The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court . . .". The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices).[1] Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).
When the cases in volume 208 were decided the Court comprised the following nine members:
Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908), also called the Danbury Hatters' Case, is a Supreme Court case in United States labor law concerning the application of antitrust laws to labor unions. The Court's decision effectively outlawed the secondary boycott as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, despite union arguments that their actions affected only intrastate commerce.[4] It was also decided that individual unionists could be held personally liable for damages incurred by the activities of their union.
Muller v. Oregon
In Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908), the Supreme Court upheld the general police powers of a state to protect the welfare of women even when it infringed on her fundamental right to negotiate contracts. Inequality, the Court said, was not a deciding factor because the sexes were inherently different in their particular conditions and had completely different functions; labor laws that were made to nurture women's welfare and for the "benefit of all" people were held not to be a violation of the Constitution's Contract Clause.
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.
The Judiciary Act of 1891 created the United States Courts of Appeals and reassigned the jurisdiction of most routine appeals from the district and circuit courts to these appellate courts. The Act created nine new courts that were originally known as the "United States Circuit Courts of Appeals." The new courts had jurisdiction over most appeals of lower court decisions. The Supreme Court could review either legal issues that a court of appeals certified or decisions of court of appeals by writ of certiorari.
Bluebook citation style is used for case names, citations, and jurisdictions.
^Philips, Michael J. The Lochner Court, Myth and Reality: Substantive Due Process from the 1890s to the 1930s. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. p. 10.
^Wiecek, William M. The History of the Supreme Court of the United States. Volume 12, The Birth of the Modern Constitution: The United States Supreme Court, 1941–1953. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p. 25 f.
