Today in Supreme Court History: January 22

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (decided January 22, 1973): balancing interests of the state vs. privacy interest of mother, invalidates Texas’s near-absolute ban on abortion (only exception was to save life of mother) and holds that Due Process prohibits state interference during first trimester; during second trimester the state may regulate abortion “in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health”; and during third trimester may forbid it except to save life of mother (reformulated by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1990; overruled by Dobbs, 2022)

Nostrand v. Little, 368 U.S. 436 (decided January 22, 1962): Court dismisses appeal for lack of a federal question, but as we learn from Douglas’s dissent (joined by Black), the statute in question required teachers to swear an oath that s/he is not a “subversive person”, defined as one who “advocates” the “destruction or alteration of the constitutional form of government of the United States”, which sure seems to me to present a federal issue; the Washington Supreme Court had held only that a teacher was entitled to a hearing on the question; as Douglas points out, this is not adequate because the teacher can get a hearing only if they refuse to take the oath and Constitutional issues would not be fully argued there

Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U.S. 539 (decided January 22, 1917): upholding against Equal Protection and Dormant Commerce Clause attack state “blue sky” laws (which prohibit selling of fake securities -- i.e., backed by nothing but “blue sky”) requiring brokers to be licensed

Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. F.W. Cook Brewing Co., 223 U.S. 70 (decided January 22, 1912): Kentucky can prohibit intrastate shipments of liquor to counties that have voted to be “dry”, but to prohibit interstate shipments to such places violates Dormant Commerce Clause

Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., 586 U.S. 123 (decided January 22, 2019): one-year deadline to apply for patent after sale of product applies even though it was a confidential sale to a distributor; America Invents Act of 2011 did not change prior rule (drug to control chemotherapy-induced nausea; “patentee” was suing maker of generic version)