United States v. Carolene Products Co.
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| United States v. Carolene Products Co. | ||||||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued April 6, 1938 Decided April 25, 1938 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||
| The Filled Milk Act did not exceed the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, or violate due process under the Fifth Amendment. Southern District of Illinois District Court reversed. | ||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes Associate Justices: James Clark McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, Pierce Butler, Harlan Fiske Stone, Owen Josephus Roberts, Benjamin N. Cardozo, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||
| Majority by: Stone Joined by: Hughes, Brandeis, Roberts, Black (except the part designated "Third") Concurrence by: Butler Dissent by: McReynolds Reed, Cardozo took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. art. I; U.S. Const. amend. V; (1938) (Filled Milk Act § 61-63) | ||||||||||||
United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938),[1] was an April 25, 1938 decision by the United States Supreme Court. The case dealt with a federal law that prohibited filled milk (skimmed milk compounded with non-milk fat) from being shipped in interstate commerce. The defendant argued that the law was unconstitutional on both Commerce Clause and due process grounds.
The previous Term, the Court, under pressure from the Roosevelt administration's court-packing plan had dramatically changed its Commerce Clause jurisprudence to enlarge substantially those activities considered to be in or to affect interstate commerce. It had also altered its settled jurisprudence in the area of substantive due process, that is, the constitutional law dealing with rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. These changes meant that many New Deal programs that the Court would previously have invalidated would hitherto be found constitutional.
The defendant company was charged with breaking the law described above, and at trial it had filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the law was unconstitutional. The District Court for the Southern District of Illinois had granted the defendant's motion, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed the District Court's ruling.
Justice Harlan Stone, writing for the Court, found that the law, being "presumptively constitutional," was essentially a legislative judgment, and hence was not for the courts to overrule. The law was supported by substantial public-health evidence, and was not arbitrary or irrational.
Much of the importance of Stone's opinion, however, is due to its fourth footnote, in which he describes a theory of judicial review to be taken up later by the Warren Court. The footnote proposes an exception to the presumption of constitutionality for legislation that is aimed at "discrete and insular minorities," in which case the Court should demand that the law pass a more demanding standard of scrutiny. This theory has greatly influenced equal protection jurisprudence, and even spawned a theory of judicial review (John Hart Ely's book, Democracy and Distrust). Interestingly, the footnote was in the one section of the Court's opinion that did not have the support of five justices, as Justice Hugo Black did not join in the third section, though this was still a majority as only seven justices participated in the case.
Footnote Four introduced the idea of levels of judicial scrutiny. In keeping with the New Deal Revolution, Footnote Four established the rational basis test for economic legislation, an extremely low standard of judicial review. The "rational basis test", sometimes called the "sanity test", mandates that legislation (whether enacted by Congress or state legislatures) which deals with economic regulation must be rational, in other words, sane. Footnote Four also hinted at a higher level of judicial scrutiny for legislation which:
- On its face violates a provision of the Constitution (facial challenge).
- Attempts to distort or rig the political process.
- Discriminates against minorities, particularly those who lack sufficient numbers to seek redress through the political process.
This higher level of scrutiny, now called "strict scrutiny", was first utilized in Justice Black's opinion in Korematsu v. U.S. (1944).
According to some lore, repeated in constitutional law classes around the nation, the language was planted by a forward thinking law clerk.
[edit] Text of footnote 4
- There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten Amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the 14th. [...]
- It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation, is to be subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the 14th Amendments than are most other types of legislation...
- Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed at particular religious...or national...or racial minorities; [or] whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry...
