Case Citator › United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn.

United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn.

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Superseded by statute
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
322 U.S. 533
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
55 of 55
Citing cases (total)
55
Treatment dates
1945–1977
Superseded by statute
A reviewed court treats this case as superseded by later legislation. United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn. was superseded by statute in part: all 55 flagged citations have been read, and the 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. The McCarran-Ferguson Act protects some state-regulated insurance activity from federal antitrust claims, as applied in Lawyer's Realty Corp. v. Peninsular Title Insurance.
More on how this was screened

The Act did not undo the Supreme Court's holding that interstate insurance is commerce. Brown v. Utica Mutual Insurance criticized the Court's account of earlier insurance decisions but accepted its commerce holding.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

55 later cases cite United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn.; 55 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Assn.?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Superseded by Statute

  • The district court held that the McCarran-Ferguson Act barred a federal antitrust claim over title-insurance agency conduct regulated by Louisiana, narrowing the insurance antitrust reach recognized in South-Eastern Underwriters.

    Lawyer's Realty Corp. v. Peninsular Title Insurance · E.D. La. · filed

    Because the activities that it is charged the defendants engaged in were regulated by the Louisiana Insurance Code, the suit in federal court is barred by the McCarran-Ferguson Act, and the defendants’ motion to dismiss is GRANTED. ... The McCarran-Ferguson Act was passed in response to the decision of the Supreme Court in United States v. South Eastern Underwriters Association, 1944, 322 U.S. 533, 64 S.Ct. 1162, 88 L.Ed. 1440, holding that the antitrust laws were applicable to price or rate fixing in insurance transactions.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Criticized

  • The New York Supreme Court called South-Eastern Underwriters' explanation of earlier insurance decisions dicta and said the Supreme Court could have acknowledged reversing those decisions.

    Brown v. Utica Mutual Insurance · New York Supreme Court · filed

    Mr. Justice Black in the Underwriters Assn. case (322 U. S. 533, 553, supra) said: “ No commercial enterprise of any kind which conducts its activities across state lines has been held to be wholly beyond the regulatory power of Congress under the Commerce Clause. We cannot make an exception of the business of insurance.” ... The statement of Mr. Justice Black that, in deciding the insurance cases (322 U. S. 533, 544, supra), the court’s “ attention was focused on the validity of state statutes ” and the remarks of Mr. Justice Frankfurter about the “ context ” in which the court decided them, are pure obiter dicta (322 U. S. 643, 649, supra). The court could have frankly reversed its prior decisions as it has often done.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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