United States Reports

Londoner v. City and County of Denver, 210 U.S. 373 (1908), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that due process rights under the U.S. Constitution attach to administrative agency hearings that involve adjudication, but not to those that involve legislation.[1]

Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., 210 U.S. 405 (1908), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States established the principle that patent holders have no obligation to use their patent.[1]

White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Apollo Company, 209 U.S. 1 (1908), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that manufacturers of music rolls for player pianos did not have to pay royalties to the composers. The ruling was based on a holding that the piano rolls were not copies of the plaintiffs' copyrighted sheet music, but were instead parts of the machine that reproduced the music. This case was subsequently eclipsed by Congress's intervention in the form of an amendment to the Copyright Act of 1909, introducing a compulsory license for the manufacture and distribution of such "mechanical" embodiments of musical works.

Dun v. Lumbermen's Credit Ass'n, 209 U.S. 20 (1908), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the existence of some copyright-infringing information in a rote reference work does not entitle the original author to seek an injunction against the printing the later article when the later article's contents demonstrate significant original work.

Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), is a United States Supreme Court case that allows suits in federal courts for injunctions against officials acting on behalf of states of the union to proceed despite the State's sovereign immunity, when the State acted contrary to any federal law or contrary to the Constitution. That ruling allows plaintiffs to sue in federal courts to prevent state officials from enforcing unconstitutional state laws.

Ware & Leland v. Mobile County, 209 U.S. 405 (1908), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that contracts for the sales of cotton for future delivery that do not oblige interstate shipments are not subjects of interstate commerce. The Court also held that a state tax on persons engaged in buying and selling cotton for future delivery was not a regulation of interstate commerce, and that the imposition of the tax was not beyond the power of the state.

Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908), was a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court which declared that bans on "yellow-dog" contracts (that forbade workers from joining labor unions) were unconstitutional. The decision reaffirmed the doctrine of freedom of contract which was first recognized by the Court in Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897). For this reason, Adair is often seen as defining what has come to be known as the Lochner era, a period in American legal history in which the Supreme Court tended to invalidate legislation aimed at regulating business. In earlier cases, the Court had struck down state legislation limiting the freedom of contract by using the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which only applied to the states.

United Dictionary Co. v. G. & C. Merriam Co., 208 U.S. 260 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the copyright statute does not require notice of the American copyright on books published abroad and sold only for use there.

Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908), also referred to as the Danbury Hatters' Case, is a United States Supreme Court case in United States 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.

Cleveland Terminal and Valley Railway Co. v. Cleveland Steamship Co., 208 U.S. 316 (1908), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that damages caused to a bridge pier, bridge protective pilings, and docks by a vessel on navigable waters was not a cause for action under United States maritime law. The ruling was legislatively overturned in 1948.

Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. Women were permitted by state mandate fewer working hours than those allotted to men. The posed question was whether women's liberty to negotiate a contract with an employer should be equal to a man's. The law did not recognize sex-based discrimination in 1908; it was unrecognized until the case of Reed v.

Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), was a United States Supreme Court case clarifying water rights of American Indian reservations. This doctrine was meant to clearly define the water rights of indigenous people in cases where the rights were not clear. The case was first argued on October 24, 1907, and a decision was reached January 6, 1908. This case set the standards for the United States government to acknowledge the vitality of indigenous water rights, and how rights to the water relate to the continuing survival and self-sufficiency of indigenous people.

Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161 (1907), is a landmark case that confirmed the supreme sovereignty of a state over its municipalities.

American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, 207 U.S. 284 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the seizure by the United States marshal in a copyright case of certain pictures under a writ of replevin did not constitute an unreasonable search and seizure.

Werckmeister v. American Tobacco Co., 207 U.S. 375 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held a copyright holder is limited to one action to collect infringing copies and statutory damages because the act's remedies are penal and must be observed without construction. Additionally, the United States is not required to be a party to copyright infringement litigation.

Ellis v. United States, 206 U.S. 246 (1907), is a court case that was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, which was identified as case No. 567, was argued in conjunction with three cases entitled Eastern Dredging Company v. United States (Nos. 664, 665, and 666) and three cases entitled Bay State Dredging Company v. United States (Nos. 667, 668, and 669). All seven cases concerned the issue of whether the federal government had the power to limit the number of hours worked per day by federal workers or employees of federal contractors. In its judgment, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law limiting the hours worked by such persons. The cases were originally addressed by the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.

Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U.S. 285 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court defined some effects of a court decision that an inventor had not infringed on a patent.

Grafton v. United States, 206 U.S. 333 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause is not violated when the first conviction came from a court without jurisdiction to try the offense. Also, the separate sovereigns exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply in a U.S. territory because an insular area is not a sovereign state.

Schlemmer v. Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway Co., 205 U.S. 1 (1907), was a cause of action for the death of the plaintiff's intestate, Adam M. Schlemmer, while trying to couple a shovel car to a caboose.

Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20 (1907), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that found while an indictment in a removal proceeding constitutes prima facie evidence of probable cause, it is not conclusive, so evidence put forth by a defendant showing that no offense triable in the district to which removal is sought had been committed is admissible, and its exclusion is not mere error, but the denial of a right secured under the Federal Constitution.

