The case concerned claims by three New Jersey corporations, whose stock was entirely owned by a German shipping company, for compensation after the United States seized their docks, piers, tugboats, and barges in New York harbor on April 6, 1917, during World War I. The Court of Claims had dismissed the suits on the ground that the property should be treated as enemy-owned due to the German parent. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 defined enemy status by place of incorporation rather than by the nationality of stockholders and therefore permitted recovery by domestic corporations. It further ruled that the petitions stated viable claims for use and value of the seized property and remanded the cases for further proceedings, noting that Congress had chosen to target enemy-owned shares rather than corporate assets themselves.
The case concerned a contract giving an exclusive option to purchase unregistered treasury stock of a mining corporation, which the buyer assigned to petitioner; after partial performance involving sales to the public via interstate means, the seller refused further deliveries citing the lack of registration under the Securities Act of 1933. Petitioner sued in state court for credits already given and damages from breach. The Idaho Supreme Court held the agreement void ab initio under the Act and left the parties where it found them, denying recovery. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that the Act does not declare such contracts void but instead provides specific civil and criminal sanctions to protect investors, and that imposing an additional voidness rule would likely hinder rather than advance the statute's purpose.
The case involved wholesale produce merchants operating at an established market in Kansas City, Missouri, who sought to enjoin Union Pacific Railroad from constructing trackage to serve a competing market in Kansas City, Kansas, without first obtaining a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Transportation Act of 1920. The District Court dismissed the suit, and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The Supreme Court affirmed, ruling that the merchants were not "parties in interest" entitled to sue because they had no direct shipping relationship with the railroad and alleged only indirect competitive injury rather than deprivation of transportation facilities. The Court reasoned that the statutory scheme places primary responsibility for protecting the public interest in railroad extensions with the Commission, not with private parties motivated by business competition.
The case involved multiple state-court lawsuits against Armour & Company and a local retailer for damages from contaminated food products, with Armour seeking removal to federal court on the ground of a separable controversy between diverse parties. After the Ohio Supreme Court held that removal was required, the federal district judge reviewed additional evidence, concluded there was no separable controversy and that jurisdiction was lacking, and ordered the cases remanded to state court. The Sixth Circuit directed the district judge to vacate those remand orders. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that 28 U.S.C. §§ 71 and 80 bar appellate review of remand orders and that the district court had authority to examine the full record and decide the jurisdictional question for itself.
The case involved a dispute over a reissue patent (No. 20,024) for a nut treating apparatus originally issued with narrow claims in 1934. The petitioner had manufactured and begun using an accused machine in 1935 that did not infringe the original patent but fell within the broader claims added in the 1936 reissue. The District Court found that the petitioner had acquired intervening rights through its prior lawful use, while the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding the reissue valid and infringed without recognizing such rights. The Supreme Court assumed the reissue's validity and focused on whether enlarged reissue claims could retroactively affect machines made and operated without infringing the original patent, analyzing the patent statute's reissue provisions and precedents on intervening rights. The core reasoning centered on the balance between allowing patentees to correct errors via reissue and protecting good-faith users who relied on the original patent's scope.
The case concerned Western Union's failure to transmit and deliver a $150 money order sent from Los Angeles to a recipient in Honduras, after which the senders sued for $7,600 in alleged losses from gross negligence. The District Court awarded $500 to the plaintiffs, a ruling affirmed on appeal, based on a standard contract clause that limited liability for non-delivery to $500 (unless a higher value was declared and paid for) and valued the right to prompt transmission and payment at that amount. The Supreme Court reviewed the tariff provision filed with the Federal Communications Commission and addressed whether the clause operated as a cap on actual damages or as a liquidated valuation of the contractual right. The core reasoning interpreted the contractual language as fixing the value of the right at $500, allowing recovery of that sum without separate proof of actual loss.
