William Irwin Grubb

William Irwin Grubb (March 8, 1862 – October 27, 1935) was a United States federal judge who struck down key portions of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. A Yale graduate, Grubb was a corporate lawyer in Birmingham, Alabama when he was appointed by President Taft in 1909 to fill a seat on the District Court for Northern Alabama. While Judge Grubb was a Democrat, President Hoover appointed him in 1929 to the Wickersham Commission to investigate the effectiveness of prohibition. He is still remembered as the only member of the Commission to oppose any modification to prohibition or its repeal. During the New Deal, Judge Grubb ruled against both the TVA and the NRA.^[1]

Biography

Judge Grubb was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and was the son of John Grubb and Sidney Irwin. The family was descended from John Grubb, who originally settled in Delaware from Cornwall in the late 1600s. The Judge's parents owned a grocery in Cincinnati and both were related to President Benjamin Harrison. In 1883, William received an A.B. from Yale University and relocated to Birmingham, Alabama five years later. A local delegation welcoming President Harrison was somewhat surprised when the President warmly greeted the young lawyer who responded with “Hello Uncle Ben.”^[2] In 1906, William married Alice Virgo and had three children.^[1]

In 1909, President William H. Taft nominated Grubb to a seat vacated by Oscar R. Hundley. Grubb's roommate at Yale was Horace Taft, the President's youngest brother.^[1] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 18, 1909, and received his commission the same day. In 1913, 1927 and 1930, he was assigned to the Federal District Court in New York City to help reduce the backlog. Judge Grubb gained a reputation for his decisions against price fixing schemes (for example the Wool Institute case in 1930) and for giving out long jail sentences to bootleggers. He was also a hard taskmaster, insisting that court begin promptly at 9:30 and continue after lunch until 5:30.^[2]

In 1929, President Hoover appointed Grubb to the Wickersham Commission in response to the crime wave and lingering questions about the effectiveness of Prohibition. Judge Grubb believed that Prohibition should be given a further trial. He stated that. "If proper enforcement and observance are not had, within a reasonable period or if a better system is shown to exist, it will be time enough to abandon Prohibition and to adopt the better substitute."^[3] The irony is that Grubb's grandfather was a whiskey distiller.^[2]

During the New Deal, Judge Grubb struck down key pieces of President Roosevelt's legislation. William E. Bulcher, an Alabama saw mill owner, was indicted by a Federal grand jury in August 1934 for violations of the NRA after earlier agreeing to comply. Lawyers for the NRA decided that the Bulcher case was ideal to test the NRA and knew that Judge Grubb questioned the NRA's constitutionality. In October, Grubb signed the demurrer dismissing the indictment and declared the NRA unconstitutional. Under the Criminal Appeals Act of 1907, this sent the matter directly to the Supreme Court. However, the NRA's lawyers decided that the timing was bad because the NRA required new enabling legislation in June 1935, and dropped the indictment when Bulcher agreed to settle.^[4]

In December 1934, Grubb ruled in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority that the government had no right to engage in the power business except to dispose of a surplus incidental to the exercise of some other Constitutional function. While he avoided declaring the TVA unconstitutional, he issued an injunction restraining the Tennessee Valley Authority. Senator George Norris, prime sponsor of the New Deal's power program, declared: "The effect of the injunction is practically to nullify the whole TVA Act." ^[5] In July 1935, Judge Grubb's decision was overturned by the 5th Federal Circuit Court in New Orleans.^[6] When the case reached the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote that the TVA was constitutional, giving President Roosevelt a major victory. In a concurring opinion, Justice Louis Brandeis first elaborated his doctrine of Constitutional avoidance that the court should limit its review of constitutional questions to cases where necessary to reach a decision. Brandeis concluded that constitutional review was not necessary in this case because Ashwander had not been injured and as a result did not have standing to sue.^[7]

Before the Supreme Court announced the Ashwander decision, Judge Grubb retired and was awarded an honorary doctorate in laws by Yale.^[2] He died of a heart attack while preparing to leave home for church with his wife.^[1]

References

Sources

• William Irwin Grubb at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.