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Sesquicentennial
Special From
Near to Fair: Minnesota Cases at the U.S. Supreme Court Railroads,
newspapers, airlines, a dairy, and even the State Fair have been embroiled
in disputes from Minnesota that have reached the United States Supreme
Court. While Minnesotans may differ as to which of these cases have
had greatest impact, here are a number that are notable milestones
in the history of our state. By
Marshall H. Tanick and Phillip J. Trobaugh One
way to pay homage to the state’s 150th birthday is to examine some
of the more notable cases from the Minnesota state court system that
have been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s a look at 15 noteworthy
cases—nine of them reversed and six affirmed—from among the 154 to
reach the High Court, selected because they are interesting, important,
or both. Disbarment
Decision Even
before it became a state on May 11, 1858, litigation from Minnesota
was heard by the Supreme Court. In fact, the first case from Minnesota
to reach the High Court arose in territorial days. In
Ex
parte Secombe, 60 U.S. 9 (1856), a Minnesota attorney challenged
his disbarment by the territorial supreme court for violating a law
obligating lawyers “‘to maintain the respect due to courts of justice
and judicial officers.’”1 The offense committed by the attorney, who
had been practicing in the territory for a little more than three
years, was not described in the court proceedings, other than it occurred
in “open court” and led to his disbarment without notice. On appeal,
the Supreme Court upheld the territorial court’s disbarment ruling.2 The
Supreme Court rejected the counselor’s claim that he was not given
an opportunity to contest the disbarment, a version of due process
existing a decade before
the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment came into being. While
cautioning against arbitrary and despotic rulings by tribunals against
attorneys, the Court upheld the discretion of the territorial court
in the proper exercise of a “judicial act … within the scope of its
jurisdiction and discretion.”3 The ruling was written by Chief Justice
Roger Taney, who only one year later would author the famous Dred
Scott decision, Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856),
which also happened to arise in part from Minnesota, where the claimant
had, for two years, been enslaved to a military doctor deployed at
Fort Snelling. Railroad Rulings Railroads
were the predominant means for transportation of passengers, freight
and commodities and an important factor in development of the country,
including Minnesota, for much of the latter part of the 19th century
and the earlier part of the ensuing one. Consequently, railroad litigation
became a staple of the U.S. Supreme Court. Of the cases reaching the
High Court from Minnesota, nearly one-third—49 cases—have been railroad
rulings. The
concept of due process of law, not yet developed in the Secombe case, made its mark in a later Minnesota lawsuit. The right
of states to regulate shipping rates charged by railroads was a recurring
legal issue after the Civil War, reaching its apex in a case from
Minnesota, known as the Railroad Rate Case, Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota,
134 U.S. 418 (1890).4 Reversing the Minnesota Supreme Court, the High
Court invalidated a Minnesota statute on grounds that it violated
the Due Process Clause because it deprived the railroad of its right
to a judicial investigation “regarding whether the rates are unequal
and unreasonable.”5 Another
railroad rate-related case of even greater significance, still frequently
cited today, also came from Minnesota. Since it was a case that originated
in the federal court system, it does not make it to this “Top 15”
list. But Ex parte
Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), still merits mention because of
its significance of development in jurisprudence, allowing federal
courts to impose equitable relief, but not award damages, against
the state or state officials under the 11th Amendment. A
different constitutional issue, the right to a jury trial under the
7th Amendment, arose in another Minnesota railroad case, Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad
Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U.S. 211 (1916). The Supreme Court, affirming
a ruling of the state supreme court,6 held that an injured railroad
worker was not entitled to a unanimous jury verdict in a state civil
lawsuit because the 7th Amendment jury guarantee is applicable only
to the federal government, not the state.7 The Supreme Court dismissively
rejected the argument that certain provisions of the Bill of Rights
applied to state actions.8 Media Matters The
refusal of the High Court to apply the constitutional guarantee of
a unanimous jury verdict to the states in Bombolis
was swept away a few years later when the Court began framing
the “selective incorporation” theory, which gave certain constitutional
rights against state governmental action. This development was highlighted,
ironically, by another Minnesota case, Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697 (1931). The
case stands near the top of nearly all listings of landmark Supreme
Court rulings, particularly those under the 1st Amendment, since it
established the generally immutable rule against “prior restraint”
by the government of offensive expressions. The lawsuit concerned
an attempt by Hennepin County Attorney Floyd B. Olson, who later became
a popular Depression-era governor, to shut down a scandalous local
newspaper that was highly critical of local officials, replete with
racial and anti-Semitic overtones. He invoked a state “nuisance” law,
empowering authorities to shut-down offensive publications, which
both the Hennepin County District Court and Minnesota Supreme Court
upheld.9 The
United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, reversed, holding
that the censorial statute “cannot be justified” under the 1st Amendment
protection of freedom of expression.10 In doing so, it adopted the
principle, rejected in Bombolis but nurtured in ensuing years,
that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extends certain
constitutional rights to the states. The author of the dissent in
Near, incidentally, was Justice Pierce
Butler, Minnesota’s first High Court jurist. But
Near was not the only significant
1st Amendment case from the Minnesota state court system decided by
the nation’s highest tribunal. A couple of others also involved the
media, namely newspapers. In Minneapolis
Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue,
460 U.S. 575 (1983), the Court considered a special “use” tax imposed
by the state legislature on the purchase of ink by the newspapers.
