The Sick Chicken Case: The US Supreme Court and the New Deal by Williamjames Hull Hoffer

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

8-2026

ISSN

0032-3195

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Language

en-US

Abstract

Sick chickens, the Four Horsemen, horse and buggy jurisprudence, Black and White Mondays, and the switch in time that saved nine all figure prominently in Williamjames Hull Hoffer's comprehensive account of the Schechter Poultry case, its legal, social, historical, and political context and aftermath and its long-lasting fallout. The Sick Cicken Case: The US Supreme Court and the New Deal, Hoffer's contribution to Kansas Press's Landmark Cases series, makes significant contributions beyond his expert explanation of the legalities that led the Supreme Court to strike down a key component of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first New Deal, the National Recovery Act (NRA). At the outset, we learn how the Schechter brothers' relatively small local Brooklyn poultry business selling Kosher chickens got caught in the NRA's grinder for selling “egged” chickens for slaughter (considered unhealthy, thus the “sick chicken” moniker), and selling them individually rather than by the coop as required by the NRA's live poultry code. Interestingly, the Talmudic code of Jewish religious law expressly allows the consumption of eggs found inside a slaughtered chicken, although the Rabbis argue over whether they should be considered meat products in that circumstance and whether the general rule applies when the chicken is slaughtered on a holiday. The Talmud also prohibits the sale of individual pigeons from a dovecote but apparently allows the sale of individual chickens. Although the Schechters won their case and avoided prison and fines for their transgressions, Hoffer recounts how their business did not survive the cost of defending themselves and the economic hardship of the Great Depression.

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