Regulation of the insurance industry began in the United States in the 1940s, through several United States Supreme Court rulings. The first ruling on insurance had taken place in 1868 (in the "Paul v. Virginia" ruling), with the Supreme Court ruling that insurance policy contracts were not in themselves commercial contracts and that insurance was not subject to federal regulation. This "judicial accident", as it has been called, influenced the development of state-level insurance regulation. This stance did not change until 1944 (in the "United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association" ruling ), when the Supreme Court upheld a ruling stating that policies were commercial, and thus were regulatable as other similar contracts were.