects that a cost variation of one-hundredth of a cent for the pro-
duction of each kilowatt-hour of electric power may make the difference
between approval or disapproval of the project.
72
If land costs can range
as high as a quarter of the entire cost of a project, then obviously the dif-
ference between the Chandler-Dunbar and Cress rules may be the differ-
ence between having irrigation, :flood control, and power in some areas of
the northern plains states or doing without them. In some areas, the de-
mand for these services may be so great that the amount of land cost can
do no more than make the services more expensive without prohibiting a
project; but certainly in many instances, land cost will be conclusive.
At the 1949 Term, the Court may finally confront the issue so long post-
poned and either reapprove, overrule, or undercut the Cress decision. It
has laid over to the 1949 term for reargument two cases which squarely
raise the issue.
7
3
69 Note 67 supra.
1 This was the approximate difference involved in the Powelson case.
7
1
The foregoing information is acquired from informal interviews with engineers familiar
with Missouri Valley projects.
12 Information generally acquired from Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Dept. of Interior.
73 Uuited States v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 74 F. Supp. 653 (Ct. Cl., 1947); United
States v. Gerlach Livestock Co., 76 F. Supp. 87 (Ct. Cl., 1948).
b)Patents
While there were few patent cases at the 1948 term, those few did raise
one issue important to the business community and to a survey of the
function of the Supreme Court as an institution of government. That issue
is: Will the Supreme Court ever make effective its repeated commands to
the Patent Office to raise the standard of invention?
The three patent cases this year, except for the discussion they evoke
of this question, were insignificant. An improved anti-perspirant was held
not patentable; the interesting element of the case was the Court's adop-
tion of the Second Circuit's proposition that "skillful experiments in a
laboratory, in cases where the principles of the investigations are well
known, and the achievement of the desired end requires routine work
rather than imagination, do not involve invention."
7
4 A case involving a
patent in the electric welding field is noteworthy primarily because the
Court was unanimous in holding the patent valid.
7
5 This is probably the
first time both Justices Black and Douglas have considered a claimed in-
vention patentable since they have been on the Court. But the patent
case of most general interest was Jungersen v. Ostby&- Barton Co.1
6
In the Jungersen case, Justice Reed for the Court held invalid a patent
for making molds for the reproduction of intricate types of jewelry. The
majority was unimpressed by the process, in which a first copy was filled
with wax by centrifugal force so that a model might eventually be made
from the wax. Justices Frankfurter and Burton dissented, adopting the
opinion of Judge Learned Hand in the court below, and Justice Jackson
dissented separately. Justice Jackson posed the problem thus:
It would not be difficult to cite many instances of patents that have been granted,
improperly I think, and without adequate tests of invention by the Patent Office.
But I doubt that the remedy for such Patent Office passion for granting patents is an
equally strong passion in this Court for striking them down so that the only patent
that is valid is one which this Court has not been able to get its hands on."77
Clever posing of a problem does not always answer it, and Justice Jack-
son suggests no judicial solution to terminate the Patent Office practice of
consistently flooding the country with patents which could not possibly
stand judicial scrutiny. From 1927 to 1940, the number of patent applica-
tions ranged from 6o,ooo to g6,ooo a year, and the number granted ranged
74 :Mandel Bros. v. Wallace, 335 U.S. 291, 295 (1948).
1s Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Prod., 336 U.S. 271 (1949). Ho.wever, a petition for
rehearing has been granted. The case is No. 2 on the 1949 Term docket.
76 335 U.S. 56o (1949). 77 Ibid., at 572.
from 42,ooo to s6,ooo a year.
78
It is doubtful that even the thoughtful
friends of the patent system would deny the invalidity of an enormous
number of the hundreds of thousands of patents granted in that period.
79
The existence of an administrative agency grinding out patents far
faster than the courts can possibly invalidate them, results in a perpetual
and head-on conflict between that agency and the courts which Professor
Currie has described thus: "The two institutions charged with the appli-
cation of the patent law ... are, for reasons which are both ideological and
institutional, poles apart in their positions on this fundamental issue."
80
The warfare of the courts against the Patent Offi,ce has been intensified
by the attitude of the New Deal court, but in no sense began with it. The
TABLE 2
SUPREME COURT TREATli!ENT OF PATENTS, I9oo-I940
No. of No. Valid No. Invalid No. Not
%Invalid
Date
Cases Patents Patents Infringed
or Not
Infringed
I9oo-I9o5 ........
9
2
3 4 78
I906-IO ..........
7 3
I
3 57
I9II-I5 .. 4 4
0 0 0
I9I6-20 .......... I6
5 9
2
69
I92I-25 ...... I4
3
8
3 79
I926-30 .......... I2
3 5 4 75
I93I-3S
I4
3
II 0
79
I936-40 .......... IS
0
I3
2 IOO
data in Table 2 are taken from a statistical study prepared by Judge
Evans.
8
'
Shifts in the standard of invention are difficult to perceive since each
case isiactual, each is unique, and hence ungovernable by a verbal formu-
78 Patent Office Report for I946, 29 J. Pat Off. Soc. 83, 88-89 (1947). The number of pat-
ents granted fell off from 47,924 in I940 to 27,s87 in I946, a decline attributed by the report to
lack of personnel.
19 One estimate placed the number at so per cent. Evans, Some Stray Thoughts of a Federal
Judge on Our Patent System and Its Operation, 27 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 293, 307 (I94S). Mr. Wil-
liam H. Davis has said, "[A] basic deficiency in the operation of the Patent Office, which is all
the more deplor.able because if it were remedied the Patent Office would do a service to Ameri-
can industry of really tremendous value, is that the Office grants too many invalid patents."
Davis, Proposed Modifications in the Patent System, 12 Law & Contemp. Prob. 796, 8oi
(I947). Professor Stedman observes that "the number of spurious patents .. has been so
large as to arouse much discussion and serious concern," and attributes the situation mainly
to "the difference between the standards of invention applied by the Patent Office and those
applied by the courts." Stedman, Invention and Public Policy, I2 Law & Contemp. Prob. 649,
657 (I947). .
so Currie, Introduction [to the Patent System], I2 Law & Con temp. Pro b. 64s, 646 (I947).
S Evans, Disposition of Patent Cases by the Courts, 24 J. Pat. Off. Soc. I9, 23 (I942).
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49 2I
la. For this reason it is also "difficult for the Court to control the Patent
Office. It is hard to conceive of any set of words which could effectively
govern this year's three cases alone, for what is there in common among an
anti-perspirant, an electric welding process, and a new method of making
jewelry? Hence the Supreme Court has offered little by way of formula in
the past ten years which was new, beyond the "flash of genius" test in
Cuno Engineering Corp. v. Automatic Devices Corp.
82
Certainly the modern
attitude, whether or not there is any formula to express it in terms of a
standard of invention, has come to require that patent monopolies be
granted only when they are most clearly deserved. With the strengthening
of the attitudes against all monopolies, there has been a stiffening of atti-
tude as to the patent monopoly.
83
Dominant in the continuapce of the flood of invalid patents, more re-
sponsible than the bizarre administrative system of the Patent Office it-
self,
84
is the refusal of the Patent Office staff to change its attitude to con-
form to the judicial attitude. Of course administrative agencies are sup-
posed to obey the law as the courts declare it, but there is no wilfulness
like that of the government employee who violates the law for what he
fancies is the public good. Judicial mandates are easily evaded, and every-
one in the Patent Office knows that America's welfare requires "a strong
patent system"
8
S-a euphemism for plentiful patents. The result is insub-
ordination in good faith.
A recent reading of a ten year file of the Journal of the Patent Office So-
so 314 U.S. 84 (1941). Mr. Jo Baily Brown, a distinguished patent lawyer, in an extended
and penetrating statement analyzes the shift of judicial attitude toward patentability as a
shift from willingness to accept the trivial as inventions to a requirement that inventions, to
deserve patents, must be "revolutionary or pioneer mental creations." He concludes, "The
lower courts, under the influence of the Supreme Court, have shown a growing tendency in the
past ten years to touch lightly on cases like Loom Co. v. Higgins, ro5 U.S. 58o, and the Eibel
Process case, 26r U.S. 45, and to emphasize the law of cases like Atlantic v. Brady, 107 U.S.
192." Brown, Developments in the Patent Laws as Affected by Adjudications, 22 J. Pat. Off.
Soc. 587 (1940).
8
3 Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Inv. Co., 320 U.S. 661 (1943), is a recent example. For
brief notes on the most recent cases on this topic see the 1946 Term Article, at 15-16; 1947
Term Article, at rr.
8
4 The administrative system of the Patent Office is described in Hamilton, Patents and
Free Enterprise (1941).
ss The First Report of the National Patent Planning Commission, quoted in Dodds and
Crotty, The New Doctrinal Trend, 30 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 83, 84 (1948), says of the patent system,
"It is the . basis upon which our entire industrial civilization rests." Thomas Edison had
a somewhat different view of the results of the operation of the patent system: "The long de-
lays and enormous costs incident to the procedure of the courts have been seized upon by capi-
talists to enable them to acquire inventions for nominal sums that are entirely inadequate to
encourage really valuable inventions. The inventor is now a dependent, a hired person to the
corporation. The administration of the law is the cause." Statement from 1912 Cong. Hearing,
quoted in Stedman, op. cit. supra note 79, at 66o.
ciety, a semi-official publication, reveals that the Patent Office takes vir-
tually every possible attitude about their consistent rebukes from the
courts except one: nowhere does one find evidence of a resolution to con-
form to the statutes as interpreted by the judiciary. The attitude, rather,
is that the courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, are The Enemy, to
be thwarted by every ingenuity of which the Office is capable. The whole
temper of the place is that decisions which might be thought to raise the
standard of invention are explained away as insignificant; while decisions
which seem to lower the standard are glorified.
86
The Journal carries en-
thusiastic admonitions to its readers to "check the torrent of baleful judi-
cial action."
8
7
Two excerpts will perhaps convey the tone. An editorial in r943, headed
"Flash of Genius-Quenched?" said:
'
From the beginning the bench and bar concerned with patent matters took a dis-
like to this new character, and either refused to accept him into their scheme of things,
dismembered him by analysis, attempted to show him up as an imposter posing under
a new name without any new attributes, or merely noted his existence and ignored
him.88
The second is an account of a lower court opinion which attempted to
apply the "flash" test. The heading suggests the horror of the idea "The
Flash of Genius Doctrine Approaches the Patent Office." The story con-
tinues
The 'flash of genius' test for invention has been received by the patent bar with
irreverence, considering its high sponsorship. So long as it remained a fiction on Mt.
Olympus, it was not intolerable. That it would filter down to the lesser courts was
recognized as probable but the hope remained that it would be modified, restricted, or
abandoned before the danger went too far.
8
9
86
A considerable amount of ink was expended to prove that the "flash of genius" test left
the law exactly as it had been before. For example, the principal examiner, Div. r2, Pat. Off.,
wrote, "It is the conclusion of the writer that the standard of invention as generally followed
in the Patent Office has not been raised by the much discussed Cuno v. Automatic Devices ...
and that even this standard remains qualified by the exception set forth in Goodyear v. Ray-
0-Vac, 321 U.S. 275." Spintman, Has the Standard of Invention Been Raised?, 27 J. Pat. Off.
Soc. 422 (1945). And see Nielsen, Flash of Genius, 24 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 371, 374 (1942), conclud-
ing that "the facts of the case do not warrant the inferences that any new measure of patenta-
bility has been
87 Gottschalk, Further Comments on Recent Patent Decisions and Current Trends, 26 J.
Pat. Off. Soc. 151, r88 (1944). The author is patent counsel for the Com Products Refining
Co., and is not associated with the Patent Office.
88
25 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 771 (1943).
