German Alliance Insurance v. Lewis

Citations

• 233 U.S. 389
• 34 S. Ct. 612
• 58 L. Ed. 1011
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1237

Syllabus

<p>■The business of insurance is so far affected with a public interest as to justify legislative regulation of its rates.</p> <p>A public interest can exist in a business, such as insurance, distinct from a public use of property, and can be the basis of the power of the legislature to regulate the personal contracts involved in such business.</p> <p>Where a business, such as insurance, is affected by a public use, it is the business that is the fundamental thing; property is but the instrument of such business.</p> <p>Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517; Brass v. North Dakota, 153 U. S. 391, demonstrate that a business by circumstances and its nature may rise from private to public concern and consequently become subject to governmental regulation; and the business of insurance falls within this principle.</p> <p>The fact that a contract for insurance is one for indemnity and is personal, does not preclude regulation.</p> <p>A general conception of the law-making bodies of the country that a business’ requires governmental regulation is not accidental and cannot exist without cause.</p> <p>What makes for the general welfare is matter of legislative judgment, and judicial review is limited to power and excludes policy.</p> <p>The liberty of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment is not more intimately involved in price regulation than in other proper forms of regulatipn of business and property affected by a public use, and so held as to the regulation of rates of fire insurance.</p> <p>The inactivity of a governmental power, no matter how prolonged, does not militate against its legality when exercised. United States v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366.</p> <p>Whether rate regulation is necessary in regard to a particular business affected by a public use, such as insurance, is matter for legislative judgment. This court can only determine whether the legislature has the power to enact it.</p> <p>A discrimination is not inv