Jacobson v. Massachusetts 판결의 역사적 의미― 공중보건법학의 효시 ―

There exists an inevitable tension between public health measures such as inspection or compulsory acts upon infectious patients and civil liberties. For example, isolating the patient entails a significant restriction of one's constitutional rights. The tension between police power to secure public health and civil liberties is observed throughout the history in the U. S. where liberalism is the founding principle of its the Constitution. It is remarkable that the ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts confronted the prevalent liberalists interpretation of the constitution in early 1900s, leaded by Lochner v. New York. If the Lochner exemplified judicial activism at its extreme for striking down reasonable economic regulation, then the Jacobson showed judical recognition of the police power, the most important aspect of state sovereignty. In the Jacobson, the U. S. Supreme Court concluded that vaccination law of Massachusetts is not unconstitutional. That is, the court ruled that the state statute is justified because first, there is a clear public health threat of smallpox endangering civilians, and as to protect the public health the necessity to put compulsory regulations upon individual is acknowledged, and lastly because the measure is reasonable enough to compensate inevitable infringement of civil liberties. Jacobson v. Massachusetts has become a leading case as it enumerated specific grounds to justify collective regulation to defend public health and as it fixated constitutional boundary of it. In other words, the Jacobson endures as a reasoned formulation of the boundaries between individual and collective interests in public health.