Sp Sellers, The Flash of Genius Doctrine Approaches the Patent Office, 26 J. Pat. Off. Soc.
275 (1944). The frightening decision was Potts v. Coe, 140 F. 2d 470 (App. D.C., 1944). The
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals on occasion has dug in its heels as deeply as the Patent
Office. See In re Shortell, 142 F. 2d 292 (Cust. & Pat. App., 1944).
Note the "danger." The Supreme Court had formulated a rule to which
the patent bar "took a dislike" and "refused to accept." With a lower
court actually attempting to apply the Supreme Court mandate, render-
ing it no longer merely "a :fiction," there was grave "danger" to the Pat-
ent Office itself.
The Patent Office intransigence is attributable to many factors, few of
which the Supreme Court can correct. The nonadversary system under
which most patents are granted means that examiners are rarely given
both sides of a case ;
90
the training of an examiner is not calculated to
arouse his concern in a public interest other than that which results from
patent grants; and, though this is not to imply an impropriety, for none is
suspected, he can scarcely escape knowing that his own economic future
outside the Patent Office lies with private concerns interested in obtaining
patents.
9
I As a result patent examiners seem rarely to ask themselves:
How can I cheerfully, effectively, and in a spirit of full cooperation with
my judicial superiors translate the attitude reflected by their opinions into
the living law of the patent system?
From the standpoint of the institutional history of the Supreme Court,
the resistance of the Patent Office is of peculiar interest because it opens
the question of whether the Supreme Court can make itself effective when
met by a determined challenge. To date the answer appears to be in the
negative. If the Court continues to hear only one to three patent cases a
year, the defiance can continue indefinitely. A Court hearing, as in the
past two years, 120 cases a year in the entire :field of the law is a poor
match for an administrative agency which in a year can grant up to so,ooo
patents.
Hence the solution which Justice Jackson derides is clearly not a good
solution; but it is the only course left, unless the Supreme Court is ready to
quit the contest altogether. In other :fields the Court has on occasion
shown that it means business and wants lower tribunals to follow the
law it has declared;9
2
and perhaps it will eventually do the same in the
9 It is widely believed that the recent Patent Commissioner, Mr. Casper Ooms, went into
office sincerely determined to improve the operation of the Patent Office, and that he found
the task more than one man could do. Ooms has observed that the Patent Office itself would not
grant patents in most cases in which the patent is eventually held invalid if it had before it the
same elaborate data which is given a court. Address quoted in Smith, Recent Developments in
Patent Law, 44 Mich. L. Rev. 899, 906 (1946).
9r The foregoing co=ents are taken from informal remarks of an attorney with wide ex-
perience in patent matters.
9> The Court appears to be making major progress in another long term dispute, this time
with lower courts and in regard to jury trials in civil cases. The effort of the Court to bring
district courts into closer conformity with the Supreme Court's conception of the meaning of
24
patent field. If the "Patent Office passion for granting patents" is not at
least matched in the Supreme Court by "an equally strong passion ... for
striking them down," then the Patent Office will surely escape the "dan-
ger" that the Supreme Court of the United Stl).tes will promulgate any-
thing more than what the Journal calls "fictions from Mt. Olympus."
c) Classifications and Equal Protection
The death of substantive due process as a control of legislation has been
followed by an effort to give new vitality to the equal protection clause, so
that it might serve as a substitute avenue for invoking judicial review.
That effort made no important headway this year.
Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Glander
93
invalidated an Ohio tax on foreign cor-
porations doing business in that state on the ground that, since there was
no equivalent tax on domestic corporations, the law denied equal protec-
tion. Justice Douglas' dissent, joined by Justice Black, asserted that the
term "person" in the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment extends
to "natural and not artificial persons." Conceding that the Court had held
to the contrary since I886,94 Douglas contended, as had Black in his first
year on the Court, that this line of cases should be overruled. Historical
research now makes quite clear that inclusion of corporations within the
term "person" was not specifically contemplated by those who passed and
ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.
9
s And yet for purposes of historical
interpretation the significance of the word "person" ought not to be con-
sidered separately from the meaning of the privileges and immunities, due
process, and equal protection clauses of the Amendment on which it is de-
the civil jury provision of the Seventh Amendment is reviewed extensively in Wilkerson v.
McCarthy, 336 U.S. 353 (1949), rehearing den. 336 U.S. 940 (1949), in the opinion of Justice
Douglas and its appendix. In the civil rights field the Court appears to end a long battle over
post-trial procedures in lllinois with a peremptory command this year. See note II7 infra and
text. It previously took firm action with respect to the fifth circuit's attitude on review of the
NLRB. NLRB v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 309 U.S. 206 (1940). But the Patent Office, be-
hind its barricade of factual variations from case to case, may prove impregnable to reproof.
93 69 S. Ct. 1291 (1949).
94 Santa Clara v. So. Pac. R. Co., u8 U.S. 394, 396' (r886).
95 The leading study is Graham, The "Conspiracy Theory" of the Fourteenth Amendment,
47 Yale L.J. 371 (1937), 48 Yale L.J. 171 (1938). An exhaustive and excellent unpublished
study concluding that the term "person" as used in the Fourteenth Amendment was not origi-
nally understood to include corporations is James, The Framing of the 14th Amendment
(1939), an unpublished Ph.D. Thesis at the University of illinois. The writer has recently com-
pleted, in conjunction with Mr. Robert M""unro, a reasonably comprehensive study of the origi-
nal materials on the Fourteenth Amendment for a forthcoming article on the origins of equal
protection, revealing that for the years r866-68 there was no evidence of any kind that the
word "person" was intended to include corporations.
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948--49 25
pendent and which have undergone even more radical distortions. The
proper question therefore is whether the Court ought to return the entire
section to its original meaning.
In Railway Express Agency v. N e:w York
9
7 Justice Jackson also expressed
basic notions about the equal protection clause. The Court held valid a
New York City ordinance which purported to be a safety regulation. It
prohibited Railway Express from using its I
1
9oo trucks inN ew York City
for general advertising, but permitted trucks to be used for advertisement
of the owner's own commodity.
98
The Court found this to be a reasonable
classification, leading one to conclude that self-advertising attracts no at-
tention.
Justice Jackson, concurring, expressed his basic philosophy on the dif-
ference between due process and equal protection: "For my part, I am
more receptive to attack on local ordinances for denial of equal protection
than for denial of due process, while the Court has more often used the
latter clause."9
9
The difference, he thought, was that invalidation of a
regulation on due process grounds leaves a problem beyond regulation at
all; while invalidation under equal protection means merely that it must
be regulated on a more general level. Equal protection thus protects
against arbitrariness because it precludes officials from abusing a minority,
and thus escaping "the political retribution that might be visited upon
them if larger numbers were affected."
A majority made easy work of a claim that a Michigan statute was in-
valid which precluded women from serving as bartenders unless they were
the wives or daughters of male owners. xoo Women bartenders generally are
thus excluded, and a woman owner can neither keep her own bar nor have
her daughter do so. The Court thought that so long as Michigan might
conceivably suppose that morals were improved by keeping unprotected
ladies from behind the bar, it could not gainsay Michigan's right to insist
on that protection.
96 The studies referred to in note 95 supra induce the conviction that "privileges and immu-
nities" were meant to include all of the Bill of Rights, and probably a good deal more of an un-
defined sort; that "due process" was meant to be wholly procedural; and that "equal protec-
tion" was intended to have far greater effect in achieving genuine equality in race relations
than it has ever been given.
97 Ry. Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. 1o6 (1949).
98 Municipalities have wide latitude to regulate advertising on their streets. Valentine v.
Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52 (1941). And numerous cases uphold regulations of some similarity to
that in the instant case. See particularlyPackerv. Utah, 285 U.S. 105 (1932); but cf. as an un-
reasonable classification an ordinance discussed in Murphy, Inc. v. Westport, 131 Conn. 292,
40 A. 2d 177 (1944), which permitted professional people only to post signs.
99 69 S. Ct. 463, 467 (1949). xoo Goesaert v. Cleazy, 335 U.S. 464 (1948).
The barmaid case illustrates that equal protection is far indeed from
being a serious control over state economic legislation. The usual ap-
proach is that unless a regulation is unreasonably discriminatory on its
face, it is valid. Hence, says the Court, "we cannot give ear to the sugges-
tion that the real impulse behind this legislation was an unchivalrous de-
sire of male bartenders to try to monopolize the calling."
101
Justices Rut-
ledge, Douglas, and Murphy, dissenting, thought this legislation palpably
discriminating.
102
It is exceedingly improbable that equal protection will play a significant
role in respect to economic legislation so long as courts decline to explore
the facts. In the :field of racial discriminations, the Court normally re-
quires full details as to the exact situation, as, for example, when it is
charged that schools for white and colored persons are unequaJ.I
03
Similar
procedure in the economic :field-though as discussion above indicates,
this would be far indeed from the contemplation of those who passed the
Amendment-would make equal protection a very substantial control
over commercial laws.
III. CIVIL RIGHTS
During I948-49, civil rights, although playing a less dramatic role, re-
mained in substantially as precarious a position as they had been the year
before. The election made superficial difference in the intensity of the
"loyalty program," as the purge of government employees was called, but
the prying-machine had become institutionalized, and continued to run
on.
104
A President was elected on a strong civil rights platform which in-
cluded steps toward equal treatment of the races, but his program was
quickly stopped by :filibusters and abandoned. Small race riots occurred in
St. Louis and Washington, D.C., because of efforts to stop segregation at
public swimming pools. The House Committee on Un-American Activi-
ties encountered considerable resistance when it attempted to censor the
IOI Ibid., at 467.
rThe arguments pro and con the lady at the spigot are collected in "Bar Maids Come
Back," N.Y. Times, p. 27, col. I (Mar. IS, I945).
10
3 Annotation, IOJ A.L.R. 713 (I936).
ro4 A government employee was forced to defend himself against a written charge of dis-
loyalty because he had allegedly "spoken critically of the American Ambassador to Russia";
and another-a Republican, as a matter of fact-was brought to the loyalty bar because many
years ago he contributed seventy-five cents when the hat was passed at a dubious public
meeting. For the first time some F.B.I. files were published at a trial this year in Washing-
ton, D.C., and turned out to be enormous dossiers of information largely insignificant. N.Y.
Times, x, p. z, col. I {June 8, I949); Ibid., I, p. I, col. 8 (June g, I949). The subject of loy-
alty purges is thoroughly considered in Emerson and Helfeld, Loyalty Among Government
Employees, sS Yale L.J. I (I948).
school books of the nation; but a group of the country's highest educators
adopted a statement endorsing the purge of political undesirables from
their own faculties. zos
In this atmosphere of rising tension, the Supreme Court civil rights
problems seemed almost academic, a struggle over :fine points when funda-
mentals were elsewhere in issue. To this, the most substantial exception
was Terminiello v. Chicago.
106
Terminiello, a notorious associate of Gerald L. K. Smith, gave a speech
in Chicago. The auditorium in which he spoke was surrounded by enemies
of his cause, and :filled with his friends. The outsiders created disturbances,
throwing stones through the window, and otherwise threatening riot and
great violence. This in turn incited the group within. Terminiello's speech,
which was violently anti-Semitic, contributed nothing to the peace of the
occasion. He inflamed his auditors with accounts of alleged Jewish mis-
deeds, such as a claimed conspiracy to inject all Germans with syphilis
germs. He also spoke of the group outside as "slimy scum." It does not
appear, however, that his supporters took physical action other than self
defense. He was found guilty of breach of the peace, the court charging the
jury in part that a breach of the peace included conduct which "stirs the
public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or cre-
ates a disturbance." His counsel did not specifically object to this particu-
lar portion of the charge, though they did generally preserve his rights
under the Fourteenth Amendment at all possible points. The significance
of that passage was not considered in the Illinois appellate courts or be-
fore the Supreme Court until the opinion was announced.
