James Clark Mc Reynolds - Important Opinions

Important Opinions

In his 27 years on the bench, he authored 503 decisions.

His opinions were concise and brief.

His fierce opposition in the face of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legislation to fight the Great Depression led to his being labeled one of the "Four Horsemen", along with George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter and Pierce Butler. McReynolds voted to strike down: the Tennessee Valley Authority in Ashwander v. TVA; the National Industrial Recovery Act in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, 1935; the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 in United States v. Butler; the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935 in Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 1936; and the Social Security Act 42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq. in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 57 S. Ct. 883, 81 L. Ed. 1279 (1937). He continued to vote against New Deal measures after the Court's 1937 "switch" to upholding New Deal legislation. Professor Howard Ball called McReynolds "the most strident Court critic of Roosevelt's New Deal programs".

As a confirmed opponent of federal authority aimed toward social ends or economic regulation, he had the "single-minded passion of a zealot". McReynolds was a "firm believer in laissez-faire economic theory" which he said was constitutionally enshrined. See Lochner v New York. After the Lochner era ended in 1937— the Court's "switch in time that saved nine"— McReynolds became a dissenter. Unrepentant after the court's about face through his 1941 retirement his dissents would decry the federal government's exercises of power. In Steward Machine Co. v. Davis 301 U.S. 548 (1937) he dissented from a decision of the Court upholding the Social Security Act. He wrote: “I can not find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States” (p. 603).

Justice McReynolds wrote two early decisions using the Fourteenth Amendment to protect civil liberties: Meyer v. Nebraska 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Meyer involved a state law that prohibited the teaching of modern foreign languages in public schools. Meyer, who taught German in a Lutheran school, was convicted under this law. McReynolds wrote that the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment included an individual's right "to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, to establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, and generally to enjoy privileges, essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men". These two decisions survived the post Lochner era.

Pierce involved a challenge to a law forbidding parents to send their children to any but public schools. Justice McReynolds wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court, holding that the Act violated the liberty of parents to direct the education of their children. McReynolds wrote that "the fundamental liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only". These decisions were revived long after McReynolds departed from the bench, to buttress the Court's announcement of a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965), and later the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

McReynolds authored the decision in United States v. Miller 307 U.S. 174 (1939), which was the only Supreme Court case that directly involved the Second Amendment until District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. Text of United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) is available from: Justia · Findlaw

In the field of tax law, McReynolds wrote for the Court in Burnet v. Logan, 283 U.S. 404 (1931), a significant decision setting out the Court's doctrine regarding "open transactions".

McReynolds also wrote the dissent in the Gold Clause Cases, which required the surrender of all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to the government by May 1, 1933 under Executive Order 6102, issued by President Franklin Roosevelt.