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From today’s orders, we have a note of a recusal in a petition involving EMC Mortgage.

ADAMS, VASHONE L. V. EMC MORTGAGE CORP., ET AL. The motion to direct the Clerk to file a petition for a writ of certiorari out of time is denied. Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of this motion.

EMC is a subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Chase.

The lecture notes are here. The live chat is here.

Substantive Due Process and Economic Liberty

• Due Process of Law (1443-1444).
• Due Process and Separation of Powers (1444-1446).
• Substantive due process (1463-1464).
• Lochner v. New York (1465-1473).
• West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1473-1476).
• Additional materials about Lochner to be posted.

Lochner v. New York

Standing on the right is Joseph Lochner.

Here are photographs of Lochner’s bakery in Utica, New York.

 

Here is the cover of a recent book aimed at rehabilitating Lochner, which depicts Justice Rufus Pekham, author of the majority opinion, knocking out Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, author of the famous dissent.

 

Through sleuthing at the Oneida County Clerk’s Office, I discovered this advertisement for Lochner’s bakery. According to the ad, Lochner’s Home Bakery “is one of the oldest and most reliable bakeries in Central New York. We pride ourself on Uniformity, Purity, Cleanliness.”

Muller v. Oregon

Here is the Lace House Laundry from Muller v. Oregon.

Here are workers inside the Lace House Laundry, courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.

West Coast Hotel v. Parish

This is the West Coast Hotel is Wenatchee, Washington.

United States v. Carolene Products

First, here is Carolene Product’s famous footnote four:

There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth. See Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359, 369-370; Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452.

It is unnecessary to consider now whether legislation which restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation, is to be subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny under the general prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment than are most other types of legislation. On restrictions upon the right to vote, see Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536;Nixon v. Condon, 286 U.S. 73; on restraints upon the dissemination of information, see Near v.Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 713-714, 718-720, 722; Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233; Lovell v. Griffin, supra; on interferences with political organizations, see Stromberg v.California, supra, 369; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380; Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 373-378;Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242; and see Holmes, J., in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 673; as to prohibition of peaceable assembly, see De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 365.

Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed at particular religious, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, or national, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390; Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U.S. 404; Farrington v. Tokushige, 273 U.S. 484, or racial minorities,Nixon v. Herndon, supra; Nixon v. Condon, supra: whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities, and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry. Compare McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 428; South Carolinav. Barnwell Bros., 303 U.S. 177, 184, n. 2, and cases cited.

I have collected a fortune of information about Carolene Products, Charles Hauser (the President), and his return trip to the Supreme Court which resulted in an affirmed conviction, and a pardon by President Roosevelt. Three decades later, a district court in Illinois found the federal Filled Milk Act Unconstitutional.

As a result of United States v. Carolene Products (1938), the Carolene Products company changed the name of their product from “Carolene” to “Milnut” at some point in 1938. I previously acquired a Carolene Products Cookbook from 1939, labelled as “Milnut.”

 

Now, thanks to a successful eBay bid, I am the proud owner of a Carolene Products cookbook from 1937 (before the Supreme Court case!). It is labelled as “Carolene” with the same logo.

 

Note how it is called a “Scientific Milk Product.” After 1938, the advertisements did not call it “Milk” to avoid problems under the Federal, and state Filled Milk Acts.

 

Who want’s some frizzled dried beef or baked ham slice?

As well, here is the history of the Carolene Products company from MilnotMilk.com, with some interesting photos.

 

The Seneca plant that was built right on the border with Oklahoma, in a means to work around (literally) the Filled Milk Act. I have more details on the Seneca plant here. The plant is still in operation today, operated by the Sumker’s company (you can order Milnot online! – I have a case).

Here is a copy of FDR’s pardon of Charles Hauser, President of the Carolene Products company.

Here is a copy of the remission of imprisonment, which I received from Hauser’s granddaugther. Note that the year 1944 is printed, and someone scribbled over it 1945.

 

 

In a recent essay in the Yale Law Journal Forum, praising Justice Sotomayor’s five years on the Court, and her outreach as the “People’s Justice,” I found this gem :

One scholar, for instance, criticized as “disrespectful” Justice Sotomayor’s decision to push back the swearing in of Vice President Biden so she could attend her signing at Barnes & Noble.189 Whether these arguments are right about what it means to act judicially is a larger question, beyond the scope of this short Essay.