The Court, in an opinion by Justice Douglas, felt that in view of the
charge it was unnecessary to consider whether Terminiello's language it-
self was entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection. The Constitu-
tion, he wrote, does not permit making an offense of conduct which "in-
vites dispute" or "creates a disturbance." Indeed, said the Court, the
First Amendment would be flabby stuff if it extended only to speech
which never invited dispute.
The opinion is the clearest Supreme Court utterance squarely on the
rights of speakers threatened by hostile persons. zo7 Whether the police can
ros N.Y. Times, r, p. r, col. 8 (June 9
1
r949).
!o6 69 s. Ct. 894 (I949)
10
7Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496 (r939), had rejected the argument that disorders by the
opponents of the speaker could be used as a pretext to suppress speech, but the case was dis-
tinguishable, though thinly, on the ground that in the Hague case the law enforcement officers
themselves fomented the disorder. The general topic of the right to prohibit assembly or speech
when violence is feared is exhaustively treated in Prohibition of Lawful Assembly when Op-
take the easy way out by jailing the speaker instead of disciplining a
threatening crowd deserved a new Supreme Court consideration. The
Terminiello case put the weight of the Constitution with the better cases
of several jurisdictions.
108
Chief Justice Vinson dissented solely on the ground that the question
considered by the Court had not e e ~ saved in the record, stating that if
it had been saved, he would have agreed with the majority. Justices
Frankfurter, Burton, and Jackson dissented on that ground and also on
the merits. The Jackson dissenting position is particularly important be-
cause it meets the majority head-on at the central issue decided. His posi-
tion is that valuable as free speech may be, it can be limited where it will
result in disorder. Justice Jackson worried that the "doctrinaire" ap-
proach of the majority would turn the Bill of Rights into a "suicide pact."
As always, he would cherish civil rights, but he would be practical about
it.
Another colorful free speech case was Kovacs v. Cooper,
109
in which the
Court held valid a Trenton, New Jersey, prohibition of sound trucks.
Last year the Court made the fairly obvious decision that if sound trucks
were to be licensed, it must be on a completely nondiscriminatory basis;
but it left undecided the right of a city to make complete prohibition.uo
What was done this year is somewhat confused, because there were three
opinions for the :five Justice majority, and two dissents for the four dis-
senters. Justice Reed, for three of the majority Justices, declared that to-
tal prohibition of sound truck use was "probably unconstitutional,"m
but rested this opinion on the ground that cities could control the volume
of sound trucks and that here the defendant had been guilty of "raucous
noise."u
2
The dissent of Justice Black rested primarily on the enormous
posed by Threat of Violence, 24 Ind. L.J. 78 (1948), on which much in the following para-
graphs is based. See also Verbal Acts and Ideas-The Common Sense of Free Speech, 16 Univ.
Chi. L. Rev. 328 (1949).
8
Last year the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was required to correct a district
judge who permitted police to prevent a meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses because the towns-
people were hostile to them. Sellers v. Johnson, 163 F. 2d 877 (C.C.A. 8th, 1947), cert. den.
322 U.S. 851 (1948). Several attempts have been made to suppress anti-Semitic newspapers be-
cause they would create anger and incite to violence against the publisher. See Dearborn Pub-
lishing Co. v. Fitzgerald, 271 Fed. 479 (D.C. Ohio, 192l); People v. Downer, 6 N.Y.S. 2d s66
(1938); cf. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 721 (1931). In the leading English case, Salvation
Army parades had been attacked by hoodlums and finally resulted in a riot of over 1,000 per-
sons. Yet when police attempted to stop the Army from parading again in the face of yet an-
other mob, the court held the police without power to do so. Beatty v. Gillbanks, 9 Q.B.D.
3o8 (1882).
'
09
336 U.S. 77 (r949).
noSaia v. New York, 334 U.S. 558 (1948).
m 336 U.S. 77, 82 (1949).
m Ibid., at 83, 87.
usefulness of inexpensive sound trucks for the purpose of communicating
ideas in a world in which all other means of mass communication are domi-
nantly in the hands of persons of wealth.n
3
On the basis of the precedents, Justice Reed seems to have all the best of
it. The Court in the past has held, essentially, that the state cannot sub-
stitute its judgment for that of the individual as to whether he wishes to
receive the message of another. Thus a city cannot prohibit door-to-door
circulation of lea:fl.ets, unless the individual posts on his own house that
he wishes no intruders. II4 The owner of the company town cannot keep
those who convey information away from his town, because the individ-
uals who live there may wish to receive it. ns But at all times the right of
the individual as to what he would hear has been as well preserved as the
right of him who would speak.
The sound truck batters down this defense of the auditor, leaving com-
plete control of communication to the speaker. The right of choice as to
what one says is not of greater importance than the right of choice as to
what one hears, and if sound trucks roam the streets, the passer-by who
wishes to be left alone has no protection. Justice Reed stressed the help-
lessness of the unwilling listener. Justice Black, in dissent, contended that
loud-speakers could be controlled in volume, and kept off busy streets
though not off all streets. But it is hard to find in the Constitution a re-
quirement that anyone, whether he lives on a busy street or a quiet one,
can be compelled to hear a message which he does not choose to hear.
In the area of criminal procedure, including court-martial procedure, n
6
there were several noteworthy decisions. The most outspoken pronounce-
ment of the Court during the year was the granting of eight petitions by
imprisoned persons for certiorari to various Illinois courts. All eight cases
were remanded with the admonition, "If there is now no post-trial pro-
cedure by which federal rights may be vindicated in Illinois, we wish to
be advised of that fact upon remand of this case."II7 Legislation passed in
11
3 See, for example, the various reports of the Univ. Chi. Comm. on a Free and Responsible
Press (1947); Ernst, The First Freedom (1946).
11
4 Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. I4I (1943).
nsMarsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. sor (1946).
n
6
United States ex rei. Hirshberg v. Cooke, 336 U.S. 210 (1949), held that Navy personnel
are not subject to coUit martial during a second enlistment for offenses committed during the
first. Wade v. Hunter, 335 U.S. 907 (1949), held that a soldier was not placed in double
jeopardy when his coUit martial was suspended in the middle due to the "tactical situation" of
the military and he was later tried anew. Humphrey v. Smith, 336 U.S. 695 (1949), held that
the lack of a full and fair pre-trial investigation in accordance with Article of War 70 was not
"jurisdictional," i.e., was not a gross enough error to be subject to judicial review.
11
7Young v. Ragen, 69 S. Ct. 1073 (1949).
30
:rHE UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
Illinois after the Court's order has established proper procedure there.us
The case of most general importance in criminal procedure was Up-
shaw v.United States,u
9
which held that a confession obtained during a
thirty-hour period after arrest without warrant could not be used against
the defendant, whether or not it was obtained by coercion. Justice Black
for the majority of :five stressed that this was an interpretation of the
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and not a constitutional decision,
but it is nonetheless applicable in all federal prosecutions. Rule 5 (a) of
the Criminal Rules provides that persons must be formally charged "with-
out unnecessary delay," and thirty hours of waiting for a confession is ob-
viously not "without unnecessary delay." The case called for and received
a routine application of McNabb v. United States.
12
Four Justices joined
in a dissent by Justice Reed, the pithiest section of which summarized
the position of all those who have criticized the McNabb rule-the police,
the House of Representatives, some states, and some law reviews. "To-
day's decision," said Justice Reed, "puts another weapon in the hand of
the criminal world. "I2I
The case thus poses a question with which some Justices felt themselves
confronted several times during the term: How shall I choose between
constitutional ideals and efficient law enforcement? The majority on the
issue of speedy arraignment in the Upshaw case are also the Justices most
alert to strike down forced confessions, and to them the speedy arraign-
ment rule is one method of preventing such forced confessions. Justice
Reed, in his dissent, pointed out that the defendant is protected against
the use of forced confessions when it appears in fact that there was force;
although he dissented in two of the three cases he cites exemplifying the
rule against forced confessions.
122
In short, the dissenters in the Upshaw
case, though they certainly do not approve of forced confessions, are less
troubled about them in particular cases than are the majority.
This was further illustrated by a group of forced confession cases this
ns The case was treated as front page news in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (June 6, I949).
Such publicity, coupled with the strenuous efforts of a la'rge group in Illinois including Mr. Al-
bert E. Jenner, Jr., President of the Ill. State Bar, resulted in passage of a bill at the I949
legislative session which establishes an effective post-trial procedure. St. Louis Post Dispatch,
p. Sa (July 3, I949). See also Katz, An Open Letter to the Attorney General of lllinois, IS Univ.
Chi. L. Rev. 2SI (I948); Power to Appoint Counsel in Illinois Habeas Corpus Proceedings, IS
Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 94S (I948); A Study of the Supreme Court, IS Univ. Chi. L. Rev. Io7, I26-
3I (I948).
II9 335 u.s. 4I0 (I948).
120
3I8 u.s. 332 (I943).
m 335 U.S. 4IO, 436 (I948).
1
""Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. S96 (I948); Malinski v. New York, 324 U.S. 40I (I945). In Ash-
craft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. I43 (I944), Justice Reed was with the majority.
year. '
23
In the case of Watts v. Indiana, the defendant was held for six days
without being arraigned, during part of which he was kept in solitary con-
finement in a cell called "the hole." He was questioned in relays during
virtually all of each night but one, and was often interrogated during the
days as well. He finally produced a confession satisfactory to the police,
on the basis of which he was convicted. In Turner v. Pennsylvania, the
defendant was held incommunicado and without charge through :five days
of questioning, although he was interrogated for shorter periods than
Watts. In Harris v. South Carolina, the defendant, an illiterate Negro, was
arrested on Friday, held until Monday before he was told that he was
suspected of murder, and was then interrogated in relays for most of each
of three days before he "confessed." In the Watts and Harris cases there
was the usual conflict of testimony as to physical abuse. In all three cases
the Court, with the leading opinion by Justice Frankfurter in each, held
that the convictions must be set aside.
The four Justices who had dissented in the Upshaw case also dissented
in these three cases. The position of Justice Jackson, speaking for the
group, was that as long as violence is not used, simple interrogation with-
out counsel for protracted periods of time is no violation of a right, par-
ticularly because "once a confession is obtained it supplies ways of verify-
ing its trustworthiness. "
2
4 He granted that "arrest on suspicion and inter-
rogation without counsel ... largely negates the benefits of the constitu-
tional guaranty of the right to assistance of counsel,"
125
but this he seemed
to consider a necessary part of the cost of law enforcement.
The foremost practical difference between the two groups of Justices on
this issue is the difference in the extent to which they believe that violent
abuse of prisoners follows automatically from secret questioning. For ex-
ample, the Harris case interrogation was of the relay type by groups of
officers in a room eight feet by eleven. Harris asserted that at one point he
was struck with force. The officer said he merely placed a hand on Harris'
shoulder. The dissent presumably believes the officer. The majority pre-
sumably believes that episodes which give rise to such divergencies should
not be allowed to occur in the :first place. As Justice Frankfurter put it,
"To turn the detention of an accused into a process of wrenching from him
evidence which could not be extorted in open court with all its safeguards,
is so grave an abuse of the power of arrest as to offend the procedural
standards of due process."
126
12
l Watts v. Indiana, 69 S. Ct. 1347 (1949); Turner v. Pennsylvania, 69 S. Ct. 1352 (1949);
Harris v. South Carolina, 69 S. Ct. 1354 (1949).
1 2
~ Watts v. Indiana, 69 S. Ct. 1347, 1357 (1949).
125
Ibid., at 1358. '
26
Ibid., at 1350.
A federal procedure decision which will have almost its only impact in
the :Pistrict of Columbia involved facts odd enough to make it worth
recitation.
