Follett v. Town of McCormick
E365013
First Amendment case
Jehovah’s Witnesses litigation
U.S. Supreme Court case
freedom of religion case
freedom of speech case
Follett v. Town of McCormick is a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a town could not impose a flat license tax on a Jehovah’s Witness who distributed religious literature as part of his ministry, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious expression.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Follett v. Town of McCormick canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3516430 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Follett v. Town of McCormick Context triple: [Murdock v. Pennsylvania, citedIn, Follett v. Town of McCormick]
-
A.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
B.
Town of Greece v. Galloway
Town of Greece v. Galloway is a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of opening town meetings with predominantly Christian prayers under the Establishment Clause.
-
C.
McDonald v. Smith
McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
-
D.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that Philadelphia violated a Catholic foster care agency’s religious freedom by excluding it from the foster program over its refusal to certify same-sex couples.
-
E.
City of Boerne v. Flores
City of Boerne v. Flores is a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court case that curtailed Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment and held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act could not be applied to the states.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Follett v. Town of McCormick Target entity description: Follett v. Town of McCormick is a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a town could not impose a flat license tax on a Jehovah’s Witness who distributed religious literature as part of his ministry, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious expression.
-
A.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
B.
Town of Greece v. Galloway
Town of Greece v. Galloway is a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of opening town meetings with predominantly Christian prayers under the Establishment Clause.
-
C.
McDonald v. Smith
McDonald v. Smith is a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case that held the First Amendment’s Petition Clause does not grant absolute immunity from libel suits for statements made in petitions to government officials.
-
D.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court unanimously ruled that Philadelphia violated a Catholic foster care agency’s religious freedom by excluding it from the foster program over its refusal to certify same-sex couples.
-
E.
City of Boerne v. Flores
City of Boerne v. Flores is a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court case that curtailed Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment and held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act could not be applied to the states.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (44)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment case
ⓘ
Jehovah’s Witnesses litigation ⓘ U.S. Supreme Court case ⓘ freedom of religion case ⓘ freedom of speech case ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
municipal license tax ordinances
ⓘ
regulation of religious literature distribution ⓘ |
| concernsLocation | Town of McCormick, South Carolina ⓘ |
| concernsPerson | a Jehovah’s Witness minister ⓘ |
| hasCountry |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| hasCourt | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| hasDecade | 1940s ⓘ |
| hasDecisionYear | 1944 ⓘ |
| hasImpact |
limited local governments’ ability to tax religious proselytizing activities
ⓘ
strengthened constitutional protection for door-to-door religious literature distribution ⓘ |
| hasJurisdiction | United States federal law ⓘ |
| hasLegalDoctrine | strict protection of religious proselytizing from flat license fees ⓘ |
| hasOutcome | municipal license tax ordinance held unconstitutional as applied ⓘ |
| hasParties |
Follett
ⓘ
Town of McCormick ⓘ |
| hasSubjectMatter |
constitutional law
ⓘ
freedom of expression ⓘ religious liberty ⓘ taxation and licensing ⓘ |
| held |
a town may not impose a flat license tax on a Jehovah’s Witness distributing religious literature as part of his ministry
ⓘ
flat license taxes on the distribution of religious literature as part of a ministry violate the First Amendment ⓘ religious literature distribution as part of a ministry is protected by the First Amendment ⓘ |
| involvesConstitutionalProvision | First Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| involvesIssue |
flat license tax on itinerant book sellers
ⓘ
license tax on religious literature distribution ⓘ regulation of religious colporteurs ⓘ |
| involvesReligiousGroup |
JehovahsWitnesses
ⓘ
surface form:
Jehovah’s Witnesses
|
| involvesRight |
free exercise of religion
ⓘ
freedom of speech ⓘ freedom of the press ⓘ |
| isCitedFor | the principle that religious colportage cannot be subjected to flat license taxes ⓘ |
| isCitedInField |
First Amendment jurisprudence
ⓘ
constitutional limitations on municipal taxation ⓘ law of religious liberty ⓘ |
| reinforces |
protections for evangelism by Jehovah’s Witnesses
ⓘ
protections for religious expression under the First Amendment ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Cantwell v. Connecticut
ⓘ
Jehovah’s Witnesses First Amendment cases ⓘ Murdock v. Pennsylvania ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Follett v. Town of McCormick Description of subject: Follett v. Town of McCormick is a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a town could not impose a flat license tax on a Jehovah’s Witness who distributed religious literature as part of his ministry, reinforcing First Amendment protections for religious expression.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.