A.L.A. SCHECHTER POULTRY CORPORATION V. UNITED STATES

Argued May 2–3, 1935, and decided on May 27, 1935, the case of A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States effectively nullified Title I of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), a key piece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Title I of the NIRA was aimed at stabilizing and encouraging an expansion of American industry during the global economic collapse of the Great Depression. Within Title I was the Live Poultry Code, which, in addition to other items, banned certain methods of unfair competition, outlined animal selection criteria, and imposed meat quality standards on the poultry industry. The NIRA also provided significant protections for workers and unintentionally promoted monopolies, resulting in considerable labor unrest and loss of commercial and industrial support for the policy. The government had argued that the national economic emergency required special consideration by the judiciary as a necessary practicality. The Schechter Poultry Corporation, a Kosher butcher in New York, was charged with violating the Live Poultry Code for selling uninspected chickens selected individually by customers. The Court's decision held that the NIRA was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority under the commerce clause and that Congress had failed to create rules or methods of regulation to avoid the inherent vagueness of terms such as "fair competition" to allow the federal government to regulate minutia such as individual slaughter selection under interstate commerce. The Court concluded that the country's dire economic circumstances did not justify the NIRA's overly broad delegation or overreach.