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255 U.S. 100

65 L. Ed. 528

Docket No. 367.

Kennington v. Palmer

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued October 19, 20, 1920.

Decided February 28,1921.'

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1921-02-28

<p>APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI.</p> <p>Bill to enjoin criminal prosecutions against dealers in wearing apparel under § 4 of the Food Control Act.</p>

2 counsel of record

Relies on United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co. · Hammer v. Dagenhart · Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Reversed · 8–0 · Decided 1921-02-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 32 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 1947 · most notably Village of Euclid Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co (1926), Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same (1925)

2 federal appellate · 12 district · 2 state decisions

250192119301940decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI.

¶21.. Decided, as to the unconstitutionality of part of the Food Control Act, upon the authority of United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., ante, 81.

¶32. Equity will enjoin criminal prosecutions threatened under a void statute, the legal remedy being- inadequate.

¶4Reversed.

¶5Bill to enjoin criminal prosecutions against dealers in wearing apparel under § 4 of the Food Control Act.

¶6Mr. Garner Wynn Green, with whom Mr. Marcellus Green and Mr. Wm. H. Watkins were on the briefs, for appellants.

¶7The Solicitor General, for appellees, in addition to the points presented in the preceding cases, argued that the act does not take property without -due process of law. There was no contention that a mere failure to conform to prices fixed by a fair-price committee can be made the basis of a criminal prosecution.

¶8Mr. Chief Justice White

¶9delivered the opinion of the court.

¶10The appellants, dealers in wearing apparehin the city of Jackson, Mississippi, filed their bill in the court below against the Attorney General and subordinates charged by him with administrative duties under § 4 of the Lever *101Act to enjoin the enforcement against them of provisions of that section. Their right to relief was based upon averments as to the unconstitutionality of the assailed provisions of the section, not only, in substance, upon the contentions which we have this day considered and disposed of in the Cohen Grocery Co. Case, ante, 81, but upon other grounds as well.

¶11Without passing upon the question of constitutionality, the court dismissed the bill for the reason that the complainants had an adequate remedy at law, and the correctness of the decree of dismissal is the question now before us on direct appeal.

¶12As it is no longer open to deny that the averments of unconstitutionality which were relied upon, if wel' founded, justified equitable relief under the bill,1 .anc because the opinion in the Cohen Case has conclusively' settled that they were well founded, -it follows that the court below was wrong and its décree must be and it is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

¶13Reversed.

¶14Mr. Justice Pitney and Mr. Justice Brandeis concur in the result.

¶15Mr. Justice Day took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

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