The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court .

The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices.

When the cases in volume 165 were decided the Court comprised the following nine members: Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897), was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana statute for violating an individual's liberty of contract.

The decision was the beginning of the Lochner era[2] during which the Supreme Court struck many state regulations for infringing on an individual's right to contract.

The Lochner era lasted 40 years and ended with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish in 1937.