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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.

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.

Any survey of a state's decisional law in the labor field should include some reference to the jurisdiction of its courts over labor controversies. There would be no separate body of substantive labor law but for the intervention of Congress into employment relations affecting interstate commerce with comprehensive legislation designed to strengthen the worker in his collective capacity.' The administration of this legislation by the National Labor Relations Board provides the great majority of case law governing the employment relationship. However, that residue which may be regulated exclusively or concurrently by the states is an important one, as evidenced by the number of states which have enacted their own labor relations acts.