Kessler v. Treat, 205 U.S. 33 (1907), was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States adjudicated allegations that prisoners were unlawfully imprisoned by Morgan Treat, the United States Marshall for the Eastern District of Virginia. In a one-sentence opinion written by Chief Justice Melville Fuller, the Court identified ten cases for which the Court entered the same decree as the one issued in Tinsley v. Treat. Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented without writing a separate opinion.

Halter v. Nebraska, 205 U.S. 34 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case involving a Nebraska statute that prevented and punished desecration of the flag of the United States and prohibited the sale of articles upon which there is a representation of the flag for advertising purposes. Halter was charged under this law for printing the flag on the label of a bottle of beer, for which he was fined $50 plus the costs of the prosecution. The court upheld the law. More recent case law, Texas v. Johnson (1989) and United States v. Eichman (1990), holds that flag desecration is protected by the First Amendment.

Citizens' Sav. & Trust Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., 205 U.S. 46 (1907), was a suit brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois against the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Belleville & Southern Illinois Railroad Company, the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad Company (205 U.S. 46, 47), all Illinois corporations (to be hereafter called, respectively, the Illinois, the Belleville, and Terre Haute companies), and the United States Trust Company, a New York corporation. The last named corporation was never served with process and did not appear in the suit. The case presents a question as to the jurisdiction of the court below.

Wilmington Star Mining Co. v. Fulton, 205 U.S. 60 (1907), was a case concerning whether it is an appropriate exercise of the police power of the state to regulate the use of mining properties, and that mine owners are not deprived of their property, privileges, or immunities without due process of law, or denied the equal protection of the laws, by the Illinois Mining Statute of 1899, which requires the employment of licensed mine managers and mine examiners and imposes upon the mine owners liability for the willful failure of the manager and examiner to furnish a reasonably safe place for the workmen.

United States ex rel. West v. Hitchcock, 205 U.S. 80 (1907), regards a case where the Secretary of the Interior has authority to pass on the right of one claiming to be a member of a band of Indians to select land under an agreement ratified by an act of Congress, his jurisdiction does not depend upon his decision's being right. The United States promised to allot 160 acres (0.65 km2) to each member of the Wichita band of Indians under the Act of March 2, 1895, 28 Stat. 876, 895.

Pearcy v. Stranahan, 205 U.S. 257 (1907), was a 1907 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in a tax case in which it determined that the Isle of Pines off the southern coast of Cuba was a "foreign country" for the purposes of tariffs under the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897, even though Cuba and the United States had agreed that the legal status of that island would remain undetermined until they settled the question by treaty.

Travers v. Reinhardt, 205 U.S. 423 (1907), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that witnesses are not required to establish a common law marriage, because an agreement to be married may be inferred from the circumstances of the relationship.

Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454 (1907), was a First Amendment case. Before 1919, the primary legal test used in the United States to determine if speech could be criminalized was the bad tendency test. Rooted in English common law, the test permitted speech to be outlawed if it had a tendency to harm public welfare. One of the earliest cases the Supreme Court heard addressing punishment after material was published was 1907's Patterson v. Colorado in which the Court used the bad tendency test to uphold contempt charges against a newspaper publisher who accused Colorado judges of acting on behalf of local utility companies.

Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1 (1906), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court limiting the power of Congress to make laws under the Thirteenth Amendment. Three white men had been convicted in the Eastern Arkansas District Court for conspiring against black sawmill workers. The statute that was used to convict the men prohibits conspiracy to deprive American citizens of their constitutional liberties, including the right to make contracts. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, holding that Congress did not have the right to intervene against racially motivated interference with labor contracts.

Northwestern National Life Insurance Co. v. Riggs, 203 U.S. 243 (1906), was an important United States Supreme Court case dealing with corporations conducting business and the power of individual states to regulate how corporations may conduct business.

United States v. Shipp, 203 U.S. 563 (1906) (along with decisions at 214 U.S. 386 (1909), and 215 U.S. 580 (1909)), were rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States with regard to Sheriff Joseph F. Shipp and five others of Chattanooga, Tennessee, having "in effect aided and abetted" the lynching of Ed Johnson. They were held in contempt of court and sentenced to imprisonment. It remains the only criminal trial in the history of the Supreme Court.

Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 (1906), was a major United States Supreme Court case in which the Court established the power of a federal grand jury engaged in an investigation into corporate malfeasance to require the corporation in question to surrender its records.

United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Company, 200 U.S. 321 (1906), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Although the primary issue to the parties of the case was to determine ownership of 44 tracts of timberland, the case has become the standard reference to warn attorneys not to rely on the syllabus of a reported case. Prior to Detroit Timber, the Reporter of Decisions had mischaracterized the holding of Hawley v. Diller (1900) in its syllabus for that case. The attorneys representing the United States in Detroit Timber relied on the Hawley syllabus (which incorrectly reported the case) rather than the text of the actual decision (which actually represents the results).

Union Refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U.S. 194 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that taxing a corporation's tangible property that is permanently located in other states and is used for the benefit of the corporation in those other states is unconstitutional.

Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court holding that a New York State statute that prescribed maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision has since been effectively overturned. The case began in 1899 when Joseph Lochner, a German immigrant who owned a bakery in Utica, New York, was charged with violating New York's Bakeshop Act of 1895. The Bakeshop Act had made it a crime for New York bakeries to employ bakers for more than 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week. He was convicted and ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Harris v. Balk, 198 U.S. 215 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case that exemplified the idiosyncratic types of jurisdiction state courts (and therefore plaintiffs) could assert through quasi in rem actions before International Shoe's (1945) "minimum contacts" test replaced Pennoyer's (1878) principles of "power and notice". This case involved three parties: Harris, Balk, and Epstein. Harris owed Balk money and Balk owed Epstein money. Thus, there was no debt relationship between Harris and Epstein. Harris and Balk lived in North Carolina while Epstein lived in Maryland. Harris traveled to Maryland. While he was there, Epstein attached the debt Harris owed Balk in order for Epstein to obtain jurisdiction over Balk.

Chicago Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co., 198 U.S. 236 (1905), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which upheld sales of American grain for future delivery provided for by the rules of the Chicago Board of Trade of the state of Illinois. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. delivered the majority opinion of the court, in which he wrote: People will endeavor to forecast the future and to make agreements according to their prophecy.

United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U.S. 253 (1905), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Supreme Court conceded its right to judicial review over immigration matters. The case held that "a citizen of Chinese parentage seeking admission to the United States" could be excluded by the administrative immigration authorities, even when being denied a hearing before a judicial body on the question whether they were indeed a citizen. The Court determined that refusing entry at a port does not deny due process and held that findings by immigration officials are conclusive and not subject to judicial review unless there is evidence of bias or negligence.

United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371 (1905), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the Treaty with the Yakima of 1855, negotiated and signed at the Walla Walla Council of 1855, as well as treaties similar to it, protected the Indians' rights to fishing, hunting and other privileges.

Ah Sin v. Wittman, 198 U.S. 500 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, to prove abuse of discretion in the enforcement of criminal law that violates the Equal Protection Clause, it is necessary to show that there were people of other races who committed the same crime without being prosecuted. This case involved anti-Chinese sentiment at the turn of the 20th century. Justice Rufus W. Peckham dissented without writing an opinion.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state. Jacobson has been invoked in numerous other Supreme Court cases as an example of a baseline exercise of the police power.

Burton v. United States is the name of two appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States by Senator Joseph R. Burton (R-KS) following his conviction for compensated representation of a party in a proceeding in which the United States was interested: Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283 (1905) and Burton v. United States, 202 U.S. 344 (1906). Burton was convicted of acting as counsel to Rialto Grain and Securities Company in the United States Postmaster General's investigation of Rialto for mail fraud. On Burton's first appeal, the Supreme Court reversed his convictions because venue and vicinage could not be proper in the Eastern District of Missouri on the sole ground that Burton's bank sent the check to St. Louis after he cashed it.

Rooney v. North Dakota, 196 U.S. 319 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the adoption of private execution over public execution after sentencing does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause.

Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375 (1905), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause allowed the federal government to regulate monopolies if it has a direct effect on commerce. It marked the success of the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt in destroying the "Beef Trust". This case established a "stream of commerce" (or "current of commerce") argument that allows Congress to regulate things that fall into either category. In particular it allowed Congress to regulate the Chicago slaughterhouse industry. Even though the slaughterhouse supposedly dealt with only intrastate matters, the butchering of meat was merely a "station" along the way between cow and meat.

Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U.S. 1 (1904), was a case before the United States Supreme Court. It interpreted the words "any car" in the Railroad Safety Appliance Act, prohibiting common carriers moving interstate commerce from using any car that was not equipped with automatic couplers. In doing so, it overturned the Eighth Circuit in Johnson v. Southern P. Co., 117 F. 462 (8th Cir. 1902)

McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27 (1904), was a 1904 case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that greenlighted the use of the federal taxing power for regulatory purposes. The Court upheld by a 6–3 vote a federal tax on colored oleomargarine, rejecting contentions that it exceeded Congressional authority. The decision, authored by Justice Edward Douglass White, effectively allowed Congress to regulate intrastate commercial activity by levying taxes on the activity. The justices in the majority refused to examine Congress's motives, instead ruling that the tax was valid because, regardless of the intent behind it, its effect was to raise revenue.

Missouri, Kansas, [sic] & Texas Railway Company of Texas v. Clay May, 194 U.S. 267 (1904), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that a Texas law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by penalizing only railroad companies for allowing certain weeds to mature and go to seed on their land.

Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904), was a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1903. The Court ruled 5-4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies, which had essentially formed a monopoly, and to dissolve the Northern Securities Company.

Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470 (1904), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Tea Inspection Act was constitutional. Congress's power to regulate foreign trade is virtually unlimited under the Commerce Clause, it was not an impermissible delegation to the executive branch, and the enforcement of a standard is not a taking without due process of law.

Ex parte Joins, 191 U.S. 93 (1903), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a request for a writ of prohibition was moot, as the lower court case had already been completed prior to the petition being heard at the Supreme Court.