Corfield v. Coryell


Corfield v. Coryell was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court decided by Justice Bushrod Washington, sitting by designation as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In it, he upheld a New Jersey regulation forbidding non-residents from gathering oysters and clams against a challenge that New Jersey's law violated the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause and that the New Jersey law regulated interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause.

Decision

The most-cited aspect of Corfield v. Coryell is Justice Washington's listing of the "privileges and immunities" enjoyed by citizens of the United States:

Influence on Fourteenth Amendment

The well-known passage from Corfield was quoted in reference to the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, during congressional debates on the Amendment, for an indication of what the judiciary had interpreted the phrase "privileges and immunities" to mean as it stood in the original Constitution, but there is substantial evidence to the effect that some congressmen, at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, did not accept Justice Washington's reading of the term. Justice Washington's assessment is often cited by those who advocate a broader reading of the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities Clause than the Supreme Court gave in the Slaughter-House Cases.