Supreme Court of the United States, 1951

The Court held that the two-year limitation period for a seaman’s suit against the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act begins on the date of injury, not when the administrative claim is disallowed, and affirmed the Third Circuit’s judgment.

Justice Burton's opinion for the Court affirmed enforcement of the Board's order against a union and its agent for inducing carpenters to stop work to force a general contractor to terminate another subcontractor.

The Court affirmed the Smith Act conspiracy convictions by a 6–2 vote, without a majority rationale; Justice Clark did not participate. Chief Justice Vinson's plurality, joined by Justices Reed, Burton, and Minton, construed the Act to require intent to overthrow the Government by force and to exclude peaceful…

The Court upheld Los Angeles's requirement that municipal employees disclose past or present membership in specified political organizations, reasoning that such information may bear on fitness and suitability for public service.

Justice Clark delivered the Court's opinion reversing Hoffman's criminal-contempt conviction. The Fifth Amendment protects answers that could furnish links in a chain of incriminating evidence, and a witness need not prove the danger by disclosures that would surrender the privilege.

Justice Douglas dissented from the Court's application of legislative immunity to the committee members, arguing that immunity should not extend to legislative conduct that deprives a person of constitutional free-speech rights.

Justice Black concurred in the Court's conclusion that legislators were not personally liable under the Civil Rights statutes for damages arising from intra-legislative conduct, while emphasizing that legislative immunity does not establish that the challenged conduct was lawful.

The Supreme Court held that Rule 17(c) permits a criminal defendant to subpoena evidentiary documents in the government’s possession that were obtained by solicitation or voluntary informants, but the subpoena’s catch‑all clause requiring production of any material merely “relevant” to the indictment is invalid.

The Court reversed the judgments dismissing three organizations’ challenges to their designation as Communist under the federal employee loyalty program and remanded for further proceedings, without a majority rationale.

Justice Reed delivered the Court's opinion holding that claims seeking compensation for a single wrong arising from interlocked transactions are not separate and independent claims permitting removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c).

The Court, through Justice Frankfurter, held that the Administrative Procedure Act and the Taft-Hartley Act require the same substantial-evidence review, based on the whole record, including evidence detracting from the agency's conclusions.

The Court affirmed Feiner’s disorderly-conduct conviction, holding that the police could stop his street-corner speech when the crowd’s escalating unrest created a clear danger of disorder and Feiner deliberately refused repeated police orders to stop.

The Court reversed Kunz’s conviction because New York’s permit system, as applied to his 1948 application, allowed the police commissioner to deny permission to speak on religious matters without standards governing that discretion, creating an unconstitutional prior restraint.