Francis C. Welch, Trustee, Plaintiff in Error, v. George B. Swasey, et al., as the Board of Appeal from the Building Commissioner of the City of Boston.
Welch v. Swasey, 214 U.S. 91 (1909), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that the statutes of Massachusetts, chap. 333 of the Acts of 1904, and chap. 383 of the Acts of 1905, limiting the height of buildings in a certain quarter of a city, do not violate the Constitution of the United States.
Francis C. Welch owned property in a residential section of Boston where building height was legislatively limited to 100 feet (30.5m). In other, more commercial sections of the city, the legislation permitted building height up to 125 feet (38.1m). After he was denied a permit to construct a 124-foot (37.8m) building on his property, Welch sued, contending “that the purposes of the acts are not such as justify the exercise of what is termed the police power, because, in fact, their real purpose was of an aesthetic nature, designed purely to preserve architectural symmetry and regular skylines.”
Delivering the opinion of the Court, Justice Rufus Wheeler Peckham acknowledged Welch's claim that “there is here a discrimination or classification between sections of the city,” but nonetheless adopted a standard of review very deferential to local government. “If the means employed, pursuant to the statute, have no real, substantial relation to a public object which government can accomplish, if the statutes are arbitrary and unreasonable, and beyond the necessities of the case, the courts will declare their invalidity,” wrote Peckham, also expressing that the Court “feels the greatest reluctance in interfering with the well-considered judgments of the courts of a state whose people are to be affected by the operation of the law.”
The reason for this reluctance was the Court's sense that, in such cases, the decision was location specific: “[t]he particular circumstances prevailing at the place or in the state where the law is, to become operative … are all matters which the state court is familiar with; but a like familiarity cannot be ascribed to this court.” Although not entitled to absolute deference, such a state court judgment “is entitled to the very greatest respect, and will only be interfered with, in cases of this kind, where the decision is, in our judgment, plainly wrong.”
Article Four of the United States Constitution outlines the relationship between the various states, as well as the relationship between each state and the United States federal government. It also empowers Congress to admit new states and administer the territories and other federal lands.
The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock.
In United States constitutional law, a regulatory taking is a situation in which a government regulation limits the uses of private property to such a degree that the regulation effectively deprives the property owners of economically reasonable use or value of their property to such an extent that it deprives them of utility or value of that property, even though the regulation does not formally divest them of title to it.
United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. 128 (1871), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case stemming from the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which held that limits to working time violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision has been effectively overturned.
The Supreme Court of Ireland is the highest judicial authority in Ireland. It is a court of final appeal and exercises, in conjunction with the Court of Appeal and the High Court, judicial review over Acts of the Oireachtas. The Supreme Court also has appellate jurisdiction to ensure compliance with the Constitution of Ireland by governmental bodies and private citizens. It sits in the Four Courts in Dublin.
Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, the Full Faith and Credit Clause, addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." According to the Supreme Court, there is a difference between the credit owed to laws as compared to the credit owed to judgments. Judgments are generally entitled to greater respect than laws, in other states. At present, it is widely agreed that this Clause of the Constitution has a minimal impact on a court's choice of law decision provided that no state’s sovereignty is infringed, although this Clause of the Constitution was once interpreted to have greater impact.
Bifurcation is a judge's ability in law to divide a trial into two parts so as to render a judgment on a set of legal issues without looking at all aspects. Frequently, civil cases are bifurcated into separate liability and damages proceedings. Criminal trials are also often bifurcated into guilt and sentencing phases, especially in capital cases.
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Jeanetta Reese had originally been a plaintiff in the case, but intimidation by members of the white community caused her to withdraw in February. She falsely claimed she had not agreed to the lawsuit, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Fred Gray for supposedly improperly representing her.
Addison Gardiner was an American lawyer and politician who was the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1854 to 1855.
Navigable servitude is a doctrine in United States constitutional law that gives the federal government the right to regulate navigable waterways as an extension of the Commerce Clause in Article I, Section 8 of the constitution. It is also sometimes called federal navigational servitude.
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386 (1798), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided four important points of constitutional law.
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.
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Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908), also referred to as the Danbury Hatters' Case, is a United States Supreme Court case in US labor law concerning the application of antitrust laws to labor unions. The Court's decision effectively outlawed the secondary boycott as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, despite union arguments that their actions affected only intrastate commerce. It was also decided that individual unionists could be held personally liable for damages incurred by the activities of their union.
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous court struck down a Louisiana statute for violating an individual's liberty of contract. It was the first case in which the Supreme Court interpreted the word liberty in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to mean economic liberty. The decision marked the beginning of the Lochner era during which the Supreme Court struck many state regulations for infringing on an individual's right to contract. The Lochner era lasted 40 years and ended when West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish was decided in 1937.
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the United States Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as various civil liberties. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of Acts of Congress, treaties ratified by the Senate, regulations promulgated by the executive branch, and case law originating from the federal judiciary. The United States Code is the official compilation and codification of general and permanent federal statutory law.
United States v. Quiver, 241 U.S. 602 (1916), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court after first appearing in United States District Court for the District of South Dakota. The case argued on February 28, 1916 and decided on June 12, 1916 concerned adultery committed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota between two enrolled members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The district court had held that adultery committed by an Indian with another Indian on an Indian reservation was not punishable under the act of March 3, 1887, c. 397, 24 Stat. 635, now § 316 of the Penal Code. This decision was made because the offense occurred on a Sioux Indian reservation which is not said to be under jurisdiction of the district court. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court saying that the adultery was not punishable as it had occurred between two American Indians on an American Indian reservation.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States, establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the "supreme Law of the Land", and thus take priority over any conflicting state laws. It provides that state courts are bound by, and state constitutions subordinate to, the supreme law. However, federal statutes and treaties are supreme only if they do not contravene the Constitution.
Patchak v. Zinke, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act, which precludes federal courts from hearing lawsuits involving a particular parcel of land. Although six Justices agreed that the Gun Lake Act was constitutional, they could not agree on why. In an opinion issued by Justice Thomas, a plurality of the Court read the statute to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over cases involving the property and held that this did not violate Article III of the U.S. Constitution. In contrast, Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, both of whom concurred in the judgment, upheld the Act as a restoration of the government's sovereign immunity. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for himself and Justices Kennedy and Gorsuch, dissented on the ground that the statute intruded on the judicial power, in violation of Article III.
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