Suchergebnisse

The Supreme Court of Tennessee has been faced with few major Constitutional Law problems during the period under consideration. Statistically, the action of the Court in invalidating one law out of almost a score that were attacked before it on the basis of constitutional defect suggests an attitude of judicial restraint toward the product of a coordinate branch of government. The relatively small number of constitutional questions raised-- and many of them were obviously make-weight rather than points of principal reliance-- suggests a general awareness of the Court's stability and the unlikelihood of its departing from established precedent. Similarly, regard for the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson, with its "separate but equal" doctrine, was a major factor in the decision of two federal district courts in Tennessee involving alleged deprivation of constitutional rights in the furnishing of educational and recreational facilities to Negroes. It was not a year for the expansion or contraction of doctrines of constitutionality previously established, although in one instance at least it appears that some "new law" was made.

Constitutional law, like other law, is rooted in the conservative tradition of the legal system as a whole and thus more willingly pays court to the muse of history and the force of precedent than to the muse of sociology and the demand for revision. It is therefore not surprising that lawyers read constitutions as law, in the ordinary meaning of that word, and that judges apply constitutional provisions as they do other law. The Constitution of the United States was not cast in legal mold by accident, but by design that was itself the product of ineluctable history. A written Constitution seemed necessary not only to assure adequate authority in the central government, but more importantly to give permanent protection against the potential abuses of government with which there was familiarity enough. The distrust of British forms of government, whether in terms of absolute monarchy or of parliamentary supremacy, had provoked the Declaration of Independence and its ringing denunciation of the "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the "present King of Great Britain." Even after military victory was assured, continuing mistrust of centralized authority had dictated the weak alliance of nation and states provided for in the Articles of Confederation, which proved to be more a charter of "thou shalt nots" than a formula for effective government.

A 1963 survey of Tennessee cases having to do with various issues of constitutional law, including legislative apportionment, desegregation, equal protection and due process.

During the period under consideration the most important developments for Tennessee in the field of Constitutional Law were amendments to the State Constitution. This Constitution, adopted in 1870, was the oldest unamended constitution in the United States until eight proposed amendments were ratified by the voters on November 3, 1953. That the Tennessee Constitution had been unchanged for so many years was the result of several factors, most obvious of which was the fact that such constitution was especially difficult to amend. under the amending provision' amendments required approval of a majority of the entire membership of both Houses of one Legislature, approval of two-thirds of the members of both Houses of the next Legislature, followed by ratification at an election at which such proposals are approved "by a majority of all the citizens of the State, voting for Representatives, voting in their favor. ." Hence, an amendment finally proposed for ratification at an election was not necessarily adopted when approval was given by a majority, or even an overwhelming majority, of those voting with respect to it. Those who stayed away from the polls or refrained from voting were, in practical effect, casting a negative vote. It is obvious why both lawyers and political scientists have stressed the extreme difficulty of adopting specific amendments by this method.

During the survey period the Tennessee Supreme Court had occasion to deal with a major, though unsuccessful, attack upon the constitutionality of the state legislation providing for the apportionment of Senators and Representatives in the General Assembly. There were also important questions relating to constitutional limitations on the police power in the regulation of insurance and of the number and capacity of gasoline storage tanks by a municipality. The separation between legislative, executive and judicial powers is made express in the Tennessee Constitution.' In addition, each of these coordinate branches of government is expressly enjoined from performing the functions of either of the other two. Judicial power in Tennessee has long been treated as including as a normal function the power of courts to determine questions of constitutionality and, if necessary, to invalidate the action of one of the coordinate branches of government. The fact that the Governor and members of the General Assembly likewise take an oath to uphold the constitutions of the state and of the United States has not prevented judicial action declaring the action of either of these two other branches to be unconstitutional and void. Nevertheless, the courts have avoided deciding certain types of constitutional controversies where they have felt that the matter is not appropriate for adjudication but must be resolved, if it is to be resolved, by the legislature or the executive.

I. Delegation of Legislative Power to Metropolitan Charger Commission II. Right to Jury Trial: Special Findings Without General Verdict III. Due Process of Law: In Personam Jurisdiction Over Nonresident Individual IV. Due Process: Expulsion from Public University Without Hearing V. Equal Protection: Legislative Apportionment VI. Legislative Classification: Suspension of General Law for One County VII. Legislative Classification: Exemption from Carrier Regulation VIII. Equal Protection: Racial Discrimination IX. Standing to Challenge Constitutionality

Several major constitutional problems were presented to the Tennessee Supreme Court during the survey year. There were no startling developments in the court's disposition of these cases, nor in the opinions proclaimed in each instance. The court avoided what it termed a "spectacular exhibition of judicial sophistry" in giving constitutional approval to certain activities of a religious nature in the public schools. In the regulation of economic affairs the court found no valid basis for a statute prohibiting the offering of benefits or premiums in connection with the sale of gasoline. Basic allocations of governmental power were involved in a case in which the court denied a petition by the Bar Association of Tennessee that it adopt a rule of court integrating the bar of the state. The opinion in this instance weighed the expediency of the proposal and did not rest its decision upon any finding of lack of inherent power in the court to promulgate such a rule. The opinion is of great importance in showing how judicial power may supplement legislative power in prescribing requirements for admission to the bar.

Eminent Domain--Just Compensation.-Landowners sued the Tennessee Commissioner of Highways and Public Works for compensation for a taking of property for the state's superhighway program in Brooksbank v. Leech. The trial court sustained a demurrer on the ground that the suit was barred by sovereign immunity. In order to dispose of this question on appeal the supreme court first determined whether the legislature had provided an adequate statutory method for just compensation, the absence of which would have rendered the taking unconstitutional under both article I, section 21, of the Constitution of Tennessee and the due process clause of the United States Constitution. The court held that the landowners' remedy was by suit against the county where the taking occurred.