127
The defendant, Frazier, was charged with violating theNar-
cotics Act, a statute administered by the Treasury Department. He was
tried by a jury in the District of Columbia which consisted entirely of
government employees, including one who was an employee of the Treas-
ury Department and another whose wife was employed there. Defendant
claimed the lack of an impartial jury as required by the Sixth Amendment.
Justice Rutledge surprisingly held that Frazier had nothing of which to
complain. The "government quality" of the jury had in part been created
by his own challenges to some nongovernment employees on the panel, a
fact which Justice Rutledge stressed. But the defendant's use of his chal-
lenges is entirely his own prerogative, and he should scarcely be required
to use it to take government employees off the panel if they should not
have been there in such numbers in the first place.
128
Although it has long
been recognized by statute and decision that government employees
should serve as jurors, it is surprising the Court should not feel that 12
out of 12 are too many. Excerpts from a paragraph of Justice Jackson's
dissent, joined by Justices Frankfurter, Douglas, and Murphy, are so
forceful that they are appended in a note.x9
Four search and seizure cases give evidence of the renewed attention
being given that subject. In the most important of them, Wolf v. Colo-
rado,X3" the majority, like an army on parade, marched impressively up
the field and then came back again to where they had started. If the fig-
ure may be pursued, the parade was magnificent, but the enemy remained
unscathed.
12
7 Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497 (1948).
12
8 Justice Jackson asserted in dissent that the reason for the large number of government
employees on District of Columbia juries is that the court dismisses those who do not wish to
serve. Compensation for jurors is $4.00 a day, except that government employees get their
regular salaries from their agencies. They are thus the only group of employed persons eligible
for jury service who do not have something to gain by taking advantage of the opportunity to
avoid jury service, since the $4.00 is obviously not compensatory for. most other persons.
12
9 "This criminal trial was an adversary proceeding, with the government both an actual
and nominal litigant. It was the patron and benefactor of the whole jury, plus one juror's wife
for good measure. At the same time that it made its plea to them to convict, it had the upper
hand of every one of them in matters such as pay and promotion. Of late years, the Govern-
ment is using its power as never before to pry into their lives and thoughts upon the slightest
suspicion ofless than complete trnstworthiness. It demands not only probity but unquestioning
ideological loyalty .... Even if we have no reason to believe that an acquitting juror would be
subjected to embarrassments or reprisals, we cannot expect every clerk and messenger in the
great bureaucracy to feel so secure as to put his dependence on the Government wholly out of
mind." 335 U.S. 497, 514-15 (1948).
130
6g s. Ct. 1359 (1949).
In the Wolf case, the defendant had been charged with a criminal of-
fense in the courts of Colorado, where evidence obtained by an alleged un-
lawful search and seizure was admitted against him. The issues before the
Court were two: (r) Is the Fourth Amendment, through the Fourteenth
Amendment, a limitation on the states as well as on the federal govern-
ment? (2) If so, is the federal rule declared in Weeks v. United States,X
31
that wrongfully seized evidence may not be admitted, also a limitation
on the states?
What the Court decided on the :first point is a little elusive. In the view
of the Court majority, for whom Justice Frankfurter spoke, no one of the
amendments in the Bill of Rights is, as such, made applicable to the states by
the r4th Amendment. Rather, so many of the Bill of Rights conceptions
are made applicable to the states as are "implicit in the concept of ordered
liberty."
132
This does not mean that one may simply label a right "im-
plicit" or not. Instead, under this majority view, a single principle of the
Bill of Rights may be obligatory on the states in some situations and not
in others. For example, the right to counsel is "implicit in the concept of
ordered liberty" in capital cases, X33 but is usually not "implicit" in larceny
cases.
134
In the W olj case, the Court split the search and seizure protection and
withheld one part. Something of the search and seizure conception is de-
clared to be a limitation on the states. Justice Frankfurter called it "The
security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police."
135
On the other hand, it was held that evidence illegally seized by a state
could be admitted at trial although under the federal rule such evidence
would be inadmissible. Justice Frankfurter held that the inadmissibility
aspect of the Fourth Amendment,XJ
6
though "we stoutly adhere to it" for
the federal system, was not so important that it must also be applied to
the states. The primary element inducing his conclusion was that thirty
states do not now apply the Weeks rule, and that therefore the failure to
apply it was not sufficiently abritrary or unjust to require federal correc-
tion.
This result leaves the question of how the prohibition against illegal
1
3
1
232 U.S. 383 (1914). l32 Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325 (1937).
1
33 Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932).
l34 Bettsv. Brady,316 U.S. 455 (1942). In two cases this year the Courtfound that petition-
ers had been denied due process by trials without counsel in non-capital cases. Uveges v. Penn-
sylvania, 335 U.S. 437 (1949); Gibbs v. Burke, 69 S. Ct. 1247 (1949).
I3S 69 s. Ct. 1359. 1361 (1949)
1
3
6
The inadmissibility rule, of course, is based upon both the Fourth Amendment and the
self-incrimination safeguards of the Fifth Amendment.
searches and seizures is to be enforced against the states if the police are
to be permitted to use evidence which is the fruit of illegality. The Court
pointed out that persons so victimized may resort "to the remedies of
private action and such protection as the internal discipline of the police,
under the eyes of an alert public opinion, may afford."I37
Justices Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge dissented. To Justice Mur-
phy, author of the principal dissent, remand to "private action" and "in-
ternal discipline" was tantamount to holding that there was no federal
limitation at all on the rights of states to make searches and seizures. The
Murphy opinion, from the standpoint of good clear prose and reserved
strength of expression, is one of the rare great documents to emerge from
the judicial process, and deserves reading in full. The Murphy thesis was
that of the Weeks case-if wrongfully seized documents can be used as evi-
dence, the Fourth Amendment "might as well be stricken from the Con-
stitution."138 He derided the Court's alternatives to the rule of exclusion
of evidence, saying, "There is but one alternative to the rule of exclusion.
That is no sanction at all."
1
39
The other search and seizure cases were less impressive. Brinegar v.
United States
1
4" followed the rule of Carroll v. United States,X4
1
permitting
search without a warrant upon a showing of very probable cause that a
crime was being committed and that the person searched was escaping
in an automobile. In McDonald v. United States
1
42 the Court held a search
illegal in which the police without a warrant sneaked into a house through
a window, peered at a tenant through a transom, saw him doing something
illegal, and then claimed the right to seize the implements of his misdeed
because they had actually seen them. The defendant had been under ob-
servation for two months, and no reason for proceeding without a warrant
was even suggested. The most interesting aspect of the Brinegar and Mc-
Donald cases was the view expressed by Justice Jackson that the interpre-
tation of the Fourth Amendment ought to vary with the offense charged.
McDonald was charged with being in the numbers racket, Brinegar with
bootlegging. Both of these offenses seemed unimportant to Justice Jack-
son, who observed, "Whether there is reasonable necessity for a search
without waiting to obtain a warrant certainly depends somewhat upon
the gravity of the offense thought to be in progress as well as the hazards
of the method of attempting to reach it."
14
3
I37 69 s. Ct. 1359, 1369 (1949). IJ
9
69 s. Ct. 1359 1369 (1949).
zas Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 393 (1914). z
4
69 S. Ct. 1302 (1949).
I
4
I 267 u.s. 132 (1925). I
42
335 u.s. 451 (1948), I
4
J Ibid., at 459
A summary of the positions of the Justices in the nonunanimous civil
rights cases follows. As always, such data must be read with the greatest
of caution, for in some respects it is misleading.'44 Cases are classified by
result, without regard to whether a particular Justice may have been pre-
occupied with procedural issues. The cases collected on the happenstance
of appearing in the same term may bulk overlarge in some areas and omit
others. For example the record of Chief Justice Vinson, who is more dis-
turbed about racial discriminations than he is about trial abuses, is some-
what distorted for this year, in which there were no racial discrimination
cases but several fair trial problems.
Moreover, the summary makes no allowance for extremeness of posi-
tion. Thus Justice Black is predominantly on the "pro civil rights" side
of the table despite the fact that his lone position on searches and seizures
in Woljv. Colorado may well be the most restrictive interpretation of the
Fourth Amendment by any Justice in the Court's history. Justice Frank-
furter is listed at the middle of the group, although the views expressed by
him in his lone opinion in Kovacs 11. Cooper represent the most basic hos-
tility, not to freedom of speech but to judicial protection of freedom of
speech, of any member on the Court.'4
5
Justice Reed is listed as being
least persuaded by claims of civil rights; yet he apparently rejects the ex-
treme Frankfurter position in the Kovacs case, and wrote a unanimous
opinion upholding the right to counsel in a borderline situation.I4
6
Finally,
a careful note should be made that allocation of a digit to one side or an-
other of the table is not an expression of the wisdom or legal rightness of
the position.'47
With all these and other qualifications, the list is nonetheless of some
value. If a given Justice's decisions put him preponderantly in one column
1
44 The principal popularizer of the "statistical method" of approaching Supreme Court
decisions is Professor C. Herman Pritchett. See, for example, his book, The Roosevelt Court
(1948). But Professor Pritchett himself is far more reserved concerning the merits of the meth-
od than some who have toyed with it. I have expressed my own strong doubts as to the use-
fulness of the device in a review of the Pritchett book, 34 IowaL. Rev. 143 (1948); see Yarmo-
linsky, 16 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 598 (1949), also reviewing Professor Pritchett's book.
1
45 Justice Frankfurter elaborated at some length his view that the well-known footnote four
of United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 (1938), and the numerous cases
following it had not put the civil rights in a "preferred position," protected by a "presumption
of unconstitutionality."
146 Gibbs v. Burke, 69 S. Ct. 1247 (1949).
1
47 Since one tends to measure "rightness" by his own convictions, the writer notes that he
thought the claim of a violated civil right unsound in four of the cases in the group of eighteen
cited note 148 infra. The four are Brinegar v. United States (search of automobile), Hirota v.
United States (review of war crimes), Kovacs v. Cooper (suppressing of sound trucks), and
Wade v. Hunter (question of double jeopardy in court martial).
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW REVIEW
or the other, then the :figures contain a clue or hint as to his basic attitudes
about civil rights.
There were eighteen divided civil rights cases at the 1948 term.X4S There
were in addition four civil rights cases this year in which the Court was
unanimous, twice upholding the claim and twice disallowing it.X4
9
TABLE 3
DISTRffiUTION OF VOTES IN NONUNANIMOUS CIVIL RIGHTS CASES
IN SuPPORT OF THE IN DENIAL OF THE
CLAlloiED RtGRT CLAIMED RtGRT
]USTICE
X946 1947 1948 TOTAL 1946 1947 1948
ToTAL
Vinson ....... 0 6 2 8 r2 2I I6
49
Black ........ 8 19
12
39 4 7
6 17
Reed ......... 2
4
2 8 10
23
16
49
Frankfurter ... 2 I2
9
23
IO
IS
9 34
Douglas ...... 8
23
I6
47 4 4
2 IO
Murphy ...... IO
25
IS
53
I 2 0
3
Jackson ...... 2
7 5
I4
9
20 I2 41
Rutledge ..... II 26
IS 52
I I 2
4
Burton .......
3
6 I IO
9
2I
I7
47
With all the limitations of the case-counting approach in this area, it
does at least establish clearly, for example, that Justices Rutledge and
Murphy on the one hand, and Justice Reed and Chief Justice Vinson on
the other, have wholly different schemes of values in respect to civil
liberty.
IV. LAWYER'SLAW
FEDERAL JURISDICTION
a) Certiorari Jurisdiction
In last year's article it was suggested that the published rules and state-
ments concerning certiorari jurisdiction are rapidly on their way to be-
148 Brinegar v. United States, 69 S. Ct. 1302 (1949); Fisher v. Pace, 334 U.S. 827 (1948);
Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497 (I948); Harris v. South Carolina, 69 S. Ct. I354 (I949);
Hirota v. MacArthur, 335 U.S. 906 (I948); Humphrey v. Smith, 336 U.S. 695 (1949); Klapp-
rott v. United States, 335 U.S. 6oi (1949); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77 (I949); Lustig v.
