Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell
| Home Bldg. & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued November 8–9, 1933 Decided January 8, 1934 | |
| Full case name | Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, et ux. |
| Citations | 290 U.S. 398 (more) |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of Minnesota. |
| Holding | |
| Minnesota's suspension of creditor's remedies was not in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Act upheld. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Hughes, joined by Brandeis, Stone, Roberts, Cardozo |
| Dissent | Sutherland, joined by Van Devanter, McReynolds, Butler |
Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934), also called the Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Case, was a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that Minnesota's suspension of creditors' remedies was not in violation of the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution.[1] Blaisdell was decided during the depth of the Great Depression and has been criticized by modern conservative and libertarian commentators.[2][3][4]
Background and decision
[edit]In 1933, in response to a large number of home foreclosures, Minnesota, like many other states at the time,[5] extended the time available for mortgagors to redeem their mortgages from foreclosure. The appellee owned a lot in Minneapolis that was in the foreclosure process. The extension had the effect of enlarging the mortgagor's estate contrary to the terms of the contract.
The Supreme Court upheld the statute, reasoning that the emergency conditions created by the Great Depression "may justify the exercise of [the State's] continuing and dominant protective power notwithstanding interference with contracts."[6] Blaisdell was the first time the court extended the emergency exception to purely economic emergencies.
In the holding, Justices Hughes and Roberts sided with the Three Musketeers (Supreme Court). The Four Horsemen of Reaction came down on the other side of the ruling.
While the Blaisdell judgment itself might have been held to apply only in limited instances of economic emergency, by the late 1930s the emergency exception doctrine had expanded dramatically.[7]
Criticism
[edit]Adherents of the Chicago school of economics have characterized Blaisdell among the Court precedents that have diminished constitutional protection of individual property rights. Richard Epstein's (the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law and Adjunct Scholar at the American libertarian think tank Cato Institute) criticisms have been some of the most vocal:
Blaisdell trumpeted a false liberation from the constitutional text that has paved the way for massive government intervention that undermines the security of private transactions. Today the police power exception has come to eviscerate the contracts clause.[2]
See also
[edit]- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 290
- Gold Clause Cases (1935)
- Constitutional challenges to the New Deal
References
[edit]- ^ Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934).
- ^ a b Epstein, Richard A. (1984). "Toward a Revitalization of the Contract Clause". University of Chicago Law Review. 51 (3). The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 51, No. 3: 703–751. doi:10.2307/1599484. JSTOR 1599484.
- ^ Burch, Alan R. (1999). "Purchasing the Right to Govern: Winstar and the Need to Reconceptualize the Law of Regulatory Agreements". Kentucky Law Journal. 88: 245, 279. ISSN 0023-026X.
- ^ Arkes, Hadley (1999). "On the Novelties of an Old Constitution: Settled Principles and Unsettling Surprises". American Journal of Jurisprudence. 44: 15–42. doi:10.1093/ajj/44.1.15. ISSN 0065-8995.
- ^ Wright, Fred (2005). "The Effect of New Deal Real Estate Residential Finance and Foreclosure Policies Made in Response to the Real Estate Conditions of the Great Depression". Alabama Law Review. 57: 231, 240–241. ISSN 0002-4279.
- ^ Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, at 437.
- ^ Butler, Henry N.; Ribstein, Larry E. (1999). "Regulating Corporate Takeovers: State Anti-takeover Statutes and the Contract Clause". University of Cincinnati Law Review. 57: 611, 627. ISSN 0009-6881.
Further reading
[edit]- Bieneman, Charles A. (1992). "Legal Interpretation and a Constitutional Case: Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell". Michigan Law Review. 90 (8). Michigan Law Review, Vol. 90, No. 8: 2534–2564. doi:10.2307/1289578. JSTOR 1289578.
- Levy, Robert A.; Mellor, William H. (2008). "Rescinding Private Contracts". The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom. New York: Sentinel. pp. 50–66. ISBN 978-1-59523-050-8.
- Fliter, John A. and Derek S. Hoff (2012). Fighting Foreclosure: The Blaisdell Case, the Contract Clause, and the Great Depression. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
External links
[edit]
Works related to Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell at Wikisource- Text of Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934) is available from: CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress
- United States Constitution Article One case law
- United States Supreme Court cases
- United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court
- 1934 in United States case law
- Contract Clause case law
- Great Depression in the United States
- Legal history of Minnesota
- History of Minneapolis
- Foreclosure
- Constitutional challenges to the New Deal