Wickard v. Filburn - Further Readings

Appellant
Claude R. Wickard, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
Appellee
Roscoe C. Filburn
Appellant's Claim
That the practice of producing surplus wheat and keeping it on a farm shouldbe fined by the federal government.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant
Francis Biddle, U.S Attorney General; Charles Fahy, U.S. Solicitor General
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Webb R. Clark
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson (writing for the Court), Frank Murphy, Stanley Forman Reed, Owen Josephus Roberts, Harlan Fiske Stone
Justices Dissenting
None (James Francis Byrnes did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
9 November 1942
Decision
The Supreme Court upheld the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 and the fineimposed under it on Filburn.
Significance
Wickard was the highwater mark of the Court's extension of federal regulatory power under the Commerce Clause.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to the presidency in 1932 and immediately set about attempting to lift the nation out of the Great Depression. The firstset of economic and social reforms constituting what was called the "New Deal" was passed almost immediately after Roosevelt took office the next year. Almost as quickly, most of the reform legislation was declared unconstitutional by the ultra-conservative majority that controlled the Supreme Court. Roosevelt responded in 1935 by introducing a second set of programs, essentially amounting to a second New Deal. When the justices disapproved of some of thesemeasures too, Roosevelt developed a plan to "pack" the Court with justices of his own choosing who would approve his legislative package. The court-packing plan failed in Congress, but Roosevelt still got his wish. In 1937, the justices who opposed the New Deal began to retire, while other swing votes on the Court began to rule the president's way.
The Second Agricultural Act (1938), the legislation at issue in Wickard v.Filburn, had already passed constitutional muster in Mulford v. Smith, in which the Court had approved tobacco-growing quotas. The issue in Wickard was somewhat different, for this case concerned excess production of a crop, wheat, which was never taken to market. Also, by the time Wickard worked its way up to the Supreme Court, only one of the eight justices who decided the case was a holdover from the pre-Roosevelt era. That justice, Owen Roberts, was the crucial swing vote--the "switch in time that savednine [justices]"--who began to reorient the Court in 1937. Wickard marked the Court's greatest expansion of federal regulatory power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Roscoe C. Filburn worked a small farm in Ohio, where in additional to raisingpoultry and producing dairy products for the market, he planted a small cropof wheat. The wheat was intended for use by his family and for animal feed.In 1941, he sowed twelve more acres of wheat than were permitted under the Second Agricultural Act. The extra planting yielded 249 bushels of wheat on which he was obliged to pay a fine of 49 cents per bushel. Filburn responded byfiling suit in federal court against the secretary of agriculture and others,asking the court to declare that the quota requirements of the act violatedhis right to due process under law. After the district court ruled that the federal government could not fine Filburn, the secretary of agriculture appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Extends Commerce Power to Production
Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Jackson held that even unmarketed excess production has an effect on interstate commerce. As such, it could be regulated under the federal government's commerce power, granted in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which permits Congress to "regulate Commerce . .. among the several States." Filburn's excess production, of itself, was insignificant, but when combined with other unmarketed excess wheat production,it had a clear impact on interstate commerce:

The maintenance by government regulation of a price for wheat undoubtedly can be accomplished aseffectively by sustaining or increasing the demand as by limiting the supply. . . That appellee's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivialby itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, isfar from trivial . . . Congress may properly have considered that wheat consumed on the farm where grown if wholly outside the scheme of regulation wouldhave a substantial effect in defeating and obstructing [the Second Agricultural Act's] purpose to stimulate trade therein at increased prices.

The Court had long debated whether the commerce power authorized federal control only of goods moving through interstate commerce, or of production itself. Wickard put to rest this long argument about whether "indirect" or only "direct" effects on interstate commerce could be regulated. After this case, which originated during the hard times of the 1930s and 1940s, economic realities would determine the extent of federal regulation.
Related Cases

• United States v. E. C. Knight, 156 U.S. 1 (1895).
  
• Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U.S. 342 (1895).
  
• Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38 (1939).