Wickard v. Filburn (1940)
- Docket
- 59
- Decided
- 1940-1955-
Summary
Question: Did the Act violate the Commerce Clause? Conclusion: A unanimous Court upheld the law. In an opinion authored by Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, the Court found that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate prices in the industry, and this law was rationally related to that legitimate goal. The Court reasoned that Congress could regulate activity within a single state under the Commerce Clause, even if each individual activity had a trivial effect on interstate commerce, as long as the intrastate activity viewed in the aggregate would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. To this extent, the opinion went against prior decisions that had analyzed whether an activity was local, or whether its effects were direct or indirect.