Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Executive, and was not a valid exercise of congressional Commerce Clause power. United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part.
The regulations at issue were promulgated under the authority of the NIRA of 1933. These included price and wage fixing, as well as requirements regarding the sale of whole chickens, including unhealthy ones. The government claimed the Schechter brothers sold sick poultry, which has led to the case becoming known as "the sick chicken case".[2] Also encompassed in the decision were NIRA provisions regarding maximum work hours and a right of unions to organize. The ruling was one of a series which overturned elements of President Roosevelt's New Deal legislation between January 1935 and January 1936, until the Court's intolerance of economic regulations shifted with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish.[3]
The NIRA allowed local codes for trade to be written by private trade and industrial groups. The President could choose to give some codes the force of law. The Supreme Court's opposition to an active federal interference in the local economy caused Roosevelt to attempt to pack the Court with judges who were in favor of the New Deal. There were originally 60 charges against Schechter Poultry, which were reduced to 18 charges plus charges of conspiracy by the time the case was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Among the 18 charges against Schechter Poultry were "the sale to a butcher of an unfit chicken" and the sale of two uninspected chickens. Ten charges were for violating codes requiring "straight killing". Straight killing prohibited customers from selecting the chickens they wanted; instead a customer had to place his hand in the coop and select the first chicken that came to hand. There was laughter during oral arguments when Justice George Sutherland asked, "Well suppose however that all the chickens have gone over to one end of the coop?"[4]
The Schechter brothers were Jewish; the surname Schechter means "slaughter" in Yiddish, and specifically refers to a ritual slaughterer).[5] According to the trial record, at least some of their customers preferred to select individual chickens, believing that this made it easier to have their rabbicertify the chicken as kosher, though this may not have been a universal belief; the Supreme Court decision did not address any issue of religious liberty.
Judgment
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote for a unanimous Court in invalidating the industrial "codes of fair competition", which the NIRA enabled the President to issue.[6] The Court held that the codes violated the constitutional separation of powers as an impermissible delegation of legislative power to the executive branch. The Court also held that the NIRA provisions were in excess of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. The Court distinguished between direct effects on interstate commerce, which Congress could lawfully regulate, and indirect effects, which were purely matters of state law. Although the raising and sale of poultry was an interstate industry, the Court found that the "stream of interstate commerce" had stopped in this case–Schechter's slaughterhouse's chickens were sold exclusively to in-state buyers.[7] Any interstate effect of Schechter was indirect, and therefore beyond federal reach.
Although many considered the NIRA a "dead statute" at this point in the New Deal scheme, the Court used its invalidation as an opportunity to affirm constitutional limits on congressional power, for fear that it could otherwise reach virtually anything that could be said to affect interstate commerce and intrude on many areas of legitimate state power. The court ruled that the law violated the Tenth Amendment. According to Supreme Court historian David P. Currie, the Court believed that "to permit Congress to regulate the wages and hours in a tiny slaughterhouse because of remote effects on interstate commerce would leave nothing for the tenth amendment to reserve". Currie added that "it can hardly have escaped the Justices that apart from its limitation to business there was little to distinguish what Congress had attempted from the 1933 legislation authorizing Adolf Hitler to govern Germany by decree ... the delegation decision in Schechter was a salutary reminder of the Framers' decision to vest legislative power in a representative assembly."[8]
Justice Benjamin Cardozo's concurring opinion clarified that a spectrum approach to direct and indirect effects is preferable to a strict dichotomy.[9] Cardozo felt that in this case, Schechter was simply too small a player to be relevant to interstate commerce. This traditional reading of the Commerce Clause was later disavowed by the Court, after the "court-packing plan" by President Roosevelt, began to read congressional power more expansively in this area, in cases such as NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp (1937).[10] Later cases, such as United States v. Lopez (1995),[11] perhaps signal a growing inclination in the Court to once again affirm limits on its scope. In a unanimous 2011 decision, Bond v. United States, the Supreme Court cited Schechter as a precedent.[12]
Significance
Speaking to aides of Roosevelt, Justice Louis Brandeis remarked: "This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we're not going to let this government centralize everything."[13] In Hyde Park, New York, a few days after the decision, Roosevelt denounced the decision as an antiquated interpretation of the Commerce Clause.[14] After the decision was announced, newspapers reported that 500 cases of NIRA code violations were going to be dropped.[15]
