By Marshall H. Tanick
In its 150 years, Minnesota has been the source and site of many important and interesting legal cases.
The litigation has reflected turbulent times, economic trends, social changes and other facets of life and lore in this state and the country. In commemoration of the state’s sesquicentennial, here’s a look at 15 of the most interesting and important cases of historical significance in the Minnesota legal system.
Territorial Times
The first two cases from Minnesota to reach the U.S. Supreme Court were decided even before statehood.
The first Minnesota-based case before the Supreme Court involved a challenge by a territorial lawyer of his disbarment. In Ex parte Secombe, 6 U.S. 9 (1856), an attorney who had been practicing in the territory for a little more than three years argued that he was unfairly disbarred. The decision, written by Chief Justice Roger Tansey, upheld the disbarment. The ruling does not specify what transgression the lawyer committed, other than that it occurred “in open court.” While cautioning against “arbitrary and despotic” rulings by judges against lawyers, the opinion upheld the disciplinary action as within “proper jurisdiction and discretion” of the territorial tribunal, earning the disbarred lawyer the distinction of bringing—and losing―the first case from Minnesota to reach the High Court.
The most noteworthy and one of the most significant cases of all times is the Dred Scott case, which ushered in the Civil War. Officially titled Scott v. Sandford, the infamous decision, rendered in 1857 by the U.S. Supreme Court, held that blacks had “no rights,” and that slavery could not be restricted where it currently existed or in newly developed territories.
The case arose after Scott claimed his freedom because of the time he and his wife had spent with his master, a military doctor, at Fort Snelling from 1836 to1838. The land, now in Hennepin County near the airport, was at the time within the Upper Louisiana Territory, where slavery was prohibited by virtue of the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820.
The ruling of the Supreme Court, written again by Chief Justice Taney, has been called a “self-inflicted wound.” It aroused the nation, led Abraham Lincoln to seek the presidency, and brought about the Civil War, which culminated in the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited slavery, along with the other provisions granting blacks citizenship, requiring due process and equal protection of the law, and granting blacks the right to vote.
Regulatory Rulings
The latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the ensuing one witnessed the first major efforts by legislative bodies to regulate the economy. Some of the most important legal struggles were waged in Minnesota, going through the state and federal court systems, and ultimately reaching the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judicial antipathy toward governmental regulation reached its high water mark in the so-called “Gilded Age” following the Civil War. The anti-regulatory attitude was reflected in the Supreme Court decision in 1890 in Minnesota v. Barber, which struck down a Minnesota law requiring inspection of food for consumption in this state.
After the turn of the 20th century, as the Progressive Era welcomed more government intervention in the market place, another effort by the state to regulate railroads made it to the High Court. A 1909 case titled Ex parte Young, in which the railroads secured a ruling in federal court barring certain rate regulations, raised a major issue under the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which generally bars federal courts from entering judgments against state governmental bodies or officials. The Supreme Court declared the case to be of “great importance … to the great mass of citizens of this country.” It is often cited today, nearly a century later, for the proposition that the 11th Amendment does not bar federal courts from entering injunctions against improper state actions.
Near and Beyond
One of the most important principles for protection of freedom of expression stems from a Minnesota case, Near v. Minnesota, decided in 1931. The Supreme Court overturned a ruling of the Minnesota Supreme Court upholding a state “nuisance law” that allowed judges to close muckraking newspapers of the 1920s. The Near case, narrowly held by a 5-4 margin, that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bars an injunction obtained by Hennepin County Attorney Floyd B. Olson, who later became a popular Depression-era governor, against a virulent muckraking newspaper. The High Court struck down the statute because it violated the prohibition against “prior restraint,” which the court deemed to be an undergirding of the right of freedom of expression under the First Amendment.
The Near decision has been hailed far and wide as one of the most significant rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court and is widely accepted today. But, in its time, it was highly controversial. The newspaper prevailed only by a slim one-vote margin, with Minnesota’s first Supreme Court jurist, Pierce Butler, in the dissenting minority.
