Toomer et al. v. Witsell et al. (334 U.S. 385)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 7, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 334 U.S. 385 · 68 S. Ct. 1156
- Decided
- June 7, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1947
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Vinson
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Chief Justice Vinson delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit to enjoin as unconstitutional the enforcement of several South Carolina statutes governing commercial shrimp fishing in the three-mile maritime belt off the coast of that State. Appellants, who initiated the action, are five individual fishermen, all citizens and residents of Georgia, and a non-profit fish dealers’ organization incorporated in Florida. Appellees are South Carolina officials charged with enforcement of the statutes. The three-judge Federal District Court which was convened to hear the case upheld the statutes, denied an injunction and dismissed the suit. On direct appeal from that judgment we noted probable jurisdiction. The fishery which South Carolina attempts to regulate by the statutes in question is part of a larger shrimp fishery extending from North Carolina to Florida. Most of the shrimp in this area are of a migratory type, swimming south in the late summer and fall and returning northward in the spring. Since there is no federal regulation of the fishery, the four States most intimately concerned have gone their separate ways in devising conservation and other regulatory measures. While action by the States has followed somewhat parallel lines, efforts to secure uniformity throughout the fishery have by and large been fruitless. Because of the integral nature of the fishery,…
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