United States, 69 S. Ct., I372 (I949); McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 45I (I948);
Terminiello v. Chicago, 69 S. Ct. 894 (I949); Turner v. Pennsylvania, 69 S. Ct. 1352 (1949);
United States ex rei. Johnson v. Shaughnessy, 69 S. Ct. 92I (1949); Uveges v. Pennsylvania,
335 U.S. 437 (I948); Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684 (I949); Wattsv. Indiana, 69 S. Ct. 1357
(I949); Wolf v. Colorado, 69 S. Ct. 1359 (1949). In view of the Chief Justice's position in the
Terminiello case, in which his dissent was solely on procedural grounds and in which he noted
that if he had reached the issue considered by the majority, he would have concurred, he is
listed as supporting the claimed right in that case.
1
49 Gibbs v. Burke, 69 S. Ct. 1247 (1949); Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S.
490 (I949); United States v. Wallace & Tiernan Co., 336 U.S. 793 (I949); Young v. Ragen,
69 S. Ct. Io73 (1949).
coming legal :fictions.
1
so At least some expressions this year add support to
this view.
The three rules regarding certiorari which in fact seem to be in process
of change are (1) that certiorari will be granted, among other circum-
stances, where an important public question is raised; (2) that certiorari
will be granted where four Justices so vote; and (3) that the denial of cer-
tiorari is not even a tacit affirmance, and expresses no judgment one way
or the other on the merits.
1
s
1
The article on the 194 7 term collected a number of certioraris denied
that year on which a reasonable person might have supposed that the
writ would be granted on the basis of the first proposition above. During
the 1948 term, however, the Court seems to have been unduly generous,
under this rule, in one or two of its grants of the writ.I
52
The term witnessed an attack by Justice Frankfurter on the second
proposition above-the "rule of four." When the bulk of the Court's juris-
diction was made discretionary by Congress in 1925, it was on the promise
explicitly made for the Court by its representative at the Congressional
hearings that certiorari would be granted on the vote of four Justices.
1
s3
This year Justice Frankfurter declared that he would not vote on the
merits of the Federal Employers' Liability Act cases even though certiorari
had been granted under the "rule of four." He believes that the Court
should not spend its time on such cases, which usually involve problems
of the operation of civil juries under the Seventh Amendment. Neverthe-
less a substantial number of certioraris are granted in these cases. In Wil-
kerson v. McCarthy, Justice Frankfurter detailed his reasons for believing
rso 1947 Term Article, at 34-3S
rsr A leading work analyzing certiomri practice is Boskey, Mechanics of the Supreme Court's
Certiomri Jurisdiction, 46 Col. L. Rev. 2SS (1946).
rs:> It is so frequently difficult to understand dismissal orders in appeal cases because of the
widely variant present pmctice in respect to them. For examples, in Hall v. Virginia, 33S U.S.
87S (1948), the appeal was dismissed with no reason or citation given, although Justices Doug-
las and Murphy felt strongly enough to the contrary to note dissents. Hodge v. Tulsa County
Elec. Bd., 33S U.S. 88g (1948), was dismissed, a reason being given that the case was moot,
supported by citations. In Georgia R. Co. v. Musgrove, 33S U.S. goo (1949), an appeal was
dismissed for the stated reason that there was an adequate state ground for the judgment be-
low. Justice Jackson dissented, and no cases were cited. In Superior Court of California v. Lille-
fioren, 33S U.S. 8u (1948), an appeal was dismissed for the same reason, this time with cita-
tions.
In Michelson v. United States, 33S U.S. 469,474 n. S (1948), Justice Jackson, author of the
opinion of the Court, noted his own doubts as to whether certiorari should have been granted
at all. Fisher v. Pace, 336 U.S. ISS (1949), a contempt of court case turning entirely upon
unique facts and in which the judgment e,ither way was necessarily very close, exemplifies the
type of case in which it is hard to understand why certiorari should have been granted.
ISJ See Boskey, op. cit. supra note r82
1
at 2s7; Burton, Judging Is Also Administration,
:n Temple L.Q. 77, 84 (1947).
that these cases were cluttering the docket of the Court and concluded, "I
would, therefore, dismiss the petition as having been improvidently
granted. Since, however, that is not to be done, I too have been obliged to
recanvass the record ... "
154
and he thereupon recorded his position on the
merits. In Hill v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R.,rss an FELA case, certiorari was
granted and the judgment below reversed without argument in a per
curiam decision. Justice Frankfurter noted that the petition itself should
not be granted, and apparently did not participate on the merits. In Reyn-
olds v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R.,Z
56
a similar FELA case, he joined in the
Court's opinion on the merits only because the case could be disposed of on
the pleadings and did not require him to read a record.
These three cases seem to amount to an expression by Justice Frank-
furter of a policy not to participate in FELA cases on the merits where a
record is involved. If four Justices were to join the Frankfurter position,
cases would presumably be put on the docket by four Justices and taken off
by the other :five as a matter of routine. To this extent the" rule of four" is
vitiated in these cases, for it is simply a form to grant a certiorari if the
case is not then to be considered. While it may be an unsound policy to
leave to four Justices the authority to determine what cases the Court
will hear, it is doubtful that Congress would have granted the discretion-
ary jurisdiction on any other basis.
It was suggested last year that denial of certiorari is rather frequently
coming to mean tacit approval of the opinion below. That at least some
of the Justices themselves have this view was indicated in the dissent in
Christoffel v. United States.
151
The conviction of Christoffel of perjury be-
fore a Congressional Committee was set aside by a majority of the Court
on the ground that it did not appear that a quorum of the Committee be-
fore which he had testified had been present at the time of the alleged per-
jury. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Reed, Burton, and Chief Justice
Vinson, dissented in part on the ground that the identical issue had been
raised in a previous perjury case on which certiorari had been denied.
Justice Jackson noted that the earlier denial" of course does not imply ap-
proval of the law announced below,"rss but nonetheless he did stress the
denial in the previous case at some length. In his oral delivery of his opin-
ion, this was perhaps the point most vigorously made. In the written opin-
ion he concluded, "I do not see how the Court can justify such discrimina-
I54 Wilkerson v. McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53, 68 (1949).
ISS 336 u.s. 9II (1949). I
57
6g s. Ct. 1447 (1949).
IS
6
336 U.S. 207 (1949).
ISS Ibid., at 1452 n. 4
tion."'
59
The whole tone of this portion of his opinion is that the action of
the Court in the two cases is somehow incompatible, which is true only if
denial of certiorari is something other than totally colorless, conveying
no attitude whatsoever toward the case denied review. The discussion
heightens the impression that, regardless of the formula, denial of certi-
orari in at least some cases is coming to be an indication that the decision
below was correct.
b) District of Columbia-Diversity Jurisdiction
InN ational M utuallnsurance Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co.,'
60
the Court
passed upon the validity of the 1940 Act permitting District of Columbia
residents to have access to the federal diversity jurisdiction. That jurisdic-
tion is restricted by Article III of the Constitution to citizens of different
"states," and it had early been held by Marshall that the District of
Columbia and the territories were not" states" and that legislation passed
under that clause did not give their citizens access to federal courts. In
1940, Congress attempted to undo the Marshall result by passing an ex-
plicit authorizing act which rested primarily on Article I of the Constitu-
tion rather than Article III; relying on its power to make laws" necessary
and proper" for the District of Columbia and the territories.
Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Black and Burton, declared the
statute invalid if it rested on a theory that" states" in Article III included
the District of Columbia, but that it was valid as an exertion of the power
under Article I. Justices Rutledge and Murphy thought it invalid as an
exercise of Article I power, but valid under Article III. Justices Frank-
furter, Reed, Vinson, and Douglas thought it invalid under both. Thus, al-
though a majority of the Court thought the statute invalid on each theory,
the combination of theories resulted in its being upheld by a vote of :five to
four. There are times when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Jackson contended that under the various grants of power in Article I,
Congress was empowered to add to the jurisdiction of the district courts.
It had previously been generally thought that Article III was exclusive,
and that, while Congress could subtract from the jurisdiction of the lower
courts, or indeed abolish them, it could not add to their jurisdiction.'
61
That view still prevails as a result of the rigorous adherence to it of six of
the Justices in this case. Under the Jackson view, the whole unintelligible
mass of doctrine concerning the relations of "legislative" and "constitu-
'59 Ibid., at 1453 n. 4 '
60
69 S. Ct. II73 (1949).
'6' The opinions of Justices Rutledge and Frankfurter deal thoroughly with this question.
Ibid., at II84, Il95
tional" courts would have been taken out of the District of Columbia
cubby hole in which it primarily resides and would have been inflicted on
the district courts in the forty-eight states.
162
This is avoided by the other
positions taken.
The best of the argument lay with Justice Frankfurter when he con-
tended in his dissent, "A decent respect for unbroken history since the
country's foundation, for contemporaneous interpretation by those best
quali:fied to make it, for the capacity of the distinguished lawyers among
the Framers to express themselves with precision when dealing with tech-
nical matters, unite to admonish against disregarding the explicit language
of Article III. ... "
16
3
It is usually thought that Chief Justice Marshall performed an almost
senseless act when he originally interpreted "state" so narrowly as to ex-
clude the District, and Justice Rutledge treats his opinion as one in which
"the master hand ... faltered." But Marshall, for all the aggressiveness
of his nationalism, was careful not to give needless affront to the preju-
dices of his time when the matter involved was of no great importance, as
this one was and is not. There was once great local jealousy against the
District of Columbia. In the Virginia ratifying Convention on the Consti-
tution, which Marshall attended, that attitude was expressed strongly.
Such men as Patrick Henry, in their opposition to the Constitution, vigor-
ously argued that the power over the" ten miles square" might be used to
create an oligarchy which would reach out and enjoy special privileges in
the rest of the country in derogation of the laws of the states. Those fears
were specifically answered by categorical pledges from the Federalists in
that convention that the District power would be restricted to the Dis-
trict, and particularly that no corporations chartered there would be given
special privileges elsewhere.
16
4
In view of that peculiar attitude toward the District which was so
prominently in public attention when the Constitution was ratified, it
is very possible that Marshall's hand did not falter and that he accurately
reflected the convictions of the Constitutional era. The summary of other
historical materials by Chief Justice Vinson shows that the jealousies of
the I8th century toward the federal judiciary resulted in deliberately
making Article III exclusive.
162
Justice Rutledge discusses this aspect of the problem at some length. Ibid., at n86 n. 7
and text following.
163
Ibid., at II99
16
4 References to Elliot's Debates on this point are collected in Frank, Review of Curtis,
Lions Under the Throne, and McCune, The Nine Young Men, 96 U. of Pa. L. Rev. 597, 6oo
(1948).
THE UNITED STATES SUPRE?J.E COURT: 1948-49 4I
c) Federal and State Courts
In addition to the usual run of Erie v. Tompkins cases, one of which re-
moved some doubts as to the meaning of Angel v. Bullington,x
6
s there were
two cases of considerable importance on the relation of state and federal
courts. Stainback v. M o Hock Ke Lok P o
166
was probably brought up for re-
view to consider a basic problem of civil rights; but it served to settle an
important matter of procedure. The proceedings were brought in the fed-
eral court in Hawaii, rather than the territorial court; to challenge the
validity of a territorial law precluding the operation of foreign language
schools there. In addition to other procedural matters of less general sig-
nificance, the Court in an opinion by Justice Reed held that, as a matter of
equitable discretion, the suit should have been remanded by the federal to
the territorial courts. The language used is equally applicable to a great
variety of important suits anywhere in the United States.
