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The "Cases" Cases

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

I have an update to my ongoing effort to catalog all the Supreme Court's decisions using the naming convention "The [Subject] Cases" (and to revitalize that practice). My first post on the issue, Where Have All the "Cases" Cases Gone? is here, and here is a follow-up (item #3).

Basically, at various times in the past, when dealing with a group of cases raising the same issue, the Court referred to the group by a shorthand name. Maybe I'll write a longer piece about this some day, but changes in the types of cases the Court hears, and the way it chooses what cases to hear, have caused this practice to pretty much die out. But I think it would be neat, in appropriate circumstances, to revive the practice.

Anyway, the one I discovered today was The Ku Klux Cases (a.k.a. Ex Parte Yarbrough), which could only be cooler if they spelled it Ku Klux Kases.

The list so far:
The Passenger Cases (1849)
The Prize Cases (1862)
The Legal Tender Cases (1870)
The Slaughter-house Cases (1872)
State Railroad Tax Cases (1875)
In re Sinking Fund Cases (1878)
The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
The Head Money Cases (1884)
The Ku Klux Cases (1884)
The Insular Cases (1901-22)
The Minnesota Rate Cases (1913)
The Missouri Rate Cases (1913)
Ohio Tax Cases (1914)
The Pipe Line Cases (1914)
Assigned Car Cases (1927)
The Penn-Central Merger and N&W Inclusion Cases (1967)
Penn-Central Meger Cases (1968)
Permian Basin Area Rate Cases (1968)
The New Haven Inclusion Cases (1970)
The Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases (1974)
Trans Alaska Pipeline Rate Cases (1978)
Honorable Mention: 62 Cases of Jam v. United States (1951)

Thanks to PG and commenter "Seamus" for pointing out a couple of these. Note that in a few cases, the Court did not use the "Cases" naming convention at the time the decision issued, but has used the collective name in later citations. I'd love to have a comprehensive list, so please forward any "Cases" Cases I've missed.

Full post as published by Begging the Question on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).