In United States constitutional law, a regulatory taking occurs when governmental regulations limit the use of private property to such a degree that the landowner is effectively deprived of all economically reasonable use or value of their property. Under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution governments are required to pay just compensation for such takings. The amendment is incorporated to the states via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five landmark cases in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals. The holding that the Thirteenth Amendment did not empower the federal government to punish racist acts done by private citizens would be overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1968 case Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. The Fourteenth Amendment not applying to private entities, however, is still valid precedent to this day. Although the Fourteenth Amendment-related decision has never been overturned, in the 1964 case of Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that Congress could prohibit racial discrimination by private actors under the Commerce Clause, though that and other loose interpretations of the Clause to expand federal power have been subject to criticism.
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the power of state governments to regulate private industries that affect "the common good."
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), is a corporate law case of the United States Supreme Court concerning taxation of railroad properties. The case is most notable for a headnote stating that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment grants constitutional protections to corporations.
John Marshall Harlan was an American lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1877 until his death in 1911. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, including the Civil Rights Cases, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Giles v. Harris. Many of Harlan's views expressed in his notable dissents would become the official view of the Supreme Court starting from the 1950s Warren Court and onward.
A Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibit the deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the federal and state governments, respectively, without due process of law.
David Josiah Brewer was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1890 to 1910. An appointee of President Benjamin Harrison, he supported states' rights, opposed broad interpretations of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce, and voted to strike down economic regulations that he felt infringed on the freedom of contract. He and Justice Rufus W. Peckham were the "intellectual leaders" of the Fuller Court, according to the legal academic Owen M. Fiss. Brewer has been viewed negatively by most scholars, though a few have argued that his reputation as a reactionary deserves to be reconsidered.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to state and local governments by incorporation via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868.
The Lochner era was a period in American legal history from 1897 to 1937 in which the Supreme Court of the United States is said to have made it a common practice "to strike down economic regulations adopted by a State based on the Court's own notions of the most appropriate means for the State to implement its considered policies". The court did this by using its interpretation of substantive due process to strike down laws held to be infringing on economic liberty or private contract rights. The era takes its name from a 1905 case, Lochner v. New York. The beginning of the era is usually marked earlier, with the Court's decision in Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897), and its end marked forty years later in the case of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), which overturned an earlier Lochner-era decision.
International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a party, particularly a corporation, may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state. The ruling has important consequences for corporations involved in interstate commerce, their payments to state unemployment compensation funds, limits on the power of states imposed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the sufficiency of service of process, and, especially, personal jurisdiction.
Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case, seeking pre-enforcement review, that held in the majority that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives and banned doctors from advising their use. Therefore, any challenge to the law was deemed unripe because there was no actual threat of injury to anyone who disobeyed the law. The same statute would be challenged again just five years later in Griswold v. Connecticut.
Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S. 419 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that when the character of the governmental action is a permanent physical occupation of property, the government actions effects regulatory taking to the extent of the occupation, without regard to whether the action achieves an important public benefit or has only minimal economic impact on the owner. In doing so, it established the permanent physical presence test for regulatory takings.
Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904), was a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1903. The Court ruled 5-4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies, which had essentially formed a monopoly and to dissolve the Northern Securities Company.
Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915), was a Supreme Court of the United States case based on United States labor law that allowed employers to implement contracts—called yellow-dog contracts—which forbade employees from joining unions.
Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887), was an important United States Supreme Court case in which the 7–1 opinion written by John Marshall Harlan with a lone partial dissent by Stephen Johnson Field. The decision laid the foundation for the Supreme Court's later acceptance and defense during the Lochner era of Justice Field's theory of economic substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Railroad Commission Cases, 116 U.S. 307 (1886), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the power of states to set transportation charges of railroad companies. The Court held that the fixing of freight and passenger rates in railroad transportation was a permissible exercise of state police power.
Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is applicable in state courts as well as federal courts. Jackie Washington had attempted to call his co-defendant as a witness, but was blocked by Texas courts because state law prevented co-defendants from testifying for each other, under the theory that they would be likely to lie for each other on the stand.
In the United States, eminent domain is the power of a state or the federal government to take private property for public use while requiring just compensation to be given to the original owner. It can be legislatively delegated by the state to municipalities, government subdivisions, or even to private persons or corporations, when they are authorized to exercise the functions of public character.
Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, No. 17-647, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States dealing with compensation for private property owners when the use of that property is taken from them by state or local governments, under the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The immediate question asks if private land owners must exhaust all state-offered venues for mediation before seeking action in the federal courts. The case specifically addresses the Court's prior decision from the 1985 case Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, which had previously established that all state court venues must be exhausted first, but which has since resulted in several split decisions among circuit courts. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2019 to overturn part of Williamson County that required state venue action be taken first, allowing taking-compensation cases to be brought directly to federal court.
