About: Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Louisiana Board of Health

Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Louisiana Board of Health, 186 U.S. 380 (1902), was a United States Supreme Court case which held constitutional state laws requiring the involuntary quarantine of individuals to prevent the spread of disease. Louisiana's quarantine laws, Justice Edward White said, were a reasonable exercise of the state's police power that conflicted with neither the Dormant Commerce Clause nor the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In dissent, Justice Henry Billings Brown, joined by John Marshall Harlan, agreed that while quarantine laws were constitutional, Louisiana's went beyond the scope of the state's authority over interstate commerce, even violating several treaties between the United States and other nations.