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Jacobson v. Massachusetts
211
What the case was about:
- Henning Jacobson, a Swedish immigrant to the United States and a minister, lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- During an outbreak of smallpox in 1902, he refused to comply with the town's order for all adults to be vaccinated.
- He was ordered to pay a $5 fine.
- He refused to pay and the Massachusetts courts.
The Constitutionality question:
Thus having Massachusetts bring suit.
Did the mandatory vaccination law violate Jacobson's Fourteenth Amendment right to liberty?
- 7-2:The Court held that the law was a legitimate exercise of the state's police power to protect the public health and safety of its citizens.
- Local boards of health determined when mandatory vaccinations were needed, thus making the requirement neither unreasonable nor arbitrarily imposed.
Justice Harlan-Majority:
Dissenting Opinion...
Unfortunately, there is not dissenting papers written by the justices.
"There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution. But it is equally true that in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand."
Jacobson v. Massachusetts
What Happened Next:
- Mr. Jacobson believed that the scientific basis for vaccination was unsound and that he would suffer if he was vaccinated.
- The Massachusetts Supreme Court found the statute consistent with the Massachusetts state constitution, and Jacobson appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Trial:
- The Supreme Court examined the issue of whether involuntary vaccination violated Jacobson's "'inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as seems to him best . . .
- The Court pondered this question, considering the right of the state to invade Jacobson's person by forcing him to submit to vaccination.
Fuller(Chief), White, Holmes, Peckham, Brown, Day, Brewer, Harlan, McKenna.