Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Company

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RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD V. ALTON RAILROAD COMPANY

RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD V. ALTON RAILROAD COMPANY, 295 U.S. 330 (1935), a case in which the Supreme Court, divided five to four, invalidated the Railroad Pension Act of 1934.The majority opinion declared the act contrary to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment because of a long series of arbitrary impositions on the carriers and, furthermore, because "the pension plan thus imposed is in no proper sense a regulation of the activity of interstate transportation." The minority opinion, while agreeing that the retroactive feature of the law violated the Fifth Amendment, disagreed that Congress had exceeded the limits of its jurisdiction over interstate commerce when it created the pension system.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leuchtenburg, William E. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

W. A.Robinson/a. r.

See alsoDue Process of Law ; Pension Plans ; Railroad Retirement Acts .

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Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Company

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