In an effort to probe the contours of Lawrence and Windsor, I posed the question of whether a state could prevent gay brothers, in an incestuous relationship, from marrying. I get an inordinate number of hits on that post, and I suspected it didn’t have much to do with the “mystery of human life.” These comments, apparently from “mom” and “dad” validate my theory.

First, “Mom’s” comment (read for the second paragraph):

this is ridiculously pointless stuff to spend your time on man… do you not have anything, like any other thing that you could be doing right now other than writing this utterly-endlessly-worthlessly pointless blog entry.. think, have you walked your dog yet, picked up your kids, finished work, maybe spent some time volunteering at a local charity…. did you visit your ailing parents, reconnect with friends and relatives, did you maybe hone in on your skills for a useful hobby.. maybe learning how to sew to help your partner, practice a sport to become good enough to show your kids or to be active? you’re either A) an amazingly organised individual who has done all those things and has some free time on his hands kudos, B) someone who hasn’t done like 80% of those t hings an d neglects decent human interaction for momentary self gratification (you’ll know if you are by how quickly you read this message from when it was posted) or C) you have no one in your life and this is what it’s come down to, writing unimportant context in a category of life 0.0005% of the planet wouldn’t even think of if all other gay and marriage laws were completely legal in all countries. whats going on Josh? you’re better than this.

granted i did find this site by looking up “hot sex gay twins fucking each other”, as i imagine anyone who reads this has, it was more curiosity of its existence than anything else >.> <.< you hear that josh, the people on your site come looking to get off only to be disapointed when they read nonhelpful legal information on a hypothetical problem no one cares about! thats your life josh, thats your life.
you took up my precious masturbation time with your terrible terrible god awful time waste and you should be ashamed.

mom.

And “Dad’s” comment in reply (no my Mom’s name is not Debra):

WAIT
i thought you told me to get out of the house because you were having your girlfriends over? instead you’re trying to find incest GAY PORN?? What the hell is going on Debra!?. also hi son, your blog is not a time waste, were all very proud, you’re doing great.
dad

And “Mom” replied back (no my Dad’s name is not Ron):

i NEED you to get out of the house Ron we talked about this. i cant have you glaring at me from across the room wearing your little costume while touching yourself as i try to get off. IT JUST DOESNT WORK FOR ME. besides how did you find this blog entry?? from what i can remember whenever Josh mentions his blog you reply with “that online crap diary again” , so you definetly didnt look up his articles specifically… so the question i have Ron is, why are you looking up gay brother having incest sex online while you “out with the boys” because now, that takes on a whole new meaning for me.

“Dad” wasn’t done (no I don’t have a sister named Tina):

Debra you sexbeast.. let’s just drop this whole thing and meet up later for some sweat sex at the motel 8 after Tina’s recital. i crave your juices and i ache for your tender bingo arms… im quivering at the thought of you.
daddy

The internet is a magical place.

My article, Robot, Esq. was quoted in an article on CNN Money, titled “Here come the Robot Lawyers.” Here is the intro:

The law profession is being reshaped by new automation technologies that allow law firms to complete legal work in a fraction of the time and with far less manpower. ThinkIBM’s “Jeopardy!”-winning computer Watson — practicing law.

“Watson the lawyer is coming,” said Ralph Losey, a legal technology expert at the law firm Jackson Lewis. “He won’t come up with the creative solutions, but when it comes to the regular games that lawyers play, he’ll kill them.”

That means potentially huge cost savings for clients, though it’s not so promising for law school graduates looking for work.

The good news for lawyers is that no one thinks the profession can be automated entirely. But lots of legal work is already being computerized by some firms, including the drafting of simple contracts and the search for evidence in reams of documents.

And here’s me:

In a paper released last year, Josh Blackman, an assistant professor at South Texas College of Law, wrote that artificial intelligence programs will “in the not-so-distant future” have the ability to advise on whether to file a lawsuit, predict how it might be resolved and even draft portions of legal briefs.

But computers practicing law isn’t necessarily a good thing. For instance, Blackman wonders who is responsible if clients get bad advice. …

As law firms weigh the pros and cons of using algorithms instead of lawyers, technology might even render some of the firms themselves moot.

“A person could download the app, explain his or her problem, and listen to possible remedies — that may or may not involve paying a lawyer,” Blackman wrote in his paper. This technology, he added, “would improve access to justice.”

Busy day today!