The Supreme Court seemed receptive to New Jersey’s argument on March 1 that it should be allowed to unilaterally withdraw from the interstate compact that created the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor to combat corruption.
The justices asked many questions that focused on what impact their ruling would have on other interstate compacts. Other questions reflected a basic principle of contract law, which is that one can party can end a contract on its own unless the contract specifies how it can be terminated.
Although the storied Port of New York and New Jersey’s reckoning with organized crime was immortalized in director Elia Kazan’s 1954 film, “On the Waterfront,” organized crime was driven out years ago and critics have long accused the commission of over-regulating businesses involved in the port and causing labor shortages….}