Three years later, in 1934, the Supreme Court justices addressed another landmark Constitution case from Minnesota, upholding the state mortgage moratorium law enacted by the legislature during the throes of the Depression. In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, the High Court affirmed a ruling of the Minnesota Supreme Court that the national economic crisis made it “reasonable” for the legislature to pass a law freezing mortgage foreclosures for a two-year period without violating the provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars states from enacting laws “impairing” contractual rights.
The Blaisdell decision was the model for subsequent legislation years later creating moratoriums for farm foreclosures and the source for more recent legislative efforts to limit foreclosures during the current sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Interstate Issues
The ability of states to impose taxes on multi-state corporations was recognized by the Supreme Court in a case from Minnesota involving Northwest Airlines. In Northwest Airlines v. Minnesota, the High Court in 1944 upheld the imposition by the state of personal property taxes on the airlines’ entire fleet without apportionment, even though the same planes were taxed in other states. The taxes could be levied here because the airlines were, at the time, incorporated in Minnesota, which was the “home port” for the fleet. The ruling, by a one-vote margin, removed any uncertainty about the rights of states to impose taxes on activities of large companies within their states.
Another important interstate commerce issue also was resolved favorably for the state in a 1981 ruling in Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., upholding the state’s “ban the plastic milk carton” law. The environmentally friendly statute barred retail sale of milk in plastic, nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers, while allowing traditional paperboard milk cartons, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. It rejected challenges to the law based on its effect on interstate business, which the Court deemed to be but a minor burden outweighed by the “greater benefits” of conservation and ecology.
Tort Topics
The post-World War II era was marked by a number of rulings of the Minnesota Supreme Court expanding the rights of torts claimants to bring lawsuits for personal injuries.
In McCormack v Hankscraft, Minnesota, in 1967, joined a growing trend in imposing strict liability upon manufacturers and sellers of defective products. The case involved a child who was burned due to an allegedly defective vaporizer, a case that was difficult to prove by ordinary standards of negligence. But the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the lawsuit could proceed on a theory of strict liability, which requires manufacturers and sellers of dangerous products to pay damages, even if the injured party cannot prove negligence.
The age-old doctrine of sovereign immunity, which bars civil suits for personal injuries against government bodies, was abrogated by the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1975 in Nieting v. Blondell. The Court eliminated the immunity, because it would “conflict with the public interest and the public good.” The elimination of the sovereign immunity doctrine precipitated the evisceration of many other long-established barriers to civil injury lawsuits, including prohibitions on suits between spouses and children suing parents.
The protection of personal privacy has lagged behind in Minnesota for many years. As states began to recognize a right of privacy, Minnesota remained one of a few that did not do so until 1998, when the state Supreme Court joined the bandwagon in Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The lawsuit was brought by a pair of women in northwestern Minnesota who claimed that their right of privacy was invaded when embarrassing photographs were allegedly distributed by an employee at a photo processing facility in Dilsworth. Departing from years of refusing to recognize the right of privacy, Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, writing for the Supreme Court, stated that privacy constitutes a “fundamental” right that must be recognized by courts. Subsequent rulings have retrenched on the Lake ruling, making it more difficult for Minnesotans to assert privacy rights, especially in cases against the media, where First Amendment rights have outbalanced privacy concerns.
Workplace Woes
Employees who suffer woes in the workplace were granted rights to sue their employers in a number of Minnesota cases, which reached a high water mark in the 1980s.
In Mettille v. Pine River State Bank, the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1983 held that terms in employment handbooks distributed to employees are binding on employers. Deeming these manuals a type of contract, the court held that a bank employee was wrongfully terminated because the institution did not follow the disciplinary procedures laid out in its handbook, although subsequent rulings have retrenched on the case by allowing employers to use disclaimers and other semantic devices to dilute the rights of employees.