↑ Epstein, Lee J.; Walker, Thomas G. (February 20, 2019). Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Institutional Powers and Constraints (10thed.). Washington DC: CQ Press Sage Publications. p.434. ISBN978-1544317908. 96 percent of the poultry sold in New York came from out-of-state suppliers. The industry was riddled with graft and plagued by deplorable health and sanitation conditions. The Live Poultry Code approved by President Roosevelt set a maximum workweek of forty hours and a minimum hourly wage of fifty cents. In addition, the code established a health inspection system, regulations to govern slaughtering procedures, and compulsory record keeping. A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corporation, owned by Joseph, Martin, Aaron, and Alex Schechter, was a poultry slaughtering business in Brooklyn. Slaughterhouse operators such as the Schechters purchased large numbers of live chickens from local poultry dealers who imported the fowl from out of state to be killed and dressed for sale. Government officials found the Schechters in violation of the Poultry Code on numerous counts: They ignored the code's wage and hour provisions, failed to comply with government record-keeping requirements, and did not conform to the slaughter regulations. Their worst offense, however, was selling unsanitary poultry that the government found unfit for human consumption. For this reason, Schechter Poultry became known as the sick chicken case. The government obtained indictments against the Schechter Poultry Corporation and the four brothers on sixty counts of violating the code, and the jury found them guilty of nineteen. Each of the brothers was sentenced to a short jail term. They appealed unsuccessfully to the court of appeals and then pressed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that the NIRA was unconstitutional on improper delegation and commerce clause grounds
↑ In the 1960s, Prof. Harold Hyman told students in his Constitutional History course at U.C.L.A., "The Supreme Court was wrong!" As a child he had worked for the Schechter brothers, and among other tasks, took chickens from Brooklyn to Jersey City – interstate commerce.
↑ Currie, David P. The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century, 1888–1986. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press (1990), ISBN0-226-13112-2, pp. 210, 223.
↑ Schechter Poultry Corp., 295 U.S. at 551–552 (Cardozo, J., concurring).
↑ Harry Hopkins, "Statement to Me by Thomas Corcoran Giving His Recollections of the Genesis of the Supreme Court Fight," April 3, 1939, typescript in Harry Hopkins Papers
↑ Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man. New York: HarperCollins (2007), ISBN978-0-06-621170-1, p. 245.
↑ Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man. New York: HarperCollins (2007), ISBN978-0-06-621170-1, p. 244.
External links
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
The Dormant Commerce Clause, or Negative Commerce Clause, in American constitutional law, is a legal doctrine that courts in the United States have inferred from the Commerce Clause in Article I of the US Constitution. The primary focus of the doctrine is barring state protectionism. The Dormant Commerce Clause is used to prohibit state legislation that discriminates against, or unduly burdens, interstate or international commerce. Courts first determine whether a state regulation discriminates on its face against interstate commerce or whether it has the purpose or effect of discriminating against interstate commerce. If the statute is discriminatory, the state has the burden to justify both the local benefits flowing from the statute and to show the state has no other means of advancing the legitimate local purpose.
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution. The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes". Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas of commerce as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the individual components of the Commerce Clause referred to under specific terms: the Foreign Commerce Clause, the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the Indian Commerce Clause.
Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388 (1935), also known as the Hot Oil case, was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that the Franklin Roosevelt administration's prohibition of interstate and foreign trade in petroleum goods produced in excess of state quotas, the "hot oil" orders adopted under the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), was unconstitutional.
The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices. The NRA was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and allowed industries to get together and write "codes of fair competition". The codes intended both to help workers set minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold. The NRA also had a two-year renewal charter and was set to expire in June 1935 if not renewed.
The "Four Horsemen" was the nickname given by the press to four conservative members of the United States Supreme Court during the 1932–1937 terms, who opposed the New Deal agenda of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were Justices Pierce Butler, James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, and Willis Van Devanter. They were opposed by the liberal "Three Musketeers"—Justices Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Stone. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justice Owen J. Roberts controlled the balance. Hughes was more inclined to join the liberals, but Roberts was often swayed to the side of the conservatives.
National Labor Relations Board v Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, 301 U.S. 1 (1937), was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act. The case represented a major expansion in the Court's interpretation of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause and effectively spelled the end to the Court's striking down of New Deal economic legislation.
Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling by a 9–0 vote that the free speech protection of the Ohio Constitution, which was substantially similar to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, did not extend to motion pictures.
Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238 (1936), is a United States Supreme Court decision interpreting the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which permits the United States Congress to "regulate Commerce... among the several States." Specifically, it analyzes the extent of Congress' power, according to the Commerce Clause, looking at whether or not they have the right to regulate manufacturing.
George W. Bush & Sons Co. v. Malloy, 267 U.S. 317 (1925), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that the state statute under which the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) issued certificates of public convenience and necessity to common carriers engaged in interstate commerce violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration (PWA). The National Recovery Administration (NRA) portion was widely hailed in 1933, but by 1934 business opinion of the act had soured.
Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555 (1935), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled the Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act unconstitutional in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This unanimous decision was one of the Court's many rulings that overturned President Roosevelt's New Deal.
Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U.S. 117 (1978), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Maryland law prohibiting oil producers and refiners from operating service stations within its borders. The challengers, including Exxon, claimed that the law violated the Dormant Commerce Clause. Justice Stevens wrote for the majority, which disagreed with Exxon et al.: "Since Maryland's entire gasoline supply flows in interstate commerce and since there are no local producers or refiners, such claims of disparate treatment between interstate and local commerce would be meritless." Exxon challenged the Maryland statute in Circuit Court which ruled the statute invalid. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.
The constitutional law of the United States is the body of law governing the interpretation and implementation of the United States Constitution. The subject concerns the scope of power of the United States federal government compared to the individual states and the fundamental rights of individuals. The ultimate authority upon the interpretation of the Constitution and the constitutionality of statutes, state and federal, lies with the Supreme Court of the United States.
United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), also known as US v. Lopez, was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court that struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA) as it was outside of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It was the first case since 1937 in which the Court held that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause.
The Hughes Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1930 to 1941, when Charles Evans Hughes served as Chief Justice of the United States. Hughes succeeded William Howard Taft as Chief Justice after the latter's retirement, and Hughes served as Chief Justice until his retirement, at which point Harlan Stone was nominated and confirmed as Hughes's replacement. The Supreme Court moved from its former quarters at the United States Capitol to the newly constructed Supreme Court Building during Hughes's chief-justiceship.
The Stone Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1941 to 1946, when Harlan F. Stone served as Chief Justice of the United States. Stone succeeded the retiring Charles Evans Hughes in 1941, and served as Chief Justice until his death, at which point Fred Vinson was nominated and confirmed as Stone's replacement. He was the fourth chief justice to have previously served as an associate justice and the second to have done so without a break in tenure. Presiding over the country during World War II, the Stone Court delivered several important war-time rulings, such as in Ex parte Quirin, where it upheld the President's power to try Nazi saboteurs captured on American soil by military tribunals. It also supported the federal government's policy of relocating Japanese Americans into internment camps.
During the 1930s, the New Deal was often subjected to scrutiny, and had many constitutional challenges. Roosevelt was wary of the U.S. Supreme Court early in his first term, and his administration was slow to bring constitutional challenges of New Deal legislation before the Court; however, early wins for New Deal supporters came at the start of 1934 in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell and Nebbia v. New York. At issue in each case were state laws relating to economic regulation. Blaisdell concerned the temporary suspension of creditor's remedies by Minnesota in order to combat mortgage foreclosures, finding that temporal relief did not in fact impair the obligation of a contract. Nebbia held that New York could implement price controls on milk, in accordance with the state's police power. While not tests of New Deal legislation themselves, the cases gave cause for relief of administration concerns about Associate Justice Owen Roberts, who voted with the majority in both cases. Roberts's opinion for the court in Nebbia was encouraging for the administration, as it read: "[T]his court from the early days affirmed that the power to promote the general welfare is inherent in government." Nebbia also holds a particular significance, since it was the one case in which the Court abandoned its jurisprudential distinction between the public and private spheres of economic activity, an essential distinction in the court's analysis of state police power. The effect of this decision radiated outward, affecting other doctrinal methods of analysis in wage regulation, labor, and the power of the U.S. Congress to regulate commerce.
United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110 (1942), was a major decision of the US Supreme Court upholding the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 as a valid use of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
