This court case goes along with the reading for Wednesday, Over the Edge, as an example of some of the controversial government regulations President Roosevelt and state legislatures were enacting to stabilize the market. I immediately thought of it as something to add to our blog I was doing the class reading. In 1933 New York created the Milk Control Board. The board set minimum and maximum prices that stores could charge consumers; a quart of milk was set at 9 cents. Leo Nebbia was the owner of a New York grocery store who sold 2 quarts of milk and a loaf of bread to a consumer for 18 cents. Consequently Nebbia was fined $5.00. He paid his fine but also appealed his conviction on grounds that milk regulations were unconstitutional, his case eventually went up to the Supreme Court.
In the end, the Supreme Court ruled against Nebbia and upheld the New York statute.
The full opinion by Justice Roberts:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=291&invol=502
This case captures some of the prevailing feeling of the 1930s and the disagreement which surrounded many of Roosevelt’s regulations; people wanted help and they wanted someone to step in and “fix it”, but at the same time they wanted to keep their autonomy and “do it themselves”. I personally would side with the Milk Control Boards and agree with the Supreme Court Ruling in that time period. The milk supply was up and the demand was down, in that climate of the Great Depression it was no longer cost-effective to run a Dairy Farm and the government had to prevent Dairy Farms from going out of business. By establishing the price milk was to be sold at, it ensured dairy farmers would make it through the Great Depression with sufficient income.
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