SCOTUS: health regulations imposed by states are not unconstitutional
By Curt Anderson May 19, 2020 9:42 pm Category: Law (5.0 from 1 vote)
Rules of the Post
These are excerpts from a very long US Supreme Court opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, including the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson.
The case was about a Cambridge, Massachusetts man didn't want to be vaccinated for smallpox. The city had ordered citywide vaccinations to stem an outbreak of smallpox. The bottom line is that in 1905 the SCOTUS decided against the man. Harlan wrote of the "fundamental principle that persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the state".
197 U.S. 11 (25 S.Ct. 358, 49 L.Ed. 643) HENNING JACOBSON, Plff. in Err., v. COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
No. 70.
Argued: December 6, 1904.
Decided: February 20, 1905.
opinion, Harlan
The authority of the state to enact this statute is to be referred to what is commonly called the police power,—a power which the state did not surrender when becoming a member of the Union under the Constitution. Although this court has refrained from any attempt to define the limits of that power, yet it has distinctly recognized the authority of a state to enact quarantine laws and 'health laws of every description;' indeed, all laws that relate to matters completely within its territory and which do not by their necessary operation affect the people of other states. According to settled principles, the police power of a state must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety.
[The] liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others. This court has more than once recognized it as a fundamental principle that 'persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the state; of the perfect right of the legislature to do which no question ever was, or upon acknowledged general principles ever can be, made, so far as natural persons are concerned.'
If such be the privilege of a minority, then a like privilege would belong to each individual of the community, and the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population. We are unwilling to hold it to be an element in the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States that one person, or a minority of persons, residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government, should have the power thus to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the state. While this court should guard with firmness every right appertaining to life, liberty, or property as secured to the individual by the supreme law of the land, it is of the last importance that it should not invade the domain of local authority except when it is plainly necessary to do so in order to enforce that law. The safety and the health of the people of Massachusetts are, in the first instance, for that commonwealth to guard and protect.
It is the cause of an adult who, for aught that appears, was himself in perfect health and a fit subject of vaccination, and yet, while remaining in the community, refused to obey the statute and the regulation adopted in execution of its provisions for the protection of the public health and the public safety, confessedly endangered by the presence of a dangerous disease.
We now decide only that the statute covers the present case, and that nothing clearly appears that would justify this court in holding it to be unconstitutional and inoperative in its application to the plaintiff in error.
The views and claims expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and beliefs of SelectSmart.com. Not every statement made here can be assumed to be a fact.
Comments on "SCOTUS: health regulations imposed by states are not unconstitutional":
Be the first to comment on this article.
Comment on: "SCOTUS: health regulations imposed by states are not unconstitutional"
These are excerpts from a very long US Supreme Court opinion by Justice John Marshall Harlan. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, including the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson.
