List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 116

This is a list of cases reported in volume 116 of United States Reports, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1885 and 1886.

Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of volume 116 U.S.
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. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices). Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).

When the cases in volume 116 U.S. were decided the Court comprised the following nine members:

Presser v. Illinois
In Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), the Supreme Court held "Unless restrained by their own constitutions, state legislatures may enact statutes to control and regulate all organizations, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations except those which are authorized by the militia laws of the United States". The Court decided that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution limited only the power of Congress and the national government to control firearms, not that of the states, and that the right to peaceably assemble stated in the First Amendment was not protected except to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Presser was overruled by the Supreme Court in 2010 via McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Boyd v. United States
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), arose when 35 cases of plate glass were seized at the Port of New York for unpaid import duties. To prove the case, the government compelled E.A. Boyd & Sons to produce their invoice from the Union Plate Glass Company of Liverpool, England. Boyd complied, but claimed the order was a form of self-incrimination. On appeal, the Supreme Court held that "a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers" and the search was "an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning" of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although never expressly overruled, some aspects of the Court's opinion in Boyd have been limited or negated by subsequent decisions.

Citation style
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.

Bluebook citation style is used for case names, citations, and jurisdictions.
 * "C.C.D." = United States Circuit Court for the District of . ..
 * e.g.,"C.C.D.N.J." = United States Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
 * "D." = United States District Court for the District of . ..
 * e.g.,"D. Mass." = United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
 * "E." = Eastern; "M." = Middle; "N." = Northern; "S." = Southern; "W." = Western
 * e.g.,"C.C.S.D.N.Y." = United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
 * e.g.,"M.D. Ala." = United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
 * "Ct. Cl." = United States Court of Claims
 * The abbreviation of a state's name alone indicates the highest appellate court in that state's judiciary at the time.
 * e.g.,"Pa." = Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
 * e.g.,"Me." = Supreme Judicial Court of Maine