Constitutional Law in 1943–44

There were no changes in the personnel of the Court during the 1943 term. Disagreement amongst the justices mounted sharply. In seventeen cases, four justices dissented; three dissented in twenty others. Two cases overruled previous decisions of the Court, bringing to twenty-four the total list of reversals since 1937. One of the two recent reversals, that in the very important case holding the insurance business to be interstate commerce, was effected by a minority of the justices, who divided four-to-three.A. Questions of National Power1. The war PowerConstitutionality of Wartime Price Control and Rationing. In a group of cases, the Court came to grips with the constitutionality and construction of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. The most important of these was Yakus v. United States, involving a conviction in a federal district court in Massachusetts for a violation of the maximum prices fixed by the O.P.A. on the sale of wholesale cuts of beef. Yakus refused to obey the price regulation, declined to follow the procedure made available in the statute for protesting against it, and attempted in his criminal trial to challenge the validity of the price regulations and of the statute on which they rested. This he was not permitted to do. Speaking through Chief Justice Stone, the Gourt held the Emergency Price Control Act to be valid, not only in its substantive regulations, but also in the procedures set up for its enforcement. The Court's opinion dealt with four points.