Although a relatively small number of cases turned upon constitutional questions during the survey period, some important decisions were handed down in this area. In five separate decisions legislation was declared unconstitutional. The impact of the constitutional decisions varies from the right to millions of dollars in school funds in Shelby County and the salary of the clerk of General Sessions Court of Clay County to approval of permanent tenure for all franchised automobile dealers in the state. The scope of governmental power over the administration of estates, condemnation of private property and the pursuit of private businesses brought forth important and far-reaching judicial pronouncements. Two cases are witness to the diminishing concern for protection of contractual rights as such from legislative infringement. Although most decisions dealt with constitutional limitations on legislative power over business, private property and governmental functions, in one decision the fundamental procedural rights of one accused of crime were upheld in order to free him.

Accepting the Clausewitz thesis that "war is only an extension of policy," we are free to say that the politicians have created chaos in these latter days in a rather wholesale way. But that is another story. The World Revolution is not my topic, but the comparatively limited revolution which we have been witnessing in our own country the last few years in consequence of the New Deal and more recently of the war. How has this revolution affected conceptions of governmental power in the United States; how is it to be evaluated in terms of American Constitutional Law? For Constitutional Law has always been the most distinctive feature of the American system of government, the result of a unique infusion of politics with jurisprudence, of current opinion with established principles. Today this remarkable product of American political genius appears to be undergoing a fundamental revision—even to be in process of dissolution.

In 1959 the state legislature passed a law enabling Washington to obtain federal-aid highway grants for the reimbursement of utility relocation costs incident to federal highway construction. In the recent case of Washington St. Hy. Comm'n. v. Pacific Northwest Bell Tel. Co., the Washington Supreme Court held this legislation to violate the state constitution.

In 1958 the Seattle City Council promulgated Ordinance No. 83784, which regulated the ownership and operation of juke boxes within the city. By the terms of this ordinance, one could own a juke box only upon the acquisition of a "juke box operator's license." Yet the ordinance authorized fewer consents than were already outstanding, and its prospective effect was such as to exclude all but existing licensees from the juke box field. Thus, when L. D. Ragan applied for an "operator's license" his application was denied. Ragan sought a judgment declaring this ordinance unconstitutional, and from an adverse ruling by the trial court, prosecuted an appeal. Ragan v. City of Seattle affords an opportunity to explore the equal protection problems which arise upon a municipal corporation's exercise of regulatory power.

Reproduced from typewritten copy. ; "One-page Memo on 'Legislation, the law today, and wiretapping'," attached at front. ; Caption title. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Twenty-five years, in constitutional law, is a long enough span that at its end a generation is apt to confront the problems created by its solutions to the tasks it inherited at the beginning. In the years before Mr. Justice Douglas took his seat on the Supreme Court in 1939, the attention of the whole nation had been held by an epic of constitutional history—the decision whether American government had the constitutional power to cope with the economic and social crisis of a breakdown in the private economy. In 1937, the Supreme Court had unlocked the federal arsenal. The previous year, in the very course of striking down the first AAA, the Court had given its blessing to a broad, Hamiltonian reading of the spending power, and it had repulsed an attack on the TVA. It looked as if with the opening page of the 301st volume of its Reports, the Court was turning over a new leaf: the commerce clause was held to support regulation of labor relations in industrial production; and an ingenious use of taxes, credits, and payments permitted the nation to place its financial credit rather than that of near-bankrupt and mutually competitive states behind unemployment and retirement benefits through the Social Security Act. The Federal government was not again to be held to lack the tools for an economic task.

Conflict of Laws--Full Faith and Credit--Prior Conflicting Divorce Decrees ================= Conflict of Laws--Tax Claims of One State Held Not Enforceable in Another State ================= Constitutional Law--Discrimination--Statute Prohibiting Racial Discrimination in Renting of Private Apartment Houses Does Not Violate Due Process ================= Constitutional Law--Establishment of Religion--Recitation of State Composed Prayer in Public Schools Held Unconstitutional ================= Criminal Law--Narcotics-Criminal Prosecution for Addiction Is a Cruel and Unusual Punishment Violating Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments ================= Damages--Collateral Source Rule--Value of Medical Services Plaintiff Received as a Gratuity Not Allowed as Special Damages ================= Due Process--Taxation of Insurance Premiums Paid to Foreign Insurers on Property Within State ================= Federal Jurisdiction--Sovereign Immunity--Suits Against Officers of the Federal Government ================== Federal Tort Claims Act--Recovery by Federal Prisoner for Negligence of Prison Employees ================= Insurance--Products Liability Policy--Coverage Includes Damages Sustained While Replacing Defective Product ================= Labor Law--Federal Courts Have No Jurisdiction To Enjoin the Breach of a No-Strike Provision of a Collective Bargaining Agreement Calling for Arbitration ================= Obscenity--Mailability of Magazines Which Appeal to Homosexuals ================= Tax Liens--Federal Tax Lien Subordinated to Local Lien Which Was Included as an Expense of Sale ================= Taxation--Inheritance, Estate & Gift Taxes--A Specific Dollar Amount Held To Be a Specific Portion So as To Qualify for Marital Deduction ================= Torts--Negligent Misrepresentations in Business Transactions--Persons to Whom Duty Is Owed ================= Torts--Recovery for Emotional Distress Resulting From Fear of Injury to Another ================= Workmen's Compensation--Recovery for Suicide Induced by ...