Whistleblowers who complain about illegal behavior in the workplace were granted protection against discharge in Phipps v. Clark Oil & Refining Corp., a ruling of the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1987 that was affirmed by the Supreme Court. A gas station attendant claimed that he was wrongfully terminated because he failed to follow the alleged directive of his boss to use leaded gas in a car equipped only for unleaded fuel. His lawsuit launched the recognition of whistleblower rights in Minnesota, which were subsequently codified by a state statute.
Crime and Punishment
The rights and responsibilities of criminal offenders and officials who enforce the law have been subject to constant tug-of-war over the years in Minnesota jurisprudence.
Minnesota recognized that those stopped for suspected drunken driving have a right to contact a lawyer before deciding whether to submit to alcohol testing in Prideaux v. State Dept. of Public Safety. In granting the right in 1976, the state Supreme Court reasoned that an individual should have an opportunity to make a phone call to a lawyer before deciding whether to submit to the test or face the alternative repercussions when suspected of drunken driving.
The vagaries of criminal law continue to be the subject of important Minnesota litigation, as evidenced by a case from this state currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. In Danforth v. Minnesota, the High Court is considering an appeal from a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court regarding whether constitutional criminal law rights are determined retroactive to those convicted before the new rights are adopted. The case, on this year’s High Court docket, questions whether a Minnesota man who was convicted several years ago of criminal sexual assault on the basis of hearsay testimony of the victim is entitled to a new trial because of a subsequent Supreme Court ruling in a different case, barring such testimony.
These cases, stretching from the pre-territorial past to today, reflect the diversity and vitality of Minnesota litigation spanning more than 150 years of statehood. The times ahead are likely to be characterized by even more significant and substantial legal cases, as Minnesota forges ahead during its next 150 years.
HONORABLE MENTION
A number of other interesting and important legal cases in Minnesota have occurred during its 150 years. Here are 15 others that merit honorable mention:
Buck v. Colbath, (1865): Minnesota state courts may hear cases against federal government for wrongful seizure of private property deemed unconstitutionally “confiscatory.”
Gilbert v. Minnesota (1920): Anti-war speaker validly convicted under law barring advocating others not to “aid or assist” participation in military draft.
Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota (1959): Net income tax levied on businesses incorporated outside of Minnesota but doing business in the state constitutionally permissible.
Bryan v. Itasca County (1976): Minnesota tax on mobile homes owned by Indians on the reservation land invalid.
Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Conscientiousness, Inc. (1981): State fair regulations barring solicitation on fairgrounds of funds for religious groups held by U.S. Supreme Court in case brought by religious organization.
Pratt v. Independent School District No. 831 (1982): School district may not ban showing film to students condemning religious discrimination due to complaints from parents and other community members that film as “sacrilegious.”
Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commission of Revenue (1983): Special-use tax imposed on largest newspaper in state unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
Mueller v. Allen (1983): Minnesota parochial-aid law allowing tax deductions for certain expenses of private and parochial school students constitutionally valid.
Stanley v. McGrath (1983): Reiteration by Board of Regents on public funding of student newspaper at University of Minnesota due to offensive contents of particular issue overturned on First Amendment grounds.
Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984): Non-unionized teachers are not entitled to engage in collective bargaining with public-sector colleges.
State v. Hershberger (1990): Amish farmer may not be charged for refusing to display “slow moving vehicle” emblem on horse-drawn wagons for religious reasons.
State v. French (1990): Minnesota constitutional guarantee of “freedom of conscience” allows landlord to refuse to rent to unmarried couple, despite provision of Minnesota Human Rights Act prohibiting discrimination based on marital status.
Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. (1991): First Amendment does not bar claim by breach of contract claim by confidential source whose identity is revealed by newspaper.
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992): U.S. Supreme Court strikes down municipal “hate crimes” ordinance as violative of freedom of speech under First Amendment.
Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002): Restrictions on candidates for judicial positions stating views on dispute of political issues stricken under First Amendment.
* * * * * * * *
Marshall H. Tanick is a senior partner with the law firm of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen, P.A. He is certified as a civil trial specialist by the Minnesota State Bar Association and frequently contributes to law and business publications.
Back to Articles
