Today in Supreme Court History: December 11, 1922

12/11/1922: Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Texas v. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. --- (decided December 11, 2020): Texas has no standing to contest how other states conduct their elections (the Constitutional objection argued appears to be that Biden actually lost)

Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70 (decided December 11, 2006): fact that judge allowed murder victim’s family to sit in front row at trial wearing buttons with victim’s photo did not entitle defendant to habeas relief (because allowing this was not contrary to “clearly established” federal law, 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(1))

Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (decided December 11, 1922): legislature violated Contracts Clause rights of mining company by prohibiting mining that would cause subsidence damage to private property (in effect overruled by Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis, 1987)

[apedad]

Reading the Keystone decision, I'm not sure it's appropriate to say it 'overruled' the 1922 PA case, and instead the 'particular facts' were looked at in each case and it's the unique factors which led to the opposite decisions.

Justice Stevens:

"In that case (1922 PA), the 'particular facts' led the Court to hold that the Pennsylvania Legislature had gone beyond its constitutional powers when it enacted a statute prohibiting the mining of anthracite coal in a manner that would cause the subsidence of land on which certain structures were located.
Now, 65 years later, we address a different set of 'particular facts . . . . '"

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, you're right about that. Will revise the next time it comes around. In the earlier case it was only a single house that was destroyed, much to the detriment of the owner. In Keystone 14,000 structures had been undermined, in an era of greater environmental awareness.

Pennsylvania coal mining which destroys private property reminds me of the now-ghost town of Centralia, Pa., where in 1962 someone burned garbage in an abandoned mine and the entire mine -- tunnels that underlay the whole town -- caught fire. The fire can't be extinguished and is not expected to burn itself out for thousands of years. Circa 1983, after reading a story about it, I visited. The place was deserted, empty houses here and there. Pipes sticking out of the ground were venting smoke. Spray painted signs next to them said, "Centralia Mine Fire -- Our Future".

[Krayt]

Man that's some tortuous reasoning. The dissent in the newer case argued the three estates, surface, mining, and support columns of coal, could he independently owned (true, it was just 2% of the coal, but is that the point? It's just 2% of your leg.), and if the state came in and declared the support column no longer minable, that would transparently be a taking. And they had to rely on various public good arguments, even though contracts had long, long already covered these issues.

I've always felt if The People, in their infinite wisdom, felt another use was better for themselves as a whole, they can pay for it. Far from justifying compensation-free taking power, it actually amplifies the applicability.

As an addendum, wiki mentioned decades later someone analyzed just how bad the problem was, and it wasn't. Usually it didn't happen, and if it did, it was settling or cracks. Yet it was portrayed to the court as if "whole towns were disappearing into the ground".

[Malika the Maiz]

From Steven’s concurrence in Carey:

“Nevertheless, in a somewhat ironic dictum in her Williams opinion, Justice O’Connor stated that the statutory phrase “clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” refers to “the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court’s decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision.” Id., at 412. That dictum has been repeated in three subsequent opinions in which a bare majority of the Court rejected constitutional claims that four of us would have upheld.* Because I am persuaded that Justice O’Connor’s dictum about dicta represents an incorrect interpretation of the statute’s text, and because its repetition today is wholly unnecessary, I do not join the Court’s opinion.”

[apedad]

From Justice Holmes in the Pennsylvania decision:

"Government hardly could go on if, to some extent, values incident to property could not be diminished without paying for every such change in the general law. As long recognized, some values are enjoyed under an implied limitation, and must yield to the police power. But obviously the implied limitation must have its limits, or the contract and due process clauses are gone."

IOW, limits must have limits.

[Krayt]

If'n only The People had thought of this and provided blabbage about contracts and compensation for takings, but they didn't.

Dammit!

[SMP0328]

Holmes was such a statist, always deferring to whatever the government wanted. See Schenck v. United States and Buck v. Bell as prime examples.

In Pennsylvania Coal, his sympathy is for the government instead of property owners. Poor government would have to repeatedly pay every time it diminished the value of someone's property. I doubt he had any sympathy for people's property taxes increasing whenever their property increased in value.

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/400589

Columbia U continues to be a hotbed of violent antisemitism.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

SCOTUS had an "opinion day" today (contra the summary of yesterday's opinion on this blog, it was announced they would have it) to DIG another case. DIG it, man.

So they had three opinion days and handed down one signed opinion. They also have a separate per curiam.

I'll toss in that I watched Dinner at Eight, a classic film from 1933 that holds up quite well. It is pre-code with some real bite. It has both comedy and dramatic touches.

The Jean Harlow / Wallace Beery duo reminds me of the film Born Yesterday duo. The DVD had a witty short parody of the film, Come to Dinner, and a bio sketch of Jean Harlow narrated by Sharon Stone.

[SRG2]

If you're from the Bronx, you should surely have said, instead, "Can you DIG iiiiiit!"

[Voize of Reazon]