Marshall's Plan: The Early Supreme Court and Statutory Interpretation

Abstract

In Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier,1 an innocuous case of the 1990 Term involving bugs, molds, and mice (or rather, how to kill them), two Supreme Court Justices engaged in a sharp debate over the Marshall Court's approach to statutory interpretation. Mortier raised the question of whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act,2 which sets labeling and registration standards for pesticides, preempted states and localities from regulating the use of pesticides in their jurisdictions. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Act did preempt local regulation.3 Although the Justices unanimously agreed to overrule the Wisconsin Supreme Court, sparks flew when Justices White and Scalia disagreed over whether Congress intended to preempt state law.4 Writing for the Court, White delved into the legislative history and found it inconclusive, thus leading him to decide that Congress had intended to preempt state law.5 In his concurrence, Scalia argued that the legislative history did show an intent to preempt state authority, but joined in the majority's decision because he maintained that the Court should cease relying on committee reports. Committee reports were unreliable, wrote Scalia, not only as a genuine indicator of congressional intent but as a safe predictor of judicial construction.6 That's when they dragged in Chief Justice John Marshall. Defending the majority's reliance upon legislative history, White cited two Marshall opinions to show that [o]ur precedents demonstrate that the Court's practice of utilizing