United States Reports

United States v. Spearin, 248 U.S. 132 (1918), also referred to as the Spearin doctrine, is a 1918 United States Supreme Court decision. It remains one of the landmark construction law cases. The owner impliedly warrants the information, plans and specifications which an owner provides to a general contractor. The contractor will not be liable to the owner for loss or damage which results solely from insufficiencies or defects in such information, plans and specifications. The Supreme Court wrote: "Where one agrees to do, for a fixed sum, a thing possible to be performed, he will not be excused or become entitled to additional compensation, because unforeseen difficulties are encountered.

International News Service v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), also known as INS v. AP or simply the INS case, is a 1918 decision of the United States Supreme Court that enunciated the misappropriation doctrine of federal intellectual property common law: a "quasi-property right" may be created against others by one's investment of effort and money in an intangible thing, such as information or a design. The doctrine is highly controversial and criticized by many legal scholars, but it has its supporters. The INS decision recognized the doctrine of U.S.

Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. Co., 247 U.S. 179 (1918), was a United States Supreme Court case defining gross income. The case held that gross income includes the gain on sale of assets, i.e., the proceeds less cost basis. An alternative theory that gross income should be the gross proceeds, and the cost basis should be allowed as a deduction, was rejected by the Court. The Court also held that the harvesting of timber was not an income recognition event until the timber was sold.

Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251 (1918), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a federal law regulating child labor. The decision was overruled by United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941). During the Progressive Era, public sentiment in the United States turned against what was perceived as increasingly intolerable child labor conditions. In response, Congress passed the Keating–Owen Act, prohibiting the sale in interstate commerce of any merchandise that had been made either by children under the age of fourteen, or by children under sixteen who worked more than sixty hours per week. In his majority opinion, Justice William R.

Chicago Board of Trade v. United States, 246 U.S. 231 (1918), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States applied the "rule of reason" to the internal trading rules of a commodity market. Section 1 of the Sherman Act flatly states: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." However, in evaluating the U.S.

Arver v. United States, 245 U.S. 366 (1918), also known as the Selective Draft Law Cases, was a series of United States Supreme Court decisions united under the Arver name which upheld the Selective Service Act of 1917, and more generally upheld conscription in the United States. The Supreme Court held that conscription did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude or the First Amendment's protection of freedom of conscience. The Solicitor General's argument and the court's opinion were based primarily on Kneedler v. Lane, which was actually multiple opinions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania during the American Civil War that upheld the Enrollment Act, as well as Vattel's The Law of Nations (1758). The Court's reliance on the Kneedler v.

Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418 (1918), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that "a stock dividend based on accumulated profits was not 'income' within the true intent of the statute." Congress passed a new law in reaction to Towne v. Eisner and so the case was soon overturned by the Supreme Court in Eisner v. Macomber. It includes the quotable passage: "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used." ― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States addressed civil government-instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held unanimously that a Louisville, Kentucky, city ordinance prohibiting the sale of real property to blacks in white-majority neighborhoods or buildings and vice versa violated the Fourteenth Amendment's prohibition against denying property rights without due process of law. The ruling of the Kentucky Court of Appeals was thus reversed. Previous state court rulings had overturned racial zoning ordinances on grounds of the "takings clause" because of their failures to grandfather land that had been owned before enactment.

Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the geographical extent of state workers' compensation laws. The Court held that the New York Workmen's Compensation Act, as applied to laborers in the New York Harbor, intruded on federal admiralty jurisdiction, and that civil suits arising within this jurisdiction were subject to the common law of the sea. The compensation statute passed by the state interfered with federal power and was therefore unconstitutional. The case is noted for the dissent written by Justice Holmes, specifically his dicta on the nature of the common law: The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified.

Adams v. Tanner, 244 U.S. 590 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a Washington state law that prohibited employment agencies was unconstitutional.

The Steamship Appam, 243 U.S. 124 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court affirmed a lower court's decision to restore the British prize of a German warship to the British owners.

New York Central Railroad Co. v. White, 243 U.S. 188 (1916), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that workers' compensation laws are not arbitrary and do not violate the Due Process Clause.

Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U.S. 426 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a ten-hour work day, which was accepted for both men and women, but the state minimum-wage laws were not changed until 20 years later. Future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, along with future Oregon Supreme Court justices George M. Brown and John O. Bailey, represented Oregon on the appeal. W. Lair Thompson and former Senator for Oregon Charles W. Fulton represented Bunting.

United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U.S. 472 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that an immigrant to the United States had no right to naturalization unless all statutory requirements in the Naturalization Act were strictly complied with. In the particular case, a judge staging the final naturalization hearing in their chambers rather than an open courtroom invalidated the proceedings, so the government rescinded Ginsberg's citizenship.

Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U.S. 502 (1917), is United States Supreme Court decision that is notable as an early example of the patent misuse doctrine. It held that, because a patent grant is limited to the invention described in the claims of the patent, the patent law does not empower the patent owner, by notices attached to the patented article, to extend the scope of the patent monopoly by restricting the use of the patented article to materials necessary for their operation but forming no part of the patented invention, or to place downstream restrictions on the articles making them subject to conditions as to use. The decision overruled Henry v. A.B. Dick Co., which had held such restrictive notices effective and enforceable.

Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case involving Farley Drew Caminetti and the Mann Act. The Court decided that the Mann Act applied not only to purposes of coercion and prostitution but also to noncommercial consensual sexual liaisons. Thus, consensual extramarital sex falls within the definition of "immoral sex."

Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U.S. 539 (1917), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld individual states' power to regulate the offer, sale, and purchase of securities. Such regulatory laws are commonly known today as "blue-sky laws"; the phrase is often said to be based on this opinion, although speculative securities were described as "blue sky" in sources published prior to this opinion.

Herbert v. Shanley Co., 242 U.S. 591 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held hotels and restaurants that perform music must compensate composers, even if the venue is not separately charging patrons to hear the music. The decision legitimized ASCAP, a group founded to collect license fees from businesses that wanted to play performance recordings by its members. Because this case determined that playing music at the restaurants was an indirect way of profiting from the copyrighted music, it raised the question of what sort of indirect use would be too indirect to constitute infringement. Broadly speaking, this question was not anticipated by the Copyright Act and judges considered this a thorny problem.

Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co. v. Ward, 242 U.S. 1 (1916), was a civil lawsuit that came before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916. It involved the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, a shipping company operating in the Hawaiian Islands. The Supreme Court declined to review a judgment of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Cross v. United States, 242 U.S. 4 (1916), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding remuneration for clerks of the court for the copying and docketing of naturalization claims.

United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U.S. 85 (1916), was a landmark Supreme Court decision applying the common law concept of res judicata (literally: the thing is decided) to criminal law cases.

Hutchinson Ice Cream Co. v. Iowa, 242 U.S. 153 (1916), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the local law banning the sale of products without sufficient butter-fat content as "ice cream" was constitutional.

Minerals Separation v. Hyde, 242 U.S. 261 (1916), is a United States Supreme Court case on the patent protection of froth flotation.

Georgia, Florida, & Alabama Railway Co. v. Blish Milling Co., 241 U.S. 190 (1916), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.

American Well Works Co. v. Layne & Bowler Co., 241 U.S. 257 (1916), was a United States Supreme Court case governing the scope of federal question jurisdiction.

United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, 241 U.S. 265 (1916), was a federal suit under which the government unsuccessfully attempted to force the Coca-Cola Company to remove caffeine from its product.

New York Life Ins. Co. v. Dunlevy, 241 U.S. 518 (1916), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a court can exert personal jurisdiction over a nonresident party in an interpleader if that party is served with process while physically present within the state.

United States v. Nice, 241 U.S. 591 (1916), is a United States Supreme Court decision which declared that Congress still retains plenary power to protect Native American interests when Native Americans are granted citizenship. United States v. Nice overruled the Heff decision which declared that Native Americans granted citizenship by the Dawes Act were also then citizens of the state in which they resided, meaning the sale of alcohol to such Native Americans was not subject to Congress's authority.

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.

Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the validity of a tax statute called the Revenue Act of 1913, also known as the Tariff Act, Ch. 16, 38 Stat. 166 (October 3, 1913), enacted pursuant to Article I, section 8, clause 1 of, and the Sixteenth Amendment to, the United States Constitution, allowing a federal income tax. The Sixteenth Amendment had been ratified earlier in 1913. The Revenue Act of 1913 imposed income taxes that were not apportioned among the states according to each state's population.

Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916), is a United States Supreme Court case.

Truax v. Raich 239 US 33 (1915) was a United States Supreme Court case concerning U.S. labor laws, the right to work, immigration law, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Glenwood Light & Water Co. v. Mutual Light, Heat & Power Co., 239 U.S. 121 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a plaintiff can satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction by seeking non-monetary relief if the value of that relief satisfies the requirement. For instance, an injunction estimated to cost $75,000 would satisfy the requirement.

Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U.S. 299 (1915), is a United States Supreme Court case that upheld Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907, which dictated that all American women who voluntarily married a foreign alien renounced their American citizenship. While the statute has since been repealed, this case remains significant because of its precedent that Congress can designate acts which serve as implied voluntary renunciation of one's American citizenship.

Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394 (1915), was an early U.S. Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of zoning ordinances. The Court held that an ordinance of Los Angeles, California, prohibiting the manufacturing of bricks within specified limits of the city did not unconstitutionally deprive the petitioner of his property without due process of law, or deny him equal protection of the laws.

Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 239 U.S. 441 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that due process protections attach only to administrative activities in which a small number of people are concerned, who are exceptionally affected by the act, in each case upon individual grounds. By contrast, rule-making or quasi-legislative activities that affect a large number of people without regard to the facts of individual cases do not implicate due process protections. It is an important case in United States administrative law.

Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that found certain grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests for voting rights to be unconstitutional. Though these grandfather clauses were superficially race-neutral, they were designed to protect the voting rights of illiterate white voters while disenfranchising black voters. The 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred each state from denying the right to vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". In response, several Southern states, including Oklahoma, established constitutional provisions designed to effectively disenfranchise African Americans voters without explicitly violating the Fifteenth Amendment.

Myers v. Anderson, 238 U.S. 368 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held Maryland state officials liable for civil damages for enforcing a grandfather clause. Grandfather clauses exempted voters from requirements such as poll taxes and literacy tests if their grandfathers had been registered voters, and were largely designed to exempt white voters from restrictions intended to disenfranchise former black slaves and their descendants. Despite striking down the Maryland law as discriminatory, the court noted that economic discrimination in the form of property requirements should be presumed to be "free from constitutional objection." Myers was a companion case to Guinn v.

Malloy v. South Carolina, 237 U.S. 180 (1915), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that retroactively changing the execution method does not violate the Ex post facto clause.

G. & C. Merriam Co. v. Syndicate Publishing Co., 237 U.S. 618 (1915), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, under the Trademark Act of 1881, after a copyrighted work expires, the word used to designate that work falls into the public domain and cannot be trademarked.

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. The case was decided in the era prior to the Great Depression, when the Supreme Court invalidated laws that imposed restrictions on contracts, especially those of employment. The liberty of contract became viewed as a fundamental right that could be abridged only in extreme circumstances; abridgments violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that: A pardoned person must introduce the pardon into court proceedings, otherwise the pardon is considered a private matter, unknown to and unable to be acted on by the court. No formal acceptance is necessary to give effect to the pardons. If a pardon is rejected, it cannot be forced upon its subject. A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the private though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended ...

Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling by a 9–0 vote that the free speech protection of the Ohio Constitution, which was substantially similar to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, did not extend to motion pictures.

DeJonge & Co. v. Breuker & Kessler Co., 235 U.S. 33 (1914), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held every instance of a copyrighted work must observe copyright notice formalities for the work to maintain copyright, even if the work appears multiple times on the same sheet of paper. Every copy of a copyrighted painting must bear the notice for the painting to maintain copyright.

McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, 235 U.S. 151 (1914), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that an Oklahoma law was unconstitutional insofar as it did not provide dining cars and other luxury accommodations for African-American passengers, however the Court also ruled that the litigants were not entitled to equitable relief because they lacked standing to assert constitutional claims on behalf of others.

Berwind-White Coal Mining Company v. Chicago and Erie Railroad Company, 235 U.S. 371 (1914), was a United States Supreme Court case involving a suit over demurrage of an Erie Railroad car used by Berwind-White Coal Mining Company to transport coal. The Court asserted that the filing of rates with the Interstate Commerce Commission complied with the notice requirements of the Act to Regulate Commerce and the point of reconsignment was clear under the company's usual practice for many years.

Houston East & West Texas Railway Co. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342 (1914), also known as the Shreveport Rate Case, was a decision of the United States Supreme Court expanding the power of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States. Justice Hughes's majority opinion stated that the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce also allowed it to regulate purely intrastate commerce in cases where control of the former was not possible without control of the latter. Because the Supreme Court consolidated several related appeals, they are sometimes collectively known as the "Shreveport Rate Cases" although the Supreme Court issued only one ruling.

Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey v. Steinhauser, 234 U.S. 640 (1914), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that when someone joins an ecclesiastical order, subject to individual state law, their income from copyright may be dedicated to that order's common fund as much as any other income or form of property. This does not violate any part of the Constitution if the member may withdraw from the order at any time.

Richards v. Washington Terminal Company, 233 U.S. 546 (1914), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States resolving the question when a government-created nuisance amounted to a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause of the United States Constitution.

Gompers v. United States, 233 U.S. 604 (1914), was a contempt of court case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.