Mugler v. Kansas

Mugler v. Kansas
Argued April 11, 1887
Reargued October 11, 1887
Decided December 5, 1887
Full case namePeter Mugler v. Kansas;
Kansas v. Ziebold & Hagelin
Citations123 U.S. 623 (more)
8 S. Ct. 273; 31 L. Ed. 205; 1887 U.S. LEXIS 2204
Case history
PriorDefendant, Mugler, convicted for manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors without a permit. Kansas Supreme Court affirmed conviction.
Holding
The regulation and prohibition of alcohol are constitutional exercises of state police power. Conviction affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Morrison Waite
Associate Justices
Samuel F. Miller · Stephen J. Field
Joseph P. Bradley · John M. Harlan
Stanley Matthews · Horace Gray
Samuel Blatchford
Case opinions
MajorityHarlan, joined by Waite, Miller, Bradley, Matthews, Gray, and Blatchford
Concur/dissentField
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887), was an important United States Supreme Court case in which the 7–1 opinion written by John Marshall Harlan with a lone partial dissent by Stephen Johnson Field. The decision laid the foundation for the Supreme Court's later acceptance and defense during the Lochner era of Justice Field's theory of economic substantive due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The companion case was Kansas v. Ziebold & Hagelin.