Today in Supreme Court History: May 10, 1886

5/10/1886: Yick Wo v. Hopkins decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (decided May 10, 1886): Fourteenth Amendment violated by ordinance allowing denial without recourse of permits to laundries in wooden buildings; effect was to discriminate against Chinese who though not citizens had equal rights

NBC v. United States, 319 U.S. 190 (decided May 10, 1943): FCC can regulate not only technical and engineering aspects of radio but also content and consider antitrust implications (striking down challenge to new regulations allowing FCC to determine if “detrimental to the public interest”)

Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U.S. 182 (decided May 10, 1943): upholding Congress’s power to establish the Emergency Court of Appeals with exclusive jurisdiction over wage and price disputes and even as to Constitutionality of related wartime provisions (court was not disbanded until 1962)

United States v. Noveck, 271 U.S. 201 (decided May 10, 1926): prosecution for whopper told under oath (“I owed $1,484.84 on an income of $16,251.66” when in fact it was $45,664.91 on $124,127.13) barred by three-year perjury statute even though statute for defrauding United States is six years

Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 237 U.S. 474 (decided May 10, 1915): the Justices in this original jurisdiction case reach different findings of fact; 6 – 3 decision places restrictions on copper smelters just past Tennessee line ruining vegetation downwind in Georgia after long dispute about remediation and disagreement about terms (this reminds me of Lou Costello’s failure to understand Sidney Fields’s references to “ore” and “smelting” — it’s on youtube)

Cumberland Glass Mfg. Co. v. De Witt, 237 U.S. 447 (decided May 10, 1915): business coming out of bankruptcy could still sue creditor for tortious interference with contract where creditor did not raise issue in composition proceeding; 5 – 4 decision

Leiter v. United States, 271 U.S. 204 (decided May 10, 1926): private landlord renting under 5-year lease to Treasury Department agency can be stiffed for rent after one year if that’s all the original appropriation for the office was for (agency was then folded into another agency)

United States v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. Co., 237 U.S. 410 (decided May 10, 1915): “transfer trains” (not on any route, but utilized to move cars from one yard to another) are within scope of Safety Appliance Act (penalized for not having operable air brakes on 75% of cars)

Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U.S. 204 (decided May 10, 1897): no Eleventh Amendment impediment to sue state for property held for a private party

Mandeville Island Farms v. American Crystal Sugar Co., 334 U.S. 219 (decided May 10, 1948): local agreement between sugar refiners making them exclusive purchasers of beets (which have to be processed near location of harvesting) violated Sherman Act even though sugar not sold across state lines until after refinement

[Dilan Esper]

court was not disbanded until 1962

And of course we later got the Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals.

[Martinned2]

Leiter v. United States, 271 U.S. 204 (decided May 10, 1926): private landlord renting under 5-year lease to Treasury Department agency can be stiffed for rent after one year if that’s all the original appropriation for the office was for (agency was then folded into another agency)

I assume the landlord at least got his property back after a year?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Without looking at the case again I assume he held it vacant until he could litigate the rent back. Or maybe rented it out again so as to mitigate damages. (I assume the agency had served some kind of “notice to quit” so that he could safely do that.) It seems like an unfair decision, and opposite to the common law view that not even the government can break contracts.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

IIRC in Yick Wo they used the 14th Amendment (equal protection) and a treaty with China guaranteeing Chinese nationals the same treatment as nationals of other foreign states. So if a German national had a particular right then a Chinese national must have the same right.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

While conservatives are ranting about the bigotry they ascribe to people who object to the killing of thousands of children, they still find time to demonstrate and flatter the multifaceted bigotry that animates the Republican Party, conservatism, and the Volokh Conspiracy.

In this case, it's racism . . . but it could have been transphobia, misogyny, antisemitism (from the right), Islamophobia, xenophobia, gay-bashing, or any other flavor of conservative bigotry.

Carry on, clingers.

So far as better Americans permit.

[Syd Henderson]

I never noticed before that Yick Wo was the name of the laundry, not the person, who was Lee Yick. My guess that Yick Wo means "Yick's Laundry."

This case was unanimous in deciding that a facially neutral law that was intended to discriminate against Chinese launderers (who were the people it was enforced against) was unconstitutional. It was eventually one of the precedents against "separate but equal". Still, some of the justices in this case were in the majority in "Plessy v. Ferguson."

[Dan Schiavetta]

"a facially neutral law that was intended to discriminate against Chinese launderers (who were the people it was enforced against) was unconstitutional."

The opposite of what was held in Trump v. Hawaii, 2018 (a facially neutral law that was intended to discriminate held Constitutional).

[SMP0328]

This was the first SCOTUS decision to hold that the Equal Protection Clause is violated by the racist application of a racially neutral law just as much as it is violated by a law that is facially racist. This was a landmark decision, because it rejected limiting the EPC to laws such as the Black Codes.

[John F. Carr]

According to Wikipedia the Wo part is 和. In modern standard Chinese the pronunciation is hé. Early immigrants were predominantly Cantonese speakers.

Under modern law Yick might be out of luck. Courts often demand exhaustion of other remedies before intervening. Yick would be expected to appeal the denial of his laundry permit rather than his conviction for heating water without a permit.