Minnesota Moratorium Case
MINNESOTA MORATORIUM CASE
MINNESOTA MORATORIUM CASE, or Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell et al., 290 U.S. 398 (1934), upheld the constitutionality of a Minnesota moratorium on mortgage foreclosures passed in 1933 amid the economic crisis of the depression, which began in 1929. Critics of the law contended that it constituted a violation of the contract clause in the federal Constitution (see Fletcher v. Peck) and of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court found the act was justified by the emergency conditions and concurred with the view that such measures were temporary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leuchtenburg, William E. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
McConnell, Grant. Private Power and American Democracy. New York: Knopf, 1966.
W. BrookeGraves/a. r.
See alsoConstitution of the United States ; Contract Clause ; Government Regulation of Business ; Mortgage Relief Legislation ; New Deal .