The law was structured in such a way that it affected only the largest
newspaper in the state, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and seemed to
be animated by displeasure in legislative corridors with the newspaper’s
reportage of political and social issues at the time. As
in the Near case, the measure
was upheld by the state supreme court.11 But also, as in Near, the Supreme Court reversed. It reasoned, in a decision written
by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, that the Minnesota tax constituted
an infringement of the 1st Amendment because it was an attempt to
retaliate against the newspaper for its expressing its views, and
such “differential treatment ... suggests that the goal of the regulation
is not unrelated to suppression of expression.”12 The decision drew
a dissent from Justice William Rehnquist, later the chief justice,
who pointed out that, under the measure, the newspaper actually paid
less than it would have
had it been subjected to Minnesota’s normal sales tax for its ink
purchases.13 The
same newspaper, along with the state’s second largest one, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, encountered a less
favorable tribunal a decade later. They had challenged the $700,000
jury verdict handed down against them in Hennepin County District
Court for revealing the identity of a confidential news source. The
source had sued for breach of contract and fraud after he had been
promised anonymity by the reporters for the two newspapers and then
was named in articles in the two publications. In Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663 (1991), the Court held
that the 1st Amendment did not immunize the media from laws of “general
applicability.” The jury’s findings of breach of contract and fraud
did not offend the 1st Amendment, and the case was remanded to the
state supreme court, which had previously reversed the judgment in
favor of the plaintiff.14 On remand, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld
a portion of the award, $200,000, on promissory estoppel grounds,
“essentially a variation of contract theory.”15 Expression
Enigmas Other
1st Amendment rights of freedom of expression and association were
addressed in two Minnesota cases. In
Heffron
v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc.,
452 U.S. 640 (1981), the Court upheld the regulation of the government
agency that owns and operates the State Fair barring the sale or distribution
of religious literature and materials other than at fixed locations
on the fairgrounds. The measure was challenged by a religious organization
claiming the 1st Amendment right to pass out literature and solicit
funds while wandering through the facility. The state supreme court
ruled for the religious organization,16 but the Supreme Court unanimously
reversed, holding that the restrictions did not offend the 1st Amendment
rights of the group or others.17 In
a highly-fractured ruling 12 years later, the Court struck down the
juvenile delinquency adjudication of a youth for violating a St. Paul
“hate crime” ordinance by participating in a cross-burning at the
home of an African-American family in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S.
377 (1992). The Court overturned the ordinance, which had been upheld
by the state supreme court, despite a vigorous 1st Amendment challenge.18
A plurality of the High Court deemed the statute constitutionally
defective because it was predominantly “content-based” and reflected
“viewpoint discrimination” as it was directed at a particular type
of expressive conduct. Commercial Concerns Important
business concerns have been addressed in a number of Minnesota commercial
cases. The provision in Article I §10 of the Constitution barring
states from impairing contractual rights did not proscribe a Minnesota
law imposing a temporary moratorium on mortgage foreclosures during
the Depression in Home
Building & Loan Ass’n. v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934).
The High Court affirmed a ruling of the state supreme court,19 upholding
the measure as a valid expression of a state legislature’s powers
during an “emergency.” But the vote, like others of its era, was a
narrow one, 5-4, with Justice Butler of Minnesota again in dissent. The
state’s right to tax a multistate corporation on personal property
located within the state was upheld by the High Court in Northwest Airlines v. Minnesota,
322 U.S. 292 (1944). The case questioned whether the state taxation
on Northwest Airlines’ entire fleet of airplanes, all headquartered
in Minnesota but operating across state lines, violated the Commerce
Clause in Article I, §8. The state supreme court said it did not20
and the justices in Washington, D.C. affirmed, noting that because
the fleet was not taxed elsewhere, there would be no threat of double
taxation. The failure to impose a tax in Minnesota would, in the absence
of taxation elsewhere, “free such floating property from taxation
everywhere.”21 The Court observed that “each new means of interstate
transportation and communication had engendered controversy regarding
taxation,”22 an observation that still strikes home as technological
advances continue to raise thorny issues of taxation in the high-tech
world in the new millennium. The
Court addressed another taxing dilemma in Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v.
