case, in language, one of the several possible forms of a given noun, pronoun, or adjective that indicates its grammatical function (see inflection); in inflected languages it is usually indicated by a series of suffixes attached to a stem, as in Latin amicus, "friend" (nominative); amicum (accusative); amici (genitive); and amico (ablative and dative). In modern English, nouns are marked for two cases—common or nominative (e.g., man) and possessive or genitive (man's). A few pronouns are marked for three—nominative (e.g., he), objective or accusative (him), and possessive (his). Old English also inflected for accusative, dative, and sometimes instrumental, cases. In Latin, six cases are indicated by changes in inflection—nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative. The hypothetical ancestor of the Indo-European languages used eight cases, the above six plus the instrumental and locative cases. The Altaic and Finno-Ugric language families also use case-marking systems. German uses four cases, Russian six, Finnish sixteen. In Europe, the concept was first introduced by the Greeks, although Sanskrit grammarians established it independently. The names of the most common cases derive from Greek by way of Latin translation, as does the term case itself.

Wabash Case, popular name for Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886. The decision narrowed earlier ones (see Munn v. Illinois) favorable to state regulation of those phases of interstate commerce upon which Congress itself had not acted. The court declared invalid an Illinois law prohibiting long- and short-haul clauses in transportation contracts as an infringement on the exclusive powers of Congress granted by the commerce clause of the Constitution. The result of the case was denial of state power to regulate interstate rates for railroads, and the decision led to creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Scottsboro Case. In 1931 nine black youths were indicted at Scottsboro, Ala., on charges of having raped two white women in a freight car passing through Alabama. In a series of trials the youths were found guilty and sentenced to death or to prison terms of 75 to 99 years. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed convictions twice on procedural grounds (that the youths' right to counsel had been infringed and that no blacks had served on the grand or trial jury). At the second trial one of the women recanted her previous testimony. The Alabama trial judge set aside the guilty verdict as contrary to the weight of the evidence and ordered a new trial. In 1937 charges against five were dropped and the state agreed to consider parole for the others. Two were paroled in 1944, one in 1951. When the fourth escaped (1948) to Michigan, the state refused to return him to Alabama. In 1976, Alabama pardoned Clarence Norris, who had broken parole and fled the state in 1946. The belief that the case against the "Scottsboro boys" was unproved and that the verdicts were the result of racism caused 1930s liberals and radicals to come to the defense of the youths. The fact that Communists used the case for propaganda further complicated the affair.

Schiavo case, the legal battles over the guardianship and rights of Theresa Maria Schindler Schiavo (1963-2005). Terri Schiavo was incapacitated and hospitalized in 1990, after she collapsed when her heart stopped beating due to a potassium imbalance, and her brain suffered extensive damage due to lack of oxygen. In 1998 her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo, petitioned a Florida court to remove her feeding tube, stating that she would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state. He was opposed by her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who did not believe she was in such a state and disagreed with her husband's assertions concerning her wishes. They had become estranged from Michael Schiavo after he had sued and won a $1 million malpractice award (1992), and they had tried in 1993 to have him removed as Terri Schiavo's guardian.

In 2000 the judge ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo and the feed tubing was removed, but the Schindlers sued in another court and the judge there ordered the tube reinserted. In 2002 the original judge again ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo and, after a Florida appeals court upheld (2003) the ruling, the tube was removed. The Florida legislature, however, quickly passed a law allowing Governor Jeb Bush to intervene, and he ordered the feeding resumed. The Florida supreme court ultimately ruled (2004) that "Terri's Law" was unconstitutional and violated Terri Schiavo's right to privacy, but Governor Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected his petition.

In 2005, after a Florida appeals court again refused to block the tube's removal, both Houses of the U.S. Congress attempt to block its removal using their subpoena power, a move regarded by most legal experts as overreaching or illegitimate, and the Florida judge rejected the move and ordered the tube removed. Congress then quickly passed a law calling for a federal district court in Florida to review the case to determine if Terri Schiavo's rights were being violated, but the federal judge in the case rejected the Schindlers' argument that her constitutional right to due process was being violated, a decision that was upheld on appeal. Terri Schiavo died on Mar. 31, 2005, less than two weeks after the feeding tube had been removed.

