Supreme Court of the United States, 1950

The Court held that the Federal Tort Claims Act does not impose liability on the United States for injuries to servicemen arising out of activity incident to military service. It affirmed the judgments denying recovery in Feres and Jefferson and reversed the judgment permitting the Griggs claim to proceed.

The Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the State of Texas to admit the Black applicant to the University of Texas Law School because the separate law school for Negroes was not substantially equal. The decision reversed the lower courts and remanded for admission.

The Court held that the Declaratory Judgment Act does not enlarge federal jurisdiction and that an anticipated federal defense to a state-law contract claim cannot establish federal-question jurisdiction. It reversed as to Skelly and Stanolind and directed dismissal because diversity jurisdiction was also absent.

Chief Justice Vinson, writing for a unanimous Court, held that Oklahoma violated the Equal Protection Clause by imposing racially segregated seating and dining arrangements on McLaurin after admitting him to its state-supported graduate school.

On rehearing limited to the infringement question, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment that Lincoln's Lincolnweld 660 welding flux infringed the four valid claims of Linde's Jones patent under the doctrine of equivalents, even though Lincolnweld substituted manganese silicate — manganese not being an…

Justice Jackson's opinion held that New York could conclusively settle common-trust accounts affecting resident and nonresident beneficiaries, provided beneficiaries received constitutionally adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard.

The Supreme Court held that a warrantless search of a stamp dealer's one-room business office, conducted incident to his valid arrest under a warrant, was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and that the 573 forged-overprint stamps seized from his desk, safe, and file cabinets were admissible.

Justice Jackson, dissenting, would hold that Congress did not clearly authorize the summary exclusion of an alien wife of an honorably discharged American serviceman without notice of the charges, disclosure of the evidence, or an opportunity to respond.

Justice Frankfurter, dissenting, would have construed the War Brides Act to protect alien spouses of honorably serving or discharged American servicemen from summary exclusion based on undisclosed security information absent explicit congressional authorization.

Justice Black's opinion for the Court affirmed the Court of Claims' judgment allowing the corporation to recover the capital gains tax assessed against it. A sale by shareholders following a genuine liquidating distribution cannot be attributed to the corporation merely because avoiding corporate taxation motivated…