The Supreme Court: Individuals Triumphant

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In three separate decisions last week, individual liberties were pitted against the powers of the state or private corporations. In each case the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the individuals:

¶In 1966, when a loan company sought to begin recovery of a debt from Christine Sniadach of Milwaukee by taking $31.59 from her $65 weekly pay, she ap pealed to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for help. Wisconsin's garnishment statute, similar to those in 16 other states, allows a creditor to tie up as much as 50% of a salary earner's wages even before a debt has been proved. Often, far more than a weekly bite is involved; the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that employers fire between 100,000 and 300,000 workers each year because of wage garnishments.

Mrs. Sniadach's lawyers argued that be cause she was given no chance to dispute her debt in court before her pay check was cut, she was deprived of her property without the processes guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. By a vote of 7 to 1, the Supreme Court agreed, although Justice Hugo Black, in an angry dissent, called the voiding of Wisconsin's law a "plain judicial usurpation of state legislative power." — In 1964, WGCB, a radio station in Red Lion, Pa., broadcast a right-wing preacher's attack on Fred J. Cook, a frequent contributor to the liberal weekly magazine, The Nation. When Cook's request for a chance to reply was refused, he took his case to the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC ordered the station to give Cook a turn at the mike, went on to point out that under its "fairness doctrine," broadcasters must 1) offer free time to people personally attacked on the air on a controversial issue of public importance, and 2) in cases where stations editorially endorse or oppose a candidate, give opponents a chance to be heard. WGCB appealed, contending that the FCC had overstepped its authority. The Radio Television News Directors Association, joined by the National and Columbia Broadcasting companies, also went to court to argue that the regulations violated not only the Federal Communications Act but also First Amendment guarantees of free speech. Broadcasters, they said, would grow chary of controversy if they had to worry about a toughened fairness doctrine. In a unanimous opinion, the high court upheld the FCC in both cases. A license does not mean ownership of the air, said the court, "only the temporary privilege" of using it. Since the air actually belongs to the public, said the court, the FCC's fair play rules increase rather than curtail the scope of free speech.