Supreme Court of the United States, 1946

The Court held that the NLRB's policy barring post‑election challenges to voter eligibility is a permissible exercise of its statutory discretion and does not deprive it of jurisdiction, thus reversing the First Circuit and affirming the Board's order requiring the employer to bargain with the union.

The Supreme Court reversed the First Circuit, holding that the National Labor Relations Board may lawfully prohibit post‑election challenges to voter eligibility and that such a policy does not deprive the Board of jurisdiction to find an unlawful refusal to bargain.

The Court held that employees seeking unpaid compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act need not prove its amount precisely when the employer's records are inadequate. Once employees establish uncompensated work and its extent by just and reasonable inference, the employer must produce evidence of the precise…

The Court held that proof of at least eight separate conspiracies under an indictment charging one general conspiracy, compounded by instructions permitting attribution of unrelated conspirators’ conduct to each defendant, substantially prejudiced petitioners.

The Court affirmed the Pinkertons’ convictions, holding that conspiracy and the completed substantive offenses are distinct crimes permitting separate punishment. It also held that a member of a continuing conspiracy may be responsible for reasonably foreseeable substantive offenses committed by another conspirator…

The Court affirmed dismissal of a challenge to Illinois congressional districts whose populations had become substantially unequal since their enactment. It held that the federal reapportionment statute did not require compactness, contiguity, or population equality, and that the requested relief presented a…

The Court, through Justice Rutledge, upheld South Carolina’s premium tax on foreign insurance companies. The McCarran Act authorized continued state taxation of insurance, including this tax, and Congress could remove dormant Commerce Clause objections even assuming that the tax discriminated against interstate…

The Supreme Court held that Virginia’s statute mandating racial segregation on interstate motor buses imposes an undue burden on interstate commerce and is therefore unconstitutional, reversing the Virginia Court of Appeals. The Court emphasized the need for a uniform national rule for interstate travel.

The Supreme Court reversed contempt judgments against the associate editor and the publisher of the Miami Herald for two editorials and a cartoon criticizing Dade County circuit judges' handling of pending criminal matters, including recently quashed rape indictments.

Justice Murphy's opinion for the Court held that the combined offering of citrus-grove interests and cultivation and marketing services constituted investment contracts under the Securities Act of 1933.

The Court held that the District Court had federal-question jurisdiction over a damages action alleging that federal agents violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Whether those provisions authorized damages was a merits question, not a jurisdictional prerequisite, and the constitutional claims were neither…

The Court affirmed the judgment against the taxpayer, holding that the purported husband-wife partnership was not genuine for federal income-tax purposes. The evidence supported the finding that the wife acquired no separate economic interest because the transaction returned the contributed funds to the husband while…

The Court, through Justice Reed, held that back pay awarded under the National Labor Relations Act constitutes wages under the Social Security Act and must be allocated to the periods in which the wages ordinarily would have been paid.

The Court affirmed the lower courts, holding that the alleged husband‑wife partnership was not a genuine partnership for income‑tax purposes and therefore the deficiency assessment stands. Justice Reed dissented, arguing that the partnership was valid and the judgment should be reversed.

The Court held that back pay awarded under the National Labor Relations Act is wages under the Social Security Act because it is remuneration arising from the continuing employer-employee relationship, even though the employee performed no productive work during the period of unlawful discharge.

The Court held that an appellate court may not review a trial court's factual findings underlying a ruling on a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence when those findings are supported by evidence.

The Court affirmed the judgment upholding the respondent's challenge to large assessments on intangible personal property. It held that the federal court properly retained jurisdiction because New Jersey's remedies were uncertain and inadequate to protect the asserted federal right, and it properly decided the case on…

The Supreme Court reversed the criminal conviction of a Jehovah's Witness punished under Alabama's trespass-after-warning statute for distributing religious literature on the sidewalk of Chickasaw, a company-owned town's business block, holding that the First and Fourteenth Amendments forbid a State to enforce a…