ABSTRACT
In A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. et al. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935, affectionately known as “the Sick Chicken case”), the U.S. Supreme Court faced a challenge to the work product of collaborative public management. A New York poultry dealer was convicted of violating regulations adopted pursuant to the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1934 (NIRA, New Deal legislation) for letting customers select individual chickens for kosher slaughter from a coop or lot. The Court observed that the national crisis of the Depression “demanded a broad and intensive cooperative effort by those engaged in trade and industry, and that this necessary cooperation was sought to be fostered by permitting them to initiate the adoption of codes” (295 U.S. at 529). However, the Court noted that this cooperation
involves the coercive exercise of the law-making power. The codes of fair competition which the statute attempts to authorize are codes of laws. If valid, they place all persons within their reach under the obligation of positive law, binding equally those who assent and those who do not assent. Violations of the provisions of the codes are punishable as crimes.