This is but the most recent of a long line of cases limiting federal juris-
diction in injunction suits by the device of equity's discretion. Perhaps no
aspect of federal-state court relations has been more unsatisfactory than
federal intervention to enjoin state administrative or legislative actions
on ground of unconstitutionality. The Stainback opinion went consider-
ably farther than any previous case to end that practice, holding that:
where equitable interference with state and territorial acts is sought in federal courts,
judicial consideration of acts of importance primarily to the people of a state or terri-
tory should, as a matter of discretion, be left by the federal courts to the courts of the
legislating authority unless exceptional circumstances command a different course.
16
7
The references to "acts of importance primarily to the people of a state"
and "exceptional circumstances" leave considerable leeway for the future,
but the passage is very broad nonetheless.
The policy of giving the states :first try at questions arising from their
own laws was very carefully limited by the Court in Propper v. Clark
168
to
federal constitutional cases. This was an action brought in a federal
court by the Alien Property Custodian. His rights in this complicated pro-
ceeding were substantially dependent on New York law. Justice Frank-
furter expressed the view that the case should be remanded to the dis-
trict court so that declaratory judgment proceedings might be instituted
1
6s 330 U.S. 183 (1947). Woods v. Interstate Realty Co., 69 S. Ct. 1235 (1949), holds that
the two grounds of decision in the Angel case are equally effective precedent, and that, in
substance, under this application of the Erie rule, state legislatures may limit the jurisdiction
of federal courts in diversity cases by limiting the jurisdiction of their own courts. For a brief
criticism of Angel v. Bullington on this point, see the 1946 Term Article, at 32-33.
1
66 336 U.S. 368 (1949).
167
Ibid., at 383, 384.
168
69 S. Ct. 1333 (1949).
42
in New York state courts to obtain a declaration of the New York law.
16
9
Justice Reed in the opinion of the Court met this suggestion with a :flat re-
jection, holding that such declaratory judgment proceedings would not be
used except where necessary to avoid possible unnecessary decision of a
constitutional question by the federal court. The device, he said, "is not
to be used to impede the normal course of action where federal courts have
been granted jurisdiction of the controversy."x?o It is fortunate that the
matter was thus resolved, for the device of holding litigation in federal
courts pending proceedings elsewhere is likely to make the federal litiga-
tion interminable.
d) Sovereign Immunity
The old tune of sovereign immunity was played again in Larson v.
Domestic&- Foreign Commerce Corp.,x1x and when it was over the sovereign
had somewhat more immunity than he had had before. The suit was
brought against the War Assets Administrator to enjoin him from deliver-
ing to anyone but the plaintiff, coal which the plaintiff alleged had been
sold to him. The case was thus in effect an action for specific performance.
The Court in an opinion by the Chief Justice, recognized two legitimate
types of injunction suits against government officials: where their acts
were beyond the powers given them by statute, and where the statute or
order under which they proceeded was unconstitutional. The Court re-
jected a third theory, that where an officer held property the "title" of
which was in another, the true holder of the "title" might sue to recover
the property. This required a very narrow construction of United States v.
Lee,x1 the leading case in the field, and the overruling of Goltra v. Weeks.m
Justice Frankfurter, in a dissent joined by Justice Burton, digs into the
subject with enormous thoroughness, and the opinion of the Court as well
as the dissent make this the leading, as well as the most recent, exposition
of the jurisdictional law applicable when the government holds property
claimed by another. If there is any modern development to modify sov-
ereign immunity, the majority opinion sets the crusade back consider-
ably.x74
1
69 Justice Frankfurter advanced a similar suggestion in Comm'r v. Estate of Church, 335
u.s. 632, 674 (1949).
1
7 69 S. Ct. 1333, 1344 (1949).
171
6g s. Ct. 1457 (1949).
1
72 106 U.S. 196 (1882)
173 271 U.S. 536 (1926).
1
74 A recent scholarly plea for limitation of the i=unity is found in Block, Suits against
Government Officers and the Sovereign Immunity Doctrine, 59 Harv. L. Rev. ro6o (1946).
V. THE INSTITUTION AND ITS JUSTICES
THE WORK OF THE INSTITUTION
At the I948 term, the number of cases decided by opinion, including
per curiams but excluding simple companion cases, was I22. At the pre-
ceding term the number was II g. This is a far cry from the usual 200 or so
cases a year which made up the docket before the war.
As was observed here last year, this smaller docket is the product of a
number of factors, such as the elimination of many constitutional issues
once in controversy, the Erie v. Tompkins rule eliminating diversity cases,
and the Dobson rule eliminating review of many tax cases. Compensating
to a small extent for these factors are the increased number of civil liberties
cases.
Perhaps partly a result of and perhaps partly a cause of the small
docket is a shift in the manner in which the Court is doing its work. While
TABLE 4
DISTRIBUTION OF MAJORITY OPINIONS
Vinson........... 9 Murphy .......... ro
Black ............ I9 Jackson .......... ro
Reed ............. rs Rutledge ......... ro
Frankfurter ....... r2 Burton........... 7
Douglas . . . . . . . . . . I9 Per cur.. . . . . . . . . . rr
the number of cases being decided is about 6o per cent of pre-war normal,
the number of words being written is at least as great as ever, and this year
the Court stayed in session almost a month longer than was once usual.'
7
S
Presumably, some of the present Court believe that more extensive dis-
cussions are desirable than was formerly the custom. The Court also ap-
pears to be turning more and more toward individual statements by each
Justice, thus subordinating the role of "the opinion of the Court," and,
indeed, rather frequently obliterating it.X7
6
None of these generalities applies to the entire Court. The Chief Jus-
tice, for example, almost never writes separately, and Justices Black and
I75The Court adjourned this year on June 27. The latest date of any adjournment from
1931 to 1940 was June 5 at the October 1948 term. That year the Court disposed of 247 cases
on the merits, 307 U.S. 683 (1939), more than twice as many as this year.
1
7
6
There was no "opinion of the Court" to which a majority subscribed without additional
expression in any of the following cases: Co='r v. Culbertson, 69 S. Ct. 1210 (1949); Harris v.
South Carolina, 69 S. Ct. 1354 (1949); Interstate Oil Pipeline Co. v. Stone, 69 S. Ct. 1264
(1949); Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S.. 6o1 (1949); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77 (1949);
Lustig v. United States, 69 S. Ct. 1372 (1949); McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451
(1948); Nat.Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater, 69 S. Ct. II73 (1949); United States v. Penn Found-
ry, 69 S. Ct. 1009 (1949); Turner v. Pennsylvania, 69 S. Ct. 1352 (1949); Watts v. Indiana,
69 S. Ct. 1347 (1949); Wilkerson v.McCarthy, 336 U.S. 53 (1949). This is approximately ten
per cent of the cases.
44
Douglas are approximately as concise as they were ten years ago. But the
description is generally accurate.
The distribution of majority opinions among the Justices was as shown
in Table 4.m
At the 1946 term, Justices Frankfurter and Jackson prevailed in a con-
siderably larger number of important cases than did Justices Black,
Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge. At the 1947 term, that balance shifted
markedly, and in 1948, it stayed approximately as it was the year before.
At all three terms, Justices Reed, Burton, and the Chief Justice have been
consistently of the majority. For each of the past two years, Justice Jack-
son has been the most frequent dissenter in important cases.
The degree of prevalence of the views of particular Justices can be meas-
ured by concentrating on the most important of the decisions, and for this
purpose I have arbitrarily chosen two groups of cases which seemed to me
to have the most important consequences to society. The first group con-
sists of the five cases which seem the most significant of the year.I7
8
The
second group of twenty-four are definitely less important, but are not
routine.I79 The data in Table 5 are taken from these two groups. Disquali-
m The text table is the writer's count. Data in the Washington Post (July 5, 1949), which
does not eliminate companion cases of an extremely simple sort, are as shown in the accom-
panying tabulation.
Majority Cone. Diss. Other
Vinson .................. IO 0
4
0
Black ................... 19 3 7
0
Reed ................... 16 0 8 0
Frankfurter ............. 14 II 20 0
Douglas ................. 20
5
I2 I
Murphy .................
9
I
9
0
Jackson ................. 10
4 I7
3
Rutledge ................
9
6 8 0
Burton ..................
7
2
5
0
The imbalance of the distribution among the Justices was more noticeable during the term
than at its somewhat protracted end. Justice Frankfurter, for example, handed down seven
of his twelve opinions at the last two sessions of the Court in June. On March 28 the distribu-
tion of the majority opinions was as follows:
Vinson................ 2
Black ................. 13
Reed.................. 8
Frankfurter.... . .. . .. .. 3
Douglas ............... 10
Murphy ................ 4
Jackson ................ 5
Rutledge ............... 2
Burton ................. 3
Per cur................. 8
1
78 Giboney v. Empire Storage &Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490 (1949); International Union, UAW v.
WERB, 336 U.S. 245 (1949); Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co.,
335 U.S. 525 (1949); Terminiello v. Chicago, 69 S. Ct. 894 (1949); Wolf v. Colorado, 69 S. Ct.
I359 (1949).
1
79 Algoma Plywood Co. v. WERB, 336 U.S. 301 (1949); Comm'r v. Estate of Church, 335
U.S. 632 (1949); Fed. Power Comm'n v. Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., 69 S. Ct. I25I (1949);
Frazierv. United States, 335 U.S. 497 (r949);Hirota v. MacArthur, 69 S. Ct. 197, 1238 (1948);
:fications give some Justices less than a total of twenty-nine.
The distribution of agreements among the Justices in these 29 cases,
whether in majority or dissent, is shown in Table 6.
JUSTICE
Major
Vmson ............
4
Black ...........
4
Reed ..............
5
Frankfurter ........
4
Douglas ...........
s
Murphy ...........
s
Jackson ...........
4
Rutledge ..........
s
Burton ...........
4
TABLE 5
VOTING DISTRIBUTION
MAJO:UTY VOTES
Important Total
I8 22
I7
2I
I9 24
IS I9
I6
I9
I6
I9
IS I7
I7
20
I7
2I
TABLE 6
DISSENTING VOTES
Major Important
I 6
I
7
0
s
I
9
2 8
2
7
I IO
2 6
I
7
AGREEMENTS AMONG JUSTICES IN MAJOR AND IMPORTANT CASES
Vinson Black Reed
Frank-
Douglas Murphy
Jack- Rut-
furter son ledge
------------
---
---
Vmson ........ ....... I4 24 I9 I4
I2
2S IS
Black .........
I4
....... I7 I2 2S
20 IO 20
Reed ........
24 I7
....... I8 IS IS 20 I6
Frankfurter ....
I9
I2 I8 ........ IO I2
2S IS
Douglas ......
I4 2S IS
IO ....... 20 I2 I8
Murphy ....... I2 20
IS
I2 20 ....... IO 24
Jackson ....... 2S
IO 20
2S
12 IO .......
9
Rutledge ......
IS
20 16
I3
I8
I
24
9
........
Burton ........
24 13
2I
23 IS
II
24
12
Total
7
8
s
IO
IO
9
II
8
8
Burton
---
24
IS
2I
2S
IS
II
24
I2

At the I948 term, the pattern of agreements among the Justices re-
mained much as it had been before. The most marked change was the
great increase in agreements at this term between Chief Justice Vinson
Hood & Sons v. DuMond, ss6 U.S. S2S (I949); Klapprott v. United States, SSS U.S. 6ox
(1949); Kovacs v. Cooper, ss6 U.S. 77 (1949); Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 69 S. Ct.
