Breard v. Alexandria (341 U.S. 622)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 4, 1951 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 341 U.S. 622 · 71 S. Ct. 920
- Docket
- No. 399
- Argued
- March 7, 1951
- Decided
- June 4, 1951
- Term
- October Term 1950
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Reed
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Minton, Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Reed (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Vinson (wrote), Justice Douglas, Justice Black (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Reed delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant here, Jack H. Breard, a regional representative of Keystone Readers Service, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation, was arrested while going from door to door in the City of Alexandria, Louisiana, soliciting subscriptions for nationally known magazines. The arrest was solely on the ground that he had violated an ordinance because he had not obtained the prior consent of the owners of the residences solicited. Breard, a resident of Texas, was in charge of a crew of solicitors who go from house to house in the various cities and towns in the area under Breard’s management and solicit subscriptions for nationally known magazines and periodicals, including among others the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, Country Gentleman, Holiday, Newsweek, American Home, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Pic, Parents, Today’s Woman and True. These solicitors spend only a few days in each city, depending upon its size. Keystone sends a card from its home office to the new subscribers acknowledging receipt of the subscription and thereafter the periodical is forwarded to the subscriber by the publisher in interstate commerce through the mails. The ordinance under which the arrest was made, so far as is here pertinent, reads as follows: “Section 1. Be it Ordained by the Council of the City of Alexandria, Louisiana, in legal session…
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