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Alien Land Cases in United States Supreme Court

1924; UC Berkeley School of Law; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3476005

1942-6542

Thomas Reed Powell,

Property Rights and Legal Doctrine

In four cases involving statutes of Washington and of California the Supreme Court of the United States has sustained the power of the states, under existing treaties with Japan, to prevent Japanese subjects from becoming lessees of agricultural land," from becoming stockholders in.a corporation authorized to own agricultural land, 2 and from making so-called "cropping contracts" for cultivating such land. 3 The major issues involved in these decisions have already been treated in the pages of this Review' and the discussion here will content itself with an exposition, and analysis of the Supreme Court opinions in the recent cases.The most serious problem was presented by the "cropping-contract" case from California.In this case the Supreme Court quite patently misinterpreted the California statute of 19205 and inadequately distinguished the decision of the Supreme Court of California in the Okahara Case which put upon that statute a binding interpretation.Whether these intellectual mishaps rendered the Supreme Court decision erroneous is another and more difficult question.This, however, is of speculative rather than of practical significance, for the California statute of 19237 explicitly interdicts such cropping contracts.I.-THE QUESTION OF INJUNCTIVE: RELIEF.The issue in each of these cases arose through a bill brought by a citizen and alien jointly to restrain state officers from threatening interference with the carrying out of proposed contracts.Justices McReynolds and Brandeis dissented in each case on the ground that 1 Terrace v.