Court Opinion

ID: 9424282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:06.199796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:48.716443
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring.
When Sinclair Refining Co. v. Atkinson, 370 U. S. 195, was decided in 1962, I subscribed to the opinion of the Court. Before six years had passed I had reached the conclusion that the Sinclair holding should be reconsidered, and said so in Avco Corp. v. Aero Lodge 735, 390 U. S. 557, 562 (concurring opinion). Today I join the Court in concluding “that Sinclair was erroneously decided and that subsequent events have undermined its continuing validity.”
In these circumstances the temptation is strong to embark upon a lengthy personal apologia. But since Mr. Justice Brennan has so clearly stated my present views in his opinion for the Court today, I simply join in that opinion and in the Court’s judgment. An aphorism of Mr. Justice Frankfurter provides me refuge: “Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.” Henslee v. Union Planters Bank, 335 U. S. 595, 600 (dissenting opinion).