Inc. Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig

Cardozo did not deny states the right to prevent the sale of products which fail to meet their health standards. However, he opposed the use of such standards as a means of protecting local industry. Thus the Court struck down Baldwin's cross-appeal on the issue of selling the milk to individual consumers. There is no evidence that the opinion of the Court was less than unanimous.

Baldwin was not the first case involving one state's attempt to regulate commerce with another state. The case of Gibbons v. Ogden, for instance, was heard in 1824 and concerned a steamboat franchise with questionable restrictive clauses. Fourteen years after Baldwin, in Hood v. DuMond , the Court ruled that a state had no authority to refuse a license to a company processing milk for sale outside the state. In the years since Baldwin, the Court has generally upheld the maintenance of free trade between states except in instances involving health questions. Even in such situations, as in the case of Dean Milk Company v. Madison, the Court has placed the burden of proof on the state, to show that it is genuinely protecting the health of its citizens and not the health of its industry.