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Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111 (1965)
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General SummaryThis case is from a collection containing the full text of over 16,000 Supreme Court cases from 1793 to the present. The body of Supreme Court decisions are, effectively, the final interpretation of the Constitution. Only an amendment to the Constitution can permanently overturn an interpretation and this has happened only four times in American history.
Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111 (1965)
Swift & Co. v. Wickham No. 9 Argued October 13, 1965 Decided November 22, 1965 382 U.S. 111
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
Syllabus
Appellants, two meat-packing companies, sued in the Federal District Court to enjoin enforcement of a New York statute requiring that the label for packaged poultry disclose the weight of the unstuffed bird as well as of the entire package. Appellants claimed that the state statute violated the Commerce Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, and overriding federal labeling requirements under which the state label had been disapproved. A three-judge District Court was convened under 28 U.S.C. § 2281, providing for such a tribunal whenever the enforcement of a state statute is sought to be enjoined "upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute." That court dismissed on the merits in both its single-judge and three-judge capacities, and appeals were taken respectively to the Court of Appeals and (under 28 U.S.C. § 1253) to this Court.
Held: The three-judge court requirement applies to injunction suits depending directly upon a substantive provision of the Constitution, and does not apply to Supremacy Clause cases involving only federal-state statutory conflicts. Pp. 114-129.
(a) Appellants’ Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment claims are too insubstantial to support three-judge court jurisdiction. Pp. 114-115.
(b) A claim that a state statute is preempted by or in conflict with a federal provision though grounded in the Supremacy Clause primarily involves the comparison of two statutes, rather than the interpretation of the Constitution; therefore, as established in Ex parte Buder, 271 U.S. 461; Ex parte Bransford, 310 U.S. 354, and Case v. Bowles, 327 U.S. 92, Supremacy Clause cases are not within the purview of § 2281. Pp. 120-122.
(c) The holding in Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U.S. 153, that a three-judge court is required if the constitutional issue is "immediately" apparent, but not if substantial statutory construction is required, is unworkable, and that decision is, pro tanto, overruled. Pp. 124-129.
230 F.Supp. 398, appeal dismissed.
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Chicago: U.S. Supreme Court, "Syllabus," Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111 (1965) in 382 U.S. 111 382 U.S. 112. Original Sources, accessed November 24, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LLMGVH9JK1MAQLW.
MLA: U.S. Supreme Court. "Syllabus." Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111 (1965), in 382 U.S. 111, page 382 U.S. 112. Original Sources. 24 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LLMGVH9JK1MAQLW.
Harvard: U.S. Supreme Court, 'Syllabus' in Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111 (1965). cited in 1965, 382 U.S. 111, pp.382 U.S. 112. Original Sources, retrieved 24 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LLMGVH9JK1MAQLW.
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