Important Supreme Court Rulings

         

                                  Commonwealth Vs. Hunt 1842

          Massachusetts' Lemuel Shaw's views on labor and civil rights decided many cases of the time. In his best known and most praised decision, Shaw cleared the way for labor unions to operate freely in Massachusetts in Commonwealth v Hunt. Before this decision, which was based on a previous case from 1806 called Commonwealth v Pulli, labor unions which attempted to create a unionized workplace would be charged with conspiracy, which is completely unfair. From that case came the labor conspiracy doctrine which said that collective bargaining would interfere with the natural operation of the marketplace, raise wages to high levels, and destroy competition. Most merchants followed this doctrine until 1839, when John Hunt and the Boston Journeymen boot-makers society was charged with conspiracy, many people began to question this doctrine. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled in their favor declaring that as long as the methods used were legal, the formation of labor unions was not criminal conspiracy. Workers tried to reason with their employers and tried to get state legislatures to pass laws to shorten the work days. This Supreme Court ruling basically gave rise to a variety of labor unions that would eventually improve working conditions and raise the importance and essential nature of the average laborer.

                                           Gibbons Vs. Ogden 1824 

         In 1808 the Legislature of the State of New York gave Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton exclusive navigation privileges of all oceans by New York's border, but if only boats were moved by fire or steam, for a term of years. Both men eventually rallied other states s for similar rights, hoping to develop a national network of steamboat lines, but only New Orleans Territory accepted their petition and awarded them a large amount of land on the lower Mississippi. Aaron Ogden filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of New York asking the court to restrain Thomas Gibbons from operating on these waters when he noticed his business ventures were not working out. Gibbons' lawyer, Daniel Webster, argued that Congress had exclusive national power over interstate commerce to the Constitution and that to argue otherwise would result in confusing policies. The Court of Chancery of New York and the Court of Errors of New York found in favor of Ogden and issued an injunction to restrict Gibbons from operating his boats. This helped place the first restrictions that would eventually lead to businesses overruling the government itself.

Go to: http://law.jrank.org/pages/10229/Shaw-Lemuel.html to learn more about it