1457 (1949); McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., ss6 u.s. I87 (1949); MacDougal v. Green,
SS5 U.S. 281 (1948); Michelson v. United States, SSS U.S. 469 (1948); NLRB v. Stowe Spin-
ning Co., ss6 U.S. 226 (1949); Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, ss6 U.S. s68 (1949); Stand-
ard Oil Co. v. United States, 69 S. Ct. 1051 (1949); United States v. Cors, 69 S. Ct. 1086
(1949); United States v. ICC, 69 S. Ct. 1410 (1949); United States v. Nat. City Lines, 69 S. Ct.
9S5 (1949); Upshaw v. United States, SS5 U.S. 410 (1948); Urie v. Thompson, 69 S. Ct. 1018
(1949); Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 3SS U.S. S77 (1948); Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Glander,
69 S. Ct. 1291 (1949); Williams v. New York, 69 S. Ct. 1079 (1949); Young v. Ragen, 69 S. Ct.
1073 (1949). .
and Justice Jackson. Of the thirty-six possible combinations of nine Jus-
tices into pairs, Chief Justice Vinson and Justice Jackson, and Justices
Black and Douglas were the pairs most often in agreement; while Justices
Rutledge and Jackson, Justices Black and Jackson, Justices Frankfurter
and Douglas, and Justices Murphy and Jackson were the pairs least often
in agreement.
180
THE WORK OF THE INDIVIDUAL JUSTICES
Chief Justice Vinson's third year on the bench found him following the
lines laid down in previous years, as the work before the Court presented
no particularly new problems for him. Since the Chief Justice is the one
member of the Court who can regularly choose the cases on which he
writes, Vinson's choice of opinions is some measure of his own interests.
He is apparently particularly interested in matters of jurisdiction and
procedure, evidenced by the fact that of his nine majority opinions, four
were in that area.
181
It is too soon to assess the Chief Justice in terms of his accomplish-
ments not as a Justice but as a Chief Justice, but a tentative evaluation
may be made. A Chief Justice has special opportunity to bring divergent
views into harmony by virtue of his chairmanship of the conference, but if
strong Justices disagree, there is substantially nothing a Chief Justice can
do about it. He has the special duties both to assign opinions fairly, mak-
ing the most of the special talents of each member of his bench, and to
make sure that the work of the Court is rapidly and efficiently done. It
now appears that Chief Justice Vinson cannot use his office to promote in-
tellectual harmony. Perhaps no one could. In any case, as Justice Jackson
observed good humoredly from the bench of the decision of the District of
Columbia diversity case, the Court sometimes mounts its horse and rides
off in all directions.
182
The Chief Justice's assignment of opinions has been
admirable, with a fair distribution of the dull and the interesting; and if
anything, he has skimped himself in the distribution of the more interest-
ing cases. The unusual length of the term evidenced that he has not been
particularly successful in getting the work done speedily. It is unlikely
that he will menace Taft and Hughes as holders of the Court's laurels as
the great administrators.
I8o For comparative data on the categories discussed in the foregoing section see the 1946
Term Article, at 37 et seq.; 1947 Term Article, at 45 et seq.
181
Callaway v. Benton, 336 U.S. 132 (1949); Ex parte Collett, 69 S. Ct. 944 (1949); Kil-
patrick v. Tex. & Pac. R. Co., 69 S. Ct. 953 (1949); Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 69
S. Ct. 1457 (1949); United States v. Nat. City Lines, 69 S. Ct. 955 (1949).
182
See note 176 supra.
Justice Black, along with Justice Douglas, was as usual the author of
appreciably more majority opinions than most of his brethren. The year
was dramatic for Black principally because it required him to choose be-
tween two of his basic ideals-the maximum freedom of legislatures and
the optimum welfare of labor. The freedom of legislatures clearly tri-
umphed, since he wrote the two principal decisions upholding the legisla-
tive right to restrict closed shops and picketing!
8
3
In his other opinions, Black's year was about as would have been ex-
pected. As has been noted above, he took the most extreme position of
anyone on the Court in suggesting a sharp limitation on the meaning of
the search and seizure provision of the Fourth Amendment,
18
4 but this
general attitude toward that Amendment is not new. From the standpoint
of simple exposition, his least satisfactory opinion of the year was in Unit-
ed States v. Interstate Commerce Commission.
185
From the standpoint of
simplicity as well as comprehensiveness, his best opinions were the Mis-
souri picketing case,Z
86
the case invalidating confessions in the absence of
prompt arraignments in federal courts,Z
8
7 and Williams v. New York,X
88
a
case not discussed above. The Williams case holds valid a law authorizing
judges to use probation reports in determining sentences despite the fact
that such data are not collected in accordance with the commands of due
process. The opinion considers the relevant" nonlegal" materials carefully,
and is turned out with a polish that makes it one of the best opinions of the
year.
The 1948 term for Justice Reed was a session of solid professional ap-
plication which took him into most of the areas with which the Court
deals. It was a measure of his significant role on the Court that in the most
important cases of the year, he was of the majority more than often any
other Justice.
Reference to a few of Reed's opinions indicates the variety of his work.
He wrote the opinion of the Court in two civil rights cases upholding a
right to counsel;
189
in the two cases involving application of federal labor
18
3 Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490 (1949); Lincoln Federal Labor Union
v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co., 335 U.S. 525 (1949).
I14 Wolf v. Colorado, 69 S. Ct. 1359 (1949).
18
s 69 S. Ct. 1410 (1949). The Court upheld the right of the United States as a shipper to
appeal to the courts from adverse decisions of the ICC. Since the United States has enormous
claims on wartime overcharges, the matter is of considerable practical importance. New Re-
public 7 (July n, 1949).
186
Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490 (1949).
18
7 Upshaw v. United States, 335 U.S. 410 (1948).
188
69 s. Ct. 1074 (1949).
tS
9
Uveges v. Pennsylvania, 335 U.S. 437 (1949); Gibbs v. Burke, 69 S. Ct. 1247 (1949).
48 THE UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
statutes outside the continental United States;xgo in two cases involving
important matters of procedure;
191
and in a case holding that the Natural
Gas Act did not give the Federal Power Commission authority to regulate
sales of reserves of a producing company.
192
His unhappiest opinion of the
year from the standpoint of clarity of expresssion is probably Hynes v.
Grimes Packing Co., x93 a case involving an Alaska :fishery, which represents
Reed in his occasional opaque style. One of his best written opinions was
Smith 'II. United States,X94 an analysis of the problems of self-incrimination
arising when a person testifies in an administrative hearing and is later
prosecuted for offenses closely connected with the matter of his testimony.
However, from the standpoint of amassing and clarifying large amounts of
divergent materials and of making clear the real meaning of elusive prece-
dents, the decisions dealing with the application of the Fair Labor Stand-
ards Act to Bermuda
195
and the sound truck case
96
are outstanding.
The I948 term was outstanding for Justice Frankfurter.x97 At the pre-
ceding term, Frankfurter's energies had been taken up so largely with
what at times seemed almost aimless separate opinions, that there was lit-
tle of substance left.
198
At the r948 term he again had something to say in
approximately one-third of the cases, but it was more important. He
wrote substantial majority opinions both in the Standard Oil anti-trust
case,
199
and in the Algoma Plywood case involving the right of the states to
forbid closed shops.
200
He dealt comprehensively with difficult matters for
the majority in a significant admiralty case,
201
and for the dissent in the
case involving extension of diversity jurisdiction to citizens of the District
of Columbia.
202
His major research jobs of the year were very elaborate
1
9Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U.S. 377 (1948); Foley Bros. v. Filardo, 336 U.S.
281 (1949).
1
9
1
Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U.S. 368 (1949); Propper v. Clark, 69 S. Ct.
1333 (1949).
1
92 Fed. Power Comm'n v. Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., 69 S. Ct. 1251 (1949).
1
93 69 s. Ct. 968 (1949).
1
94 69 s. Ct. IOOO (1949).
1
95 Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U.S. 377 (1948).
1
96 Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77 (1949).
1
97 For an extended and thoughtful analysis of Justice Frankfurter's first ten years on the
bench see Jaffe, The Judicial Universe of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 357 (1949)
1
9
8
The point is enlarged upon in the 1947 Term Article, at 51.
1
99 Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 69 S. Ct. 1051 (1949).
200
Algoma Plywood Co. v. WERB, 336 U.S. 301 (1949).
201
Black Diamond S.S. Corp. v. Stewart & Sons, 336 U.S. 386 (1949).
202
Nat. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Co., 6Q S. Ct. II73 (1949).
studies in the sovereign immunity case,
203
and in the case dealing with
state searches and seizures!
0
4 As has been noted, he adhered vigorously
to his view that the Court should leave the states wide latitude to restrict
free speech;os
Justice Frankfurter considers the actual decision of cases by the Su-
preme Court of less importance than some other Justices, carrying his
doctrine of nonaction for that tribunal to the point of systematic philoso-
phy. In a very substantial number of the cases, he would either not decide
the case as a matter of some general policy or remand it for further pro-
ceedings before he would consider it ripe for decision. This year he was
either alone or in a small minority in seven cases which he thought not
suitable for decision.
2
o6
For Justice Douglas, r948-49 may well be a year to forget. Many of his
opinions must have been dull work, a job to be done!
07
The leading Doug-
las opinions of the year were the Terminiello case;
208
an important deci-
sion in the law of eminent domain;
20
9 an analysis of the permissible
breadth of statutory injunctions;
210
his dissent in the Standard Oil case;2II
and his concurrence in Hirota v. MacArthur.
212
The Standard dissent is
startling in both its theory and its tone. The opinion asserts that the Court
"consciously pushes the oil industry" toward cartelization.
213
Since the
20
3 Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 69 S. Ct. 1457 (1949).
20
4 Wolf v. Colorado, 69 S. Ct. 1359 (1949) ..
20
5 Note 145 supra.
2
o6 Empress Siderurgica, S.A. v. Merced County, 69 S. Ct. 995 (1949); Hill v. Atl. Coast
LineR. Co., 336 U.S. 9II (1949); Hood & Sons v. DuMond, 336 U.S. 525 (1949); Nye and
Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613 (1949); Propper v. Clark, 69 S. Ct. 1333 (1949); Estate
of Spiegel v. Co='r, 335 U.S. 701 (1949); Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U.S. 368
(1949).
20
7 See, e.g., Ayrshire Collieries Corp. v. United States, 335 U.S. 573 (1949), the kind of
tedious ICC review problem that eight other Justices must be delighted to see Justice Doug-
las write.
20
s Terminiello v. Chicago, 69 S. Ct. 894 (1949).
20
9 United States v. Cors, 69 S. Ct. 1o86 (1949).
210
McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187 (1949).
mstandard Oil Co. v. United States, 69 s. Ct. 10,51 (1949).
212
69 S. Ct. 1238 (1948).
21
3 The same underlying theory that a law must be interpreted favorably to some part of
the business co=unity if the business co=unity is to be restrained from frustration of the
object of the law had perceptible influence on the majority of the Court in Lawson v. Suwanee
Fruit & S.S. Co., 336 U.S. 198 (1949), in which the government rather than the employer is
held liable under the Longshoremen's Act for certain injuries to persons who have been pre-
viously injured. The Court thought that if the employer were held liable, he would not employ
persons in the class involved at all, and this fear was read back into the interpretation of the
act. Justice Douglas dissented.
50 THE UNNERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW REVIEW
majority of five included three Justices who have consistently upheld the
anti-trust laws as strongly as Justice Douglas, it was extreme to suggest
that they deliberately sought to "remake America in the image of the car-
tels."
