Today in Supreme Court History: January 27

Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (decided January 27, 1908): Congress cannot criminalize sacking an interstate carrier employee for being a union member because membership in a union is not interstate commerce (overruled by Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 1941)

Daniel v. Louisiana, 420 U.S. 31 (decided January 27, 1975): holding of Taylor v. Louisiana, 1975, that excluding women from jury violates Sixth Amendment guarantee of fair and impartial jury, does not retroactively apply to other prosecutions (as Douglas points out in dissent, this way of thinking makes no sense, and it was eventually overruled, see discussion in Griffith v. Kentucky, 1987)

Wallace v. United States, 133 U.S. 180 (decided January 27, 1890): dismissing Gen. Lew Wallace’s attempt to get paid $10,000 instead of $7,500 as ambassador to Turkey (this is the man who wrote “Ben-Hur”, which according to Wikipedia was earning him $11,000 a year by 1886, $290,000 in today’s dollars)

Clarke v. Haberle Crystal Springs Brewing Co., 280 U.S. 384 (decided January 27, 1930): brewer can’t write off financial collapse due to Prohibition as a business loss

Sandifer v. United States Steel Corp., 571 U.S. 220 (decided January 27, 2014): steelworkers get paid for time spent changing into and out of their furnace clothes (I suppose this would have made the shower scenes in “The Deer Hunter” less frantic)