Volume 304 — United States Reports

United States v. Bekins, 304 U.S. 27 (1938), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the federal government's bankruptcy powers can extend to state agencies without violating federalism principles.

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the United States does not have a general federal common law and that U.S. federal courts must apply state substantive law, not federal law, to lawsuits between parties from different states that do not involve federal questions. In reaching this holding, the Court overturned almost a century of federal civil procedure case law, and established the foundation of the modern law of diversity jurisdiction. Although Erie is not widely known among non-experts, most American legal scholars and lawyers regard it as one of the most important decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.

Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92 (1938), is a US Supreme Court case that said a "general common law" or "general federal common law" no longer exists in the American legal system and is unconstitutional. However, federal courts retain the power to create federal common law in specific areas related to federal rights and interests.

United States v. Shoshone Tribe of Indians of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, 304 U.S. 111 (1938), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that mineral rights on a reservation belonged to the tribe, not the federal government.

United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938), was a case of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the federal government's power to prohibit filled milk from being shipped in interstate commerce. In his majority opinion for the Court, Associate Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote that economic regulations were "presumptively constitutional" under a deferential standard of review known as the "rational basis test".

Held: citing Webster Co. v. Splitdorf Co., supra, that prima facie the two year limit applies to divisional applications, and that an applicant who waits longer before claiming an invention disclosed in his patent must justify his delay by proof of some excuse. It said, 86 F. (2d) 702 , “No such excuse appears here.

General Talking Pictures Corp. v. Western Electric Co., 304 U.S. 175 (1938), was a case that the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 1938. The decision upheld so-called field-of-use limitations in patent licenses: it held that the limitations were enforceable in a patent infringement suit in federal court against the licensee and those acting in concert with it—for example, a customer that knowingly buys a patented product from the licensee that is outside the scope of the license.

Held: but it was open to attack in this action under the state statute. Appellant was entitled to present evidence to rebut the’ Commission’s findings of value, operating expenses, revenues and' return,, upon which the order rested. Appellant presented much testimony and elaborate statistical data for that purpose, treating its property and business as the Commission had treated -them.

Held: that the partners’ interests in the partnerships were capitalized upon dissolution, so that until the liquidation returned to them the cost of their interests, no taxable income was received; that Article 1570 of Regulations 45 *278 so provides; and that this did not take place before 1925.

Held: however, that 'the tax. was upon the privilege of manufacturing *313 within the State and It was permissible to measure the tax by the sales price of <the goods produced rather than by their value at the date of manufacture. If the tax there under consideration had been a sales tax the city could not have measured it by sales consummated in another State.

NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333 (1938), is a United States labor law case of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that workers who strike remain employees for the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Court granted the relief sought by the National Labor Relations Board, which sought to have the workers reinstated by the employer. However, the decision is much better known today for its obiter dicta in which the Court said that an employer may hire strikebreakers and is not bound to discharge any of them if or when the strike ends.

Held: -that the estate’s obligations in question, though contracted bona fide, were not incurred for an adequate and full consideration in money or money’s worth as required by clause (1), and payments-of the sums promised are not transférs' to or for the use of any corporation organized and operating exclusively for charitable or educational purposes within "the meaning of clause (3), of § 303 (a) of the Act, We granted…

Held: the Court said, by the State as representative of indvidual owners as in the case of New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76 , and the motive which induced the transaction was not deemed to “affect its validity or the question of jurisdiction.” The case was thus one “directly affecting the property rights and interests of a State.” Id., pp. 314, 318.

Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 (1938), was a United States Supreme Court case, in which the petitioner, Johnson, had been convicted in federal court of feloniously possessing, uttering, and passing counterfeit money in a trial where he had not been represented by an attorney but instead by himself. Johnson filed for habeas corpus relief, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had been violated, but he was denied by both a federal district court and the court of appeals.

In re Labor Board, 304 U.S. 486 (1938), is a 5-to-2 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the National Labor Relations Act requires the filing of a petition and a transcript in order for an enforcement order to proceed in federal court, and that a writ of prohibition and writ of mandamus are appropriate measures to take in quashing a petition when no transcript has been filed.

Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U.S. 518 (1938), is a court case in which the appellee, the Yosemite Park and Curry Co., brought this suit to enjoin the California State Board of Equalization and the State Attorney General from enforcing the 'Alcoholic Beverage Control Act' of the State of California, within the limits of Yosemite National Park.