Justice Douglas has consistently shown that if he has political aspira-
tions, his opinions are unaffected by them. His independence was dra-
matically illustrated again this year in the Hirota case, where his opinion is
scarcely calculated to improve his standing with some very prominent
members of his own party, and where he could safely have joined in a per
curiam opinion of the Court. The ultimate issue was whether an American
court could review the Tokyo war crimes trials by writ of habeas corpus,
and the Court summarily held that it could not. Justice Douglas concurred
in the result, quoting at length, and with apparent agreement, from the
opinion of Justice Pal of India, dissenting from the judgment of the
Tokyo Tribunal:
The so-called trial held according to the definition of crime now given by the
victors obliterates. the centuries of civilization which stretch between us and the sum-
mary slaying of the defeated in a war. A trial with law thus prescribed will only be a
sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge ....
Such a trial may justly create the feeling that the setting up of a tribunal like the
present is much more a political than a legal affair, an essentially political objective
having been cloaked by a juridical appearance.
Douglas put his acquiescence thus: "As Justice Pal said, it [the Tribunal]
did not therefore sit as a judicial tribunal. It was solely an instrument of
political power."
214
Hence Douglas held the trials unreviewable not because
of lack of jurisdiction in habeas corpus, but because the trials were not
"legal" at alL The disposition of the defendants was thus a political question,
unreviewable for that reason alone.
Justice Murphy's accomplishments at the I948 term were the more re-
markable because for the second consecutive year he was seriously ham-
pered by ill health. Unable to hear arguments for the first part of the term,
he participated in the cases of that period on the briefs. For the remainder
of the term he attacked his work with renewed energy. He wrote the opin-
ion of the Court upholding the validity of a South Carolina statute pro-
viding that undertakers might not serve as agents for insurance com-
- panies;rs and while the point is not difficult, the opinion disposes of it with
neat dispatch. An opinion interpreting the Longshoremen's Act, also on a
""4 Hirota v. MacArthur, 69 S. Ct. 1238 (1949). For a full description of a war trial in the
nature of an operation of "political power" see Reel, The Case of General Yamashita (Univ.
Chi. Press, 1949).
sDaniel v. Family Sec. Life Ins. Co., 336 U.S. 198 (1949).
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: 1948-49 5I
small point, will serve as a model of the full exploration of the social im-
plications of a statute in aid of its interpretation.
2
'
6
Perhaps the most mysterious intellectual episode of the year was Jus-
tice Murphy's dissent without opinion in the Hirota case.
2
'7 The dissent
presumably means that he felt the petition should have been received; but
it is. impossible, for this commentator at least, even to conceive of a theory
on which the Supreme Court might have had jurisdiction, and it would
have been interesting to know what Justice Murphy had in mind. But if
there was necessary lack of clarity in this dissent without opinion, there
was no such confusion in Murphy's dissent with opinion in Wolf v. Colo-
rado,2'8 the case dealing with state searches and seizures and due process.
As has been noted above, this dissent, from the standpoint both of prose
and technical presentation, is one of the rare great opinions.
Without attempting to appraise the significance of Justice Murphy's
work in terms of his opinions during the years that he served on the Court,
his death is likely to have the most substantial consequences on the
growth of public law, particularly in the :field of civil rights. The balance of
the court on so many matters had stood at :five-to-four that the replace-
ment of any of the Justices is a matter of utmost consequences. Justice
Murphy's consistent support of the most liberal point of view both in the
:field of civil rights and matters of economic regulation means that the new
Justice, Clark, will almost certainly move the Court in a more conservative
direction.
Justice Jackson stood out at the r948 term as the author of several sig-
nificant opinions and as a writer of striking judicial prose. A major victory
for views he has consistently expounded was Hood&- Sons v. DuMond,''
9
invalidating a New York order denying a license to a person seeking to
gather milk and ship it out of state. The denial was held an unconstitu-
tional burden on commerce. Justice Jackson, until the appointment of the
present Chief Justice who shares his position, had been the Court's strong-
est exponent of the view that the Court should put its whole weight
against state laws regulating commerce. In this case he carried a majority
21
6 Lawson v. Suwanee Fruit & S.S. Co., 336 U.S. 198 (1949).
21
7 Hirota v. MacArthur, 69 S. Ct. 1238 (1949). The petitioners applied for leave to file ap-
plications for the writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court. The case does not fall in any of
the branches of the categories of original jurisdiction named in the Constitution, and there is
no known appellate jurisdiction over the Japanese military tribunal in the Supreme Court. If
the case were to be heard in any American court, it would presumably have to begin in a dis-
trict court, as was done in form in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. I (1942). Justice Douglas in his
concurrence suggests this procedure.
218
69 S. Ct. 1359 (1949).
219
336 U.S. 525 (1949).
of five closer to his own point of view than the Court had previously been.
He also wrote an opinion giving extended and careful consideration to the
role of character witnesses in federal courts.o Either of these would serve
as his strongest opinion of the year, while his reputation is likely to gain
the least from his opinion in the District of Columbia diversity jurisdic-
tion case.n
As has been noted before, Justice Jackson is probably the least "legal"
member of the Court-the most inclined to guide his judgments by no-
tions of social expediency and practicality: This philosophy was par-
ticularly apparent in the constitutional field this year, when he advocated
different rules of reasonableness for searches and seizures depending upon
the gravity of the crime charged;
223
when he advocated as an antidote to
the large number of unsolved murders much wider latitude for police in
attempting to get confessions, even though he conceded that his policy
"largely negates the benefits of the constitutional guaranty of the right to
assistance of counsel" ;
22
4 and when he advocated virtual suspension of
freedom of speech when necessary to aid the police in keeping order.s
Justice Rutledge enjoys his work most thoroughly when he can examine
a large mass of precedents from which he can skilfully choose a line to fol-
low. Two opinions this year gave him that opportunity. One, Oklahoma
Tax Comm'n v. Texas Co.,
226
overruled certain precedents holding that the
states could not tax oil produced by the lessees of Indian lands. The other
held the FELA and the Boiler Inspection Act applicable to industrial dis-
eases."27
That Rutledge is not doctrinaire was illustrated by his two opinions re-
jecting claimed abuses of civil rights despite his obvious predilections in
behalf of such claims."
28
The process of case by case determination some-
times makes it difficult for him to make up his mind at all, and he is the
only member of the Court who occasionally concurs "dubitante."
9
In the
220
Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469 (1948).
m Nat. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Co., 69 S. Ct. II73 (1949).
=See the 1946 Term Article, at 46-47.
22
3 McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451 (1948); Brinegar v. United States, 69 S. Ct.
1302 (1949).
22
4 See discussion note 124 supra and text.
:usTerminiello v. Chicago, 69 S. Ct. 894 (1949).
226 336 U.S. 342 (1949).
22
7 Urie v. Thompson, 69 S. Ct. 1018 (1949).
22
s Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497 (1948); Brinegar v. United States, 69 S. Ct. 1302
(1949).
22
9 See, e.g., Ry. Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. ro6 (1949); Ex parte Collett, 335
U.S. 897 (1949), and related cases.
Hirota case, which the Court disposed of very quickly, he reserved "deci-
sion and the announcement of his vote until a later time,""
30
and at the
close of the term had not yet announced it. Yet the existence of honest
doubts, hesitantly resolved, should not give the impression of aimlessness.
The Rutledge opinion in the Interstate Oil Pipeline Co/3
1
case drives hard
to the objective of upholding state taxing power, and a dissent in the
sound truck case'
3
" gives a flat answer to the argument of Justice Frank-
furter that the Bill of Rights and the Court do not give a" preferred posi-
tion" to freedom of speech, press and assembly. On fundamentals, once
his mind is made up, Justice Rutledge shows no hesitancy at all.
Justice Burton wrote seven opinions of the Court this year, more than
in previous years; but the thin docket and his status as junior Justice com-
bined to give him no cases as broadly significant as his renegotiation cases
of the preceding term'3
3
or the National Lead"
3
4 case at the 1946 term. The
three leading Burton opinions were United States v. Wittek,"
35
holding the
District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act inapplicable to government
owned housing; Grand River Dam Authority v. Grand Hydro,3
6
dealing
with state eminent domain proceedings and the Federal Power Act; and
his dissent in Estate of Spiegel v. Comm'r.31 The Wittek case is of consider-
able practical significance to government low-rent housing in the District,
and is written with sensitive perception of the squalor in the alleys of the
nation's capital.
The Burton opinions are usually extremely long because of the inclu-
sion of matter which another Justice might well have thought either ob-
vious or irrelevant. Comm'r v. J acobson'
38
will serve as an example. A tax-
payer had issued bonds secured by a trust deed on certain property. At a
time when the taxpayer was in straitened financial circumstances but was
not insolvent, he bought back some of these bonds at less than their fair
value. The issue in the case was whether the difference between what he
paid to retire his own paper and what it was worth should be treated as
taxable income. Section 22(a) of the Internal Revenue Code includes
within the definition of "gross income" all "gains ... from any source
2
3 Hirota v. MacArthur, 69 S. Ct. 197, 198 (1948).
2
3' Interstate Oil Pipeline Co. v. Stone, 69 S. Ct. 1264 (1949).
2
3
2
Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77 (1949). Reel, op. cit. supra note 214, pays strong tribute
to Justice Rutledge's hard-hitting qualities.
2
33 Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742 (1948).
2
34 United States v. Nat. Lead Co., 332 U.S. 319 (1947).
2
35 336 U.S. 931 (1949).
2
37 335 U.S. 701, 708 (1949).
236
335 u.s. 359 (1948).
238
336 u.s. 28 (1949).
54 THE UNIVERSITY OF CffiCAGO LAW REVIEW
whatever." Section 22(b), however, excludes "gifts." The court below
held that the benefit to the taxpayer on the bond purchases was excluded
from gross income as a gift from the bondholders under Section 22(b).
The leading previous case was Helvering v. American Dental Co.,
3
9 which
the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals attempted to follow; and the
technical issue of the case thus became whether the bond purchases were
gifts within the American Dental rule.
Justice Burton's opinion occupies twenty-two columns of the Supreme
Court Reporter. The introduction and the facts occupy seven columns and
include a detailed description of the method of bond repurchase and of the
circumstances of the bond issue, although the ultimate decision is not
made to depend on most of the facts discussed. Four columns follow show-
ing that the transactions create gross income within the meaning of Sec-
tion 22(a), including more than two columns of quoted regulations and
Code, although the applicability of Section 22(a) does not appear to have
been doubted at any point below, and in any case the question is complete-
ly closed by several decisions. Note 2 sets out at length the applicable pro-
visions of the Code and note I6 sets out at almost a column's length the
comparable provisions of the Revenue Act of 1916, although no conten-
tion of any kind relates to that Act. The discussion of Section 22(b) oc-
cupies eleven columns. The American Dental case, the applicability of
which was the only substantial point which had troubled the lower courts,
is finally distinguished in one sentence in the last paragraph.
It would be misleading to leave the impression that all of Justice Burton's
opinions were in the pattern just described. For example, the Wittek, Grand
River, and Spiegel opinions mentioned above are not. What is more impor-
tant, Justice Burton writes progressively fewer "Jacobson type" opinions
as he adjusts to his judicial career.
VI. CONCLUSION
The life of an institution, like the life of man, knows quiet times. The
1948 term was such a time, a year with only that minimum of excitement
which necessarily comes to the highest Court. With few exceptions, for the
great mass of the American people life will run on about as if the Court
had been in recess for a year.
Perhaps this is more than happenstance, a quirk of the cases which
chanced to come up for decision. In part, of course, the decline in the
docket is caused by the relaxation of regulatory activities of the govern-
ment. But, and this is more important, perhaps we are witnessing the in-
39 318 u.s. 322 (1943).
evitable result of the twelve year policy of judicial self -denial which began
as a response to events of 1936 and 1937. Years of judicial deference to the
executive, to legislatures, and to administrative agencies may result finally
in the abandonment of recourse to the judges. In a democracy where only
judges serve for life, may it not be the ultimate triumph of the "New Deal
judges" that they have shifted the real controversies of our time to agen-
cies closer to the electorate?

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