bill remained in doubt. Of note for the opposition was the testimony of Harvard University law professor Erwin Griswold. Specifically attacked by Griswold's testimony was the claim made by the administration that Roosevelt's court expansion plan had precedent in U.S. history and law. While it was true the size of the Supreme Court had been expanded since the founding in 1789, it had never been done for reasons similar to Roosevelt's. The following table lists all the expansions of the court: Another event damaging to the administration's case was a letter authored by Chief Justice Hughes to Senator Burton Wheeler, which directly contradicted Roosevelt's claim of an overworked Supreme Court turning down over 85 percent of certiorari petitions in an attempt to keep up with their docket. The truth of the matter, according to Hughes, was that rejections typically resulted from the defective nature of the petition, not from the court's docket load. White Monday On March 29, 1937, the court handed down three decisions upholding New Deal legislation, two of them unanimous: West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, Wright v. Vinton Branch, and Virginia Railway v. Federation. The Wright case upheld a new Frazier-Lemke Act which had been redrafted to meet the Court's objections in the Radford case; similarly, Virginia Railway case upheld labor regulations for the railroad industry, and is particularly notable for its foreshadowing of how the Wagner Act cases would be decided as the National Labor Relations Board was modeled on the Railway Labor Act contested in the case. Failure of reform legislation Van Devanter retires May 18, 1937 witnessed two setbacks for the administration. First, Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter—encouraged by the restoration of full-salary pensions under the March 1, 1937 Supreme Court Retirement Act (Public Law 75–10; Chapter 21 of the general statutes enacted in the 1st Session of the 75th Congress)—announced his intent to retire on June 2, 1937, the end of the term. This undercut one of Roosevelt's chief complaints against the court—he had not been given an opportunity in the entirety of his first term to make a nomination to the high court. It also presented Roosevelt with a personal dilemma: he had already long ago promised the first court vacancy to Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson. As Roosevelt had based his attack of the court upon the ages of the justices, appointing the 65-year-old Robinson would belie Roosevelt's stated