United States v. Carolene Products Co.

United States v. Carolene Products Co.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 6, 1938 Decided April 25, 1938
Full case name	United States v. Carolene Products Company
Citations	304 U.S. 144 (more) 58 S. Ct. 778; 82 L. Ed. 1234; 1938 U.S. LEXIS 1022
Case history
Prior	Demurrer to indictment sustained, 7 F. Supp. 500 (S.D. Ill. 1934)
Holding
The Filled Milk Act did not exceed the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, or violate due process under the Fifth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes Associate Justices James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone Owen Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Case opinions
Majority	Stone, joined by Hughes, Brandeis, Roberts; Black (except the part designated "Third")
Concurrence	Butler
Dissent	McReynolds
Reed and Cardozo took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I; U.S. Const. amend. V; 21 U.S.C. § 61-63 (1938) (Filled Milk Act § 61-63)

United States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144 (1938), was a case of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the federal government's power to prohibit filled milk from being shipped in interstate commerce. In his majority opinion for the Court, Associate Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote that economic regulations were "presumptively constitutional" under a deferential standard of review known as the "rational basis test".

The case is most notable for Footnote Four, in which Stone wrote that the Court would exercise a stricter standard of review when a law appears on its face to violate a provision of the United States Constitution, restricts the political process in a way that could impede the repeal of an undesirable law, or discriminates against "discrete and insular" minorities. Footnote Four would influence later Supreme Court decisions, and the higher standard of review is now known as "strict scrutiny".