Today in Supreme Court History: November 11

Boylan v. Hot Springs Ry. Co., 132 U.S. 146 (decided November 11, 1889): passenger properly thrown off train when refusing to pay extra on return trip even though he had paid round trip fare, where ticket (which he hadn’t read) required it be stamped at departing station and he didn’t get it stamped (the language of the ticket, quoted in a footnote, is so extensive that it had to have been “fine print”)

Connecticut v. Menillo, 423 U.S. 9 (decided November 11, 1975): upholding Connecticut statute criminalizing abortion “by any person” if that person is not a physician (“Roe v. Wade did not go so far”) (Lolly and Jeanne Hirsch, from Connecticut, weren’t involved here, but they gave presentations on at-home fetal extraction; in 1979 as part of our birth control course they gave a presentation at which they threw me out of the room because I was male; traumatized, I said, “men have to know women’s bodies in a context apart from sexual desire”, but I left anyway; the prof. and the student who invited them apologized to me afterwards)

Chandler & Price Co. v. Brandtjen & Kluge, 296 U.S. 53 (decided November 11, 1935): denying motion to intervene in patent suit made by holder of patent for another device (sheet transferring mechanism in printing press) whose business would be hurt if patent at issue (improved automatic feed and delivery for press) was voided