Parker v. Brown 317 U.S. 341 (1943)

• Author: David Gordon
• Pages: 1879

Page 1879

A California statute compelled raisin growers to comply with the orders of a state-sponsored marketing monopoly. Farmers could sell thirty percent of their crop on the open market; the remainder went to the state commission, which controlled the interstate supply and price. This law survived challenge when a unanimous bench followed reasoning laid out earlier by Justice HARLAN FISKE STONE in DISANTO V. PENNSYLVANIA (1927). Here Stone dismissed statutory objections: the SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT applied only to individual, not state, action; neither did the COMMERCE CLAUSE forbid this state regulation. Most important, Congress, in the AGRICULTURAL MARKETING AGREEMENT ACT, did not preempt this state legislation but reflected a congressional policy to encourage it.

DAVID GORDON

(1986...