Minnesota, 358 U.S. 450 (1959). The issue was whether Minnesota
could impose an income tax on foreign corporations based on the portion
of the net corporate income that was attributable to activities within
Minnesota. After the state supreme court agreed,23 the High Court
upheld the tax on grounds that the business was not bearing more than
its fair share of the tax burden because the measure was limited to
taxing the net profits earned within the taxing jurisdiction, which
entailed a “valid ‘constitutional channel.’”24 Similarly,
in Minnesota
v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456 (1981), the Supreme
Court held a Minnesota statute banning plastic milk cartons did not
run afoul of the Commerce Clause. After the state supreme court invalidated
the law25 the High Court reversed, holding that the measure did not
discriminate against interstate commerce. It reasoned that “[a] nondiscriminatory
regulation serving substantial state purposes is not invalid simply
because it causes some businesses to shift from a predominantly out-of-state
industry to a predominantly in-state industry.”26 Criminal
Case The
large body of criminal cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court includes
several notable ones from Minnesota. In
Minnesota
v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984), the High Court upheld a murder
conviction predicated upon an admission by a participant made during
a group therapy session, which was then repeated to a probationary
officer. It reversed a ruling of the state supreme court27 on grounds
that the disclosure to the probation officer was not a compelled incrimination
and the probationer did not assert his 5th Amendment privilege.28 The
most recent Minnesota criminal case decided by the High Court arose
during its current term. Danforth v. Minnesota, 128 S.Ct. 1029 (2008), underscored the
concept of Federalism, an age-old doctrine dating back to the beginning
of the Republic. The case concerned the standard for retroactive application
of constitutional decisions to state court criminal convictions. The
state supreme court ruled that based on existing federal law, namely,
the establishment of a more expansive doctrine under the Confrontation
Clause of the 6th Amendment in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004),
such rulings did not apply retroactively to a Minnesota sex offender
whose conviction became final before the Supreme Court ruling.29 But
the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, reversed. In a new twist
on Federalism, it held that state courts are empowered to make High
Court rulings retroactive, even if the federal courts do not, because
federal judges have no “supervisory authority over the work of state
judges.”30 Responding to the two dissenters, the majority ruling noted
that lack of uniformity “is a necessary consequence of a federalist
system of government.”31 The
Danforth ruling brings 150-plus
years of Minnesota case law full circle. It constitutes a triumph
for “state rights” 150 years after the admission of Minnesota as a
state to a Union that was about to be torn apart over that principle
juxtaposed with the abomination of slavery. These
Minnesota cases have stirred numerous citations and other legal progeny
over the years. The RAV
case is the most notable, having been cited in nearly 1,900 cases
and 1,371 law review articles. Nor is Minnesota’s influence on our
nation’s jurisprudence limited to these 15 cases. They are but a few
selected to illustrate the long and lasting role that this state has
played in High Court adjudication from its infancy to its dotage on
its 150th birthday. s Notes 2
Id. at 16. 3 Id. at 15. 4
Chicago, M & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota,
134 U.S. 418 (1890), reversing 38 Minn. 281, 37 N.W. 782 (Minn. 1888). 5
134 U.S. at 456-57. 6
128 Minn. 112, 150 N.W. 385 (Minn. 1914). 7
251 U.S. 221-23. 8
Id. 9
179 Minn. 40, 228 N.W. 326 (Minn. 1929). 10
Near v. Minnesota ex rel.
Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 721 (1931). 11
314 N.W.2d 201 (Minn. 1981). 12
Minneapolis Star &
Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575,
585 (1983). 13
Id. at 598. 14
457 N.W.2d 199 (Minn. 1990). 15
479 N.W.2d 387 (Minn. 1992). 16
299 N.W.2d 79 (Minn. 1980). 17
Heffron v. International
Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 654 (1981). 18
464 N.W.2d 507 (Minn. 1991). 19
189 Minn. 448, 249 N.W. 893 (Minn. 1933). 20
213 Minn. 295, 7 N.W. 691 (Minn. 1942). 21
Northwest Airlines v.
Minnesota, 322 U.S. 292, 300 (1944). 22
Id. at 300-01. 23
250 Minn. 32, 84 N.W.2d 373 (Minn. 1957). 24
Northwestern States Portland
Cement Co. v. Minnesota, 358 U.S. 450, 464 (1959). 25
289 N.W.2d 79 (Minn. 1979). 26
Minnesota v. Clover Leaf
Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 474 (1981). 27
324 N.W.2d 340 (Minn. 1982). 28
Minnesota v. Murphy,
465 U.S. 420, 440 (1984). 29
718 N.W.2d 451 (Minn. 2006). 30
Danforth v. Minnesota, 128 S.Ct. 1029,
1046 (2008). 31
Id. at 1047. Honorable Mention While
the number 15 has a certain resonance with 150 years of statehood,
it carries no innate significance in denoting the number of Minnesota
cases that have had significant impact on development of the law of
the United States. Here are 15 additional significant or scintillating
cases from the Minnesota state court system that were decided by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
MARSHALL
H. TANICK
and PHILLIP
J. TROBAUGH are attorneys with the law firm of Mansfield, Tanick
& Cohen, P.A., with offices in Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis
Park, and Bemidji. The authors wish to thank Patrick Donaldson, a
law clerk with the firm, for his assistance in this article. |