The case's generally straightforward original legal issues were obscured by the acrimony between Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers, whose belief that their daughter was not in a vegetative state, despite what most doctors said, was fueled by her reaction to stimuli, a condition not inconsistent with a vegetative state; she also was capable of breathing on her own. The case gradually became a media circus, but also was an often emotional political cause for conservative, mostly Republican political leaders and for persons opposed to abortion and euthanasia. On the other hand, many Americans were disturbed by the injection of elected government officials into what they saw as a private family matter, however embittered and complicated, and most legal experts and ultimately the courts as well regarded the legislative interventions as unsound law.

Sacco-Vanzetti Case. On Apr. 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Mass., and his guard were shot and killed by two men who escaped with over $15,000. It was thought from reports of witnesses that the murderers were Italians. Because Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had gone with two other Italians to a garage to claim a car that local police had connected with the crime, they were arrested. Both men were anarchists and feared deportation by the Dept. of Justice. Both had evaded the army draft. On their arrest they made false statements; both carried firearms; neither, however, had a criminal record, nor was there any evidence of their having had any of the money. In July, 1921, they were found guilty after a trial in Dedham, Mass. and sentenced to death. Many then believed that the conviction was unwarranted and had been influenced by the reputation of the accused as radicals when antiradical sentiment was running high. The conduct of the trial by Judge Webster Thayer was particularly criticized. Later much of the evidence against them was discredited. In 1927 when the Massachusetts supreme judicial court upheld the denial of a new trial, protest meetings were held and appeals were made to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller. He postponed the execution and appointed a committee to advise him. On Aug. 3 the governor announced that the judicial procedure in the trial had been correct. The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti on Aug. 22, 1927, was preceded by worldwide sympathy demonstrations. They were—and continue to be—widely regarded as martyrs. However, new ballistics tests conducted with modern equipment in 1961 seemed to prove conclusively that the pistol found on Sacco had been used to murder the guard. This has led some authorities to conclude that Sacco was probably guilty of the crime, but that Vanzetti was innocent. The case was the subject of Maxwell Anderson's play Gods of the Lightning and is reflected in his Winterset. It is also the subject of Upton Sinclair's novel Boston and of sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Rosenberg Case, in U.S. history, a lengthy and controversial espionage case. In 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Julius Rosenberg (1918-53), an electrical engineer who had worked (1940-45) for the U.S. army signal corps, and his wife Ethel (1916-53); they were indicted for conspiracy to transmit classified military information to the Soviet Union. In the trial that followed (Mar., 1951), the government charged that in 1944 and 1945 the Rosenbergs had persuaded Ethel's brother, David Greenglass—an employee at the Los Alamos atomic bomb project—to provide them and a third person, Harry Gold, with top-secret data on nuclear weapons. The chief evidence against the Rosenbergs came from Greenglass and his wife, Ruth.

Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty (1951) and received the death sentence; Morton Sobell, a codefendant, received a 30-year prison term, as did Harry Gold; and David Greenglass was later sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Despite many court appeals and pleas for executive clemency, the Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. They became the first U.S. civilians to suffer the death penalty in an espionage trial.

The case aroused much controversy. Many claimed that the political climate made a fair trial impossible and that the only seriously incriminating evidence had come from a confessed spy; others questioned the value of the information transmitted to the Soviet Union and argued that the death penalty was too severe. Communists in the United States and abroad organized a campaign to save the Rosenbergs and received the support of many liberals and religious leaders.

