Prudential Insurance Company v. Benjamin 328 U.S. 408 (1946)

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PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY v. BENJAMIN 328 U.S. 408 (1946)

The dissenters in united states v. south-eastern under-writers (1944) feared that declaring insurance to be interstate commerce, subject to congressional regulation, would create chaos by rendering state regulation of that industry void. An act of Congress, however, left most such regulation standing and Justice wiley rutledge headed a unanimous Court sustaining a state tax that discriminated against interstate commerce. Assuming that such a tax would be invalid in the absence of congressional action, here Congress had decided that uniformity of regulation and taxation was necessary and had authorized even discriminatory state regulation and taxation of the insurance business.

David Gordon
(1986)

(see also: State Regulation of Commerce.)

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