Munn v. Illinois
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
In Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois, the Supreme Court refused to extend Munn's rule about domestic grain warehouses to a state's regulation of interstate railroad rates. That ruling left Munn's grain warehouse holding intact. Three confirmed treatments are listed below, including later criticism and a question about its continuing validity.
95 later cases cite Munn v. Illinois; 95 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 Munn v. Illinois?
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
Limited
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The Supreme Court refused to extend Munn's grain warehouse ruling to state regulation of interstate railroad rates.
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
The case of Stone v. The Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co., 116 U. S. 307, argued at the same term as the present, while it does not decide the latter, evidently does not support the construction placed by the Supreme Court of Illinois upon the case of Munn v. Lllinois, and the other cases on which the court relies. We must, therefore, hold that it is not, and never has been, the deliberate opinion of a majority of this court that a statute of a State which attempts to regulate the fares and charges by railroad companies within its limits, for a transportation which constitutes a part of commerce among the States, is a valid law.
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Criticized
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The Supreme Court of Missouri criticized the reasoning supporting Munn's ruling on grain elevator regulation.
State ex rel. Star Publishing Co. v. Associated Press · Supreme Court of Missouri · filed
Y. These remarks bring up for discussion the main issue in this cause, in which the doctrine announced in the Munn Case, 94 U. S. 113, is relied on by relator. That case has never received the entire sanction of the legal profession, nor indeed the entire concurrence of all the members of the two courts which announced the decision. ... The authorities cited in the opinibn of the latter court, and we say it with due deference, scarcely warrant the conclusion reached.
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Questioned
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A federal district court questioned Munn's continuing validity while rejecting its use to support a claimed liberty right.
Johnson v. Celester · United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts · filed
Instead, she relies upon Black’s Law Dictionary’s definition of .the word “liberty” and two centenarian Supreme Court decisions neither of which stands for any related proposition, and the continued validity of which is highly suspect. See Booth v. People of State of Illinois, 184 U.S. 425, 428, 22 S.Ct. 425, 46 L.Ed. 623 (1902) (upholding regulation barring commodities option contracts as not violative of Fourteenth Amendment “liberty”); Munn v. People of State of Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 142, 24 L.Ed. 77 (1876) (upholding grain storage regulation as not violative of the, then relatively recent, Fourteenth Amendment to the United States constitution).
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