Jackson‐Black Feud

The Supreme Court's unique role of final constitutional umpire has depended in part on maintaining a public image of impartiality. Following Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone's death in 1946, a bitter feud between Justices Hugo L. Black and Robert H. Jackson tested this image.

The feud had its origins with the debate among the liberal justices appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt over the limits of judicial self‐restraint, particularly the interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. One of the later New Deal's most controversial measures, the act established federal control of minimum wages and maximum hours for employees who produced goods for interstate trade.

In United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941) the Court upheld FLSA unanimously. By 1944, however, Roosevelt's liberal justices were severely divided over whether the act should apply to the underground travel by miners to and from the “working face” of the mines. The War Labor Board had approved wage and hour contracts that followed the employer's refusal to pay for travel from “portal to portal.” At stake were millions of dollars in penalties and attorney's fees if the Court should suddenly construe FLSA on behalf of the miners.

Shaping the Court's approach to the FLSA controversy was the issue of disqualification. The tradition was that generally each member of the Court decided for himself whether or not some conflict of interest justified disqualification from a particular case. Against the background of a national coal strike, government seizure of the industry, and the War Labor Board's protracted negotiations, the Court reviewed Jewell Ridge Coal Corporation v. Local No. 6167, United Mine Workers of America (1945), which raised directly the question of portal‐to‐portal compensation. The Court split evenly, giving Black the deciding vote. The union's lawyer, however, was Crompton Harris, who twenty years before had been Black's law partner. In conference Jackson vehemently contended that the attorney's presence required Black's disqualification. The Alabaman just as stridently refused. Jackson was especially upset because initially a majority was prepared to uphold the interests of the employer, and Chief Justice Stone had selected Jackson to write the Court's opinion. But Stanley Reed switched to the opposing side, leaving the entire case in Black's hands. As a result, Frank Murphy wrote the majority opinion, which interpreted FLSA broadly in favor of the miners.

Jackson wrote an opinion for four dissenters that quoted out of context statements Black had made when he was in the Senate during the debate over the Fair Labor Standards Bill, which seemed to contradict the Jewell Ridge decision. Black was incensed. Because of the Black‐Harris connection, the Jewell Ridge Company petitioned the Court for a rehearing. The Court denied the petition, but Jackson remained convinced that Black had acted improperly. Before long Congress enacted legislation that overturned the Court's decision, vindicating Jackson and the other dissenters on the issue of policy. Jackson's anger toward Black, however, did not abate.

The Jewell Ridge Company's rehearing petition engendered public debate concerning the question of the Court's impartiality. But the level of tension the disqualification issue caused within the Court remained confidential until the following year, when Stone died. President Harry Truman nominated Frederick M. Vinson, a loyal friend and capable politician, as chief justice. By then Jackson was serving as chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. During the congressional review of Vinson's nomination, Black temporarily took over the duties of chief justice. Jackson reacted to the news with a bitter public statement from Nuremberg disclaiming any interest in the position of chief justice himself. Furthermore, he revealed the Jewell Ridge controversy, publicizing his feud with Black.

The revelation was motivated partially by Justice Felix Frankfurter's private intimation (not based on fact) that Black had influenced Truman to block Jackson's nomination as chief justice, perhaps to attain the office himself. When making Jackson's appointment as associate justice in 1941 Roosevelt had apparently implied that he would be a prime candidate for the chief justiceship if it opened up in the future. As Jackson's angry Nuremberg statement made headlines, Truman exclaimed that the “Supreme Court has really made a mess of itself.” When the Senate confirmed Vinson, Truman expressed confidence in his nominee's “uncanny knack of placating opposing minds.” Even so, Black was conciliatory when Jackson returned from Nuremberg and a relative calm once more characterized the Court's internal deliberations. The Jackson‐Black feud suggested, however, the degree to which personal tensions shaped the Court's resolution of vital issues. It indicated, too, that the public image of impartiality upon which that role rested was often tenuous.

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See also Extrajudicial Activities; Recuse

Bibliography

• Tony Freyer, Hugo L. Black and the Dilemma of American Liberalism (1990)

— Tony Freyer