Dred Scott Case, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856-57. It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the federal territories. In 1834, Dred Scott, a black slave, personal servant to Dr. John Emerson, a U.S. army surgeon, was taken by his master from Missouri, a slave state, to Illinois, a free state, and thence to Fort Snelling (now in Minnesota) in Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. There he married before returning with Dr. Emerson to Missouri in 1838. After Emerson's death, Scott sued (1846) Emerson's widow for freedom for himself and his family (he had two children) on the ground that residence in a free state and then in a free territory had ended his bondage. He won his suit before a lower court in St. Louis, but the Missouri supreme court reversed the decision (thus reversing its own precedents). Scott's lawyers then maneuvered the case into the federal courts. Since J. F. A. Sanford, Mrs. Emerson's brother, was the legal administrator of her property and a resident of New York, the federal court accepted jurisdiction for the case on the basis of diversity of state citizenship. After a federal district court decided against Scott, the case came on appeal to the Supreme Court. In Feb., 1857, the court decided in conference to avoid completely the question of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise and to rule against Scott on the ground that under Missouri law as now interpreted by the supreme court of that state he remained a slave despite his previous residence in free territory. However, when it became known that two antislavery justices, John McLean and Benjamin R. Curtis, planned to write dissenting opinions vigorously upholding the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise (which had, in fact, been voided by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854), the court's Southern members, constituting the majority, decided to consider the whole question of federal power over slavery in the territories. They decided in the case of Scott v. Sandford (the name was misspelled in the formal reports) that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories, and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the court's opinion that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Three of the justices also held that a black "whose ancestors were … sold as slaves" was not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing in court. The court's verdict further inflamed the sectional controversy between North and South and was roundly denounced by the growing antislavery group in the North.

Dartmouth College Case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1819. The legislature of New Hampshire, in 1816, without the consent of the college trustees, amended the charter of 1769 to make Dartmouth College public. The trustees brought suit. Daniel Webster argued successfully that the amendment violated the Constitution because the state had impaired "the obligation of a contract." The opinion of the court, delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall, was that a charter was in effect inviolable. The decision made the contract clause of the Constitution a powerful instrument for the judicial protection of property rights against state abridgment. In 1837, Chief Justice Taney, while not challenging the basic principle, ruled in the Charles River Bridge Case that a legislative charter must be construed narrowly and a corporation could claim no implied rights beyond the specific terms of a grant.

Danbury Hatters' Case, decided in 1908 by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1902 the hatters' union instituted a nationwide boycott of the products of a nonunion hat manufacturer in Danbury, Conn., and the manufacturer brought suit against the union for unlawfully combining to restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Supreme Court held that the union was subject to an injunction and liable for the payment of treble damages. This precedent for federal court interference with labor activities was later modified by statutes.

Croswell case, U.S. court case involving freedom of the press. In 1803, Harry Croswell, the editor of the Wasp of Hudson, N.Y., was convicted of libeling President Thomas Jefferson in his newspaper. In his appeal of the conviction to the New York supreme court, Croswell was defended by Alexander Hamilton. In a famous brief, Hamilton argued that freedom of the press consisted in the right to print the truth, if with good motives and for justifiable ends, even if this truth reflected on "the government, magistracy or individuals." Although the court sustained the conviction, the legislature of New York incorporated Hamilton's position into law in 1805. It was the law of libel until 1964, when New York Times Company v. Sullivan expanded the protection of the press.

Charles River Bridge Case, decided in 1837 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Charles River Bridge Company had been granted (1785) a charter by the state of Massachusetts to operate a toll bridge. The state later authorized (1828) a competing bridge that would eventually be free to the public. The Charles River Bridge Company brought suit against the competing company, claiming that the state charter had given it a monopoly. The court upheld the state's authorization to the other company, holding that since the original charter did not specifically grant a monopoly, the ambiguity in the contract would operate in favor of the public, thus allowing a competing bridge. The holding modified the Dartmouth College Case, which held that a state could not unilaterally amend a charter.

Case Western Reserve University, at Cleveland; coeducational; est. 1967 through the merger of the Case Institute of Technology (chartered 1880, opened 1881) and Western Reserve Univ. (chartered and opened 1826). Case Western Reserve is made up of a liberal arts college, a school of graduate studies, an institute of science and technology, and six professional schools: law, dentistry, medicine, nursing, management, and social work. The university has an electronics design center and an observatory.

Bakke Case: see Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.