Massachusetts v. Mellon
Supreme Court of the United States
262 U.S. 447 (1923)
Congress passed a law giving states tax-funded appropriations to reduce infant mortality, requiring participating states to report compliance and authorizing the withholding of funds from noncompliant states. Massachusetts sued, arguing the law unconstitutionally infringed state sovereignty, and its case was consolidated with a suit by an individual taxpayer, Frothingham, who separately claimed the law amounted to an unconstitutional taking of property through increased future taxation without due process.
Whether the enactment of a federal law that applies tax funds to programs in which state participation is optional gives rise to a justiciable controversy between the United States government and a state or an individual taxpayer.