Volume 278 — United States Reports

Maney v. United States, 278 U.S. 17 (1928), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a person who filed for naturalization but filed a required certificate establishing when they entered the United States at a later date had illegally obtained their citizenship and was subject to denaturalization.

Held: that to give’this court appellate jurisdiction two things should have occurred and be apparent in the record: first, that some one of the questions stated in the section did arise in the court below;-and secondly, that a decision was actually made thereon by the same court, in the manner required by *82 the section. If both of these do not appear on the record, the appellate jurisdiction fails.

Held: that the terms " trade ” and " commerce,”* when used in cpnjunctibn- with each other and with the grant of authority to lease land for “ commercial purposes ” are to be given a *129 broader significance than that pressed upon us, and are sufficient to include the operation of a hospital as a business undertaking; that this is a commercial purpose for which the Treaty authorizes Japanese subjects to lease lands.

Held: appellants, as public service companies, are bound by the common law, if not by statute, to render their service at reasonable rates. If the rates are not shown to be confiscatory they cannot complain that the order purporting to impose them was void for they have suffered no injury even though the order was unauthorized.

Wisconsin v. Illinois, 278 U.S. 367 (1929), also referred to as the Chicago Sanitary District Case, is an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the equitable power of the United States can be used to impose positive action on one state in a situation in which nonaction would result in damage to the interests of other states. Pursuant to Article Three of the United States Constitution, the case was heard under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction (i.e. it did not come to the Supreme Court from a lower court) because it involved a controversy between two states, Illinois and Wisconsin. Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Held: however, that the proximate cause of the injuries was the Railway’s failure to comply with an ordinance of Memphis requiring all railroads on every street crossed by their trains to keep a flagman constantly on duty, to give warning of approaching trains by waving a flag in daytime and a red lighted lamp by night, until the engine had crossed the street.

Taft v. Bowers, 278 U.S. 470 (1929), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court dealing with taxation of a gift of shares of stock under the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The recipient of shares of stock, Elizabeth Taft, argued that she could not be taxed on the amount that the gift increased in value before she received it. She agreed that the IRS could tax the increase in value of the gift that occurred after her receipt of the gift.