Source: https://openjurist.org/226/us/192/purity-extract-tonic-company-v-c-c-lynch
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 12:31:58+00:00

Document:
Messrs. Marcellus Green, George D. Lancaster, G. W. Green, and Marcellus Green, Jr., for plaintiffs in error.
Messrs. Edward Mayes, Robert B. Mayes, and James R. McDowell for appellee.
This is an action for breach of contract. The Purity Extract & Tonic Company (plaintiff below), a Tennessee corporation, is the manufacturer of a bevereage called 'Poinsetta;' and in November, 1910, it made an agreement with the defendant, Lynch, for the purchase of the article by him on stated terms during the period of five years. The agreement contemplated resales by the defendant in Hinds county, Mississippi, to the making of which he was to devote his best efforts. It was provided that he was to sell only in that county, where he was to have the exclusive right of sale, for which he was to pay to the plaintiff the sum of $500 within five days after the making of the contract. It was to recover this amount that the action was brought, the defendant having repudiated the agreement at the outset, upon the ground that, on coming to Mississippi, he found it to be unlawful to sell 'Poinsetta' in that state. The trial court sustained the defense of illegality, and its judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of Mississippi. 100 Miss. 650, 56 So. 316.
The statute which the agreement has been held to violate is chapter 115 of the Laws of Mississippi of 1908, § 1, which includes in its prohibition the sale of malt liquors.
The plaintiff brings this writ of error, assailing the validity of the statute, as construed by the state court, (1) as an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce and (2) as depriving the plaintiff of its liberty and property without due process of law.
First. We do not find that the decision of the state court involves a denial of any right incident to interstate commerce. The contract, it is true, provided for purchases by the defendant from the plaintiff, the deliveries to be made at Chattanooga, Tennessee, for transportation to the defendant at Jackson, Mississippi. So far as appears, however, there were no purchases and no deliveries. The reason obviously is that the agreement looked to resales by the defendant in Hinds county. Finding that such sales would be against the local law, he refused performance in limine. The state court did not deny to the plaintiff the right to sell to the defendant, or to have its article transported and delivered to the defendant in interstate commerce. (Rhodes v. Iowa, 170 U. S. 412, 42 L. ed. 1088, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 664, Louisville & N. R. Co. v. F. W. Cook Brewing Co. 223 U. S. 70, 82, 56 L. ed. 355, 358, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 189.) It had no such question before it. This suit was brought to recover the amount which the defendant promised to pay for the exclusive right of making sales in Hinds county. In this aspect, the validity of the contract under the state law was to be judged by its provisions for sales within the state. The contract contained no suggestion that these sales were to be limited to those made in the original packages imported. Its provisions were broad enough to include other sales, and hence encountered the local statute as applied to transactions outside the protection accorded by the Federal Constitution to interstate commerce.
Nor is the contention of the plaintiff aided by the agreed statement of facts. This statement, in one of its clauses, says that there was to be 'no retail sale' by the defendant. Whatever this may mean in the light of the words of the contract, which contained no such limitation, it is clear that the defendant was not debarred from selling the bottles separately. On the contrary, the argument for the plaintiff is that 'each bottle,' brought into the state in cases as described, constitutes 'an original package.' As to this, it is to be noted that by the terms of the contract the agreed prices on the purchases by the defendant from the plaintiff were per cask containing 10 dozen bottles and per case containing 6 dozen bottles, respectively. In short, the plain purpose was that the defendant was to buy in casks and cases, and in the light of the transactions thus contemplated, and, as they would be normally conducted, between the plaintiff as manufacturer and the defendant as local dealer, it cannot be said that each separate bottle which he might sell in Hinds county must be considered as an original package, so as to save the sale from the interdiction of the state law. May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496, 44 L. ed. 1165, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 976; Austin v. Tennessee, 179 U. S. 343, 45 L. ed. 224, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 132; Cook v. Marshall County, 196 U. S. 261, 49 L. ed. 471, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 233. We are therefore not called upon to consider whether or not the Wilson act (August 8, 1890, chap. 728, 26 Stat. at L. 313, U. S. Comp Stat. 1901, p. 3177) governs in the case of such an article as 'Poinsetta,' and, confining ourselves to the issue presented, we express no opinion upon that point.
Second. Treating the matter, then, as one of local sales, the question is whether the prohibitory law of the state, as applied to a beverage of this sort, is in conflict with the 14th Amendment.
That the state, in the exercise of its police power, may prohibit the selling of intoxicating liquors, is undoubted. Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129, 21 L. ed. 929; Boston Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25, 24 L. ed. 989; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 31 L. ed. 205, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 273; Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U. S. 1, 32 L. ed. 346, 2 Inters. Com. Rep. 232, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 6; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, 34 L. ed. 620, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 13. It is also well established that, when a state exerting its recognized authority, undertakes to suppress what it is free to regard as a public evil, it may adopt such measures having reasonable relation to that end as it may deem necessary in order to make its action effective. It does not follow that because a transaction, separately considered, is innocuous, it may not be included in a prohibition the scope of which is regarded as essential in the legislative judgment to accomplish a purpose within the admitted power of the government. Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425, 46 L. ed. 623, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 425; Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606, 47 L. ed. 323, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 168; Ah Sin v. Wittman, 198 U. S. 500, 504, 49 L. ed. 1142, 1144, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 756; New York ex rel. Silz v. Hesterberg, 211 U. S. 31, 53 L. ed. 75, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 10; Murphy v. California, 225 U. S. 623, 56 L. ed. 1229, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 697. With the wisdom of the exercise of that judgment the court has no concern; and unless it clearly appears that the enactment has no substantial relation to a proper purpose, it cannot be said that the limit of legislative power has been transcended. To hold otherwise would be to substitute judicial opinion of expediency for the will of the legislature,—a notion foreign to our constitutional system.
It was competent for the legislature of Mississippi to recognize the difficulties besetting the administration of laws aimed at the prevention of traffic in intoxicants. It prohibited, among other things, the sale of 'malt liquors.' In thus dealing with a class of beverages which, in general, are regarded as intoxicating, it was not bound to resort to a discrimination with respect to ingredients and processes of manufacture which, in the endeavor to eliminate innocuous beverages from the condemnation, would facilitate subterfuges and frauds and fetter the enforcement of the law. A contrary conclusion, logically pressed, would save the nominal power while preventing its effective exercise. The statute establishes its own category. The question in this court is whether the legislature had power to establish it. The existence of this power, as the authorities we have cited abundantly demonstrate, is not to be denied simply because some innocent articles or transactions may be found within the proscribed class. The inquiry must be whether, considering the end in view, the statute passes the bounds of reason and assumes the character of a merely arbitrary fiat.
That the opinion is extensively held that a general prohibition of the sale of malt liquors, whether intoxicating or not, is a necessary means to the suppression of trade in intoxicants, sufficiently appears from the legislation of other states and the decision of the courts in its construction. State v. O'Connell, 99 Me. 61, 58 Atl. 59; State v. Jenkins, 64 N. H. 375, 10 Atl. 699; State v. York, 74 N. H. 125, 127, 65 Atl. 685, 13 Ann Cas. 116; State ex rel. Guilbert v. Kauffman, 68 Ohio St. 635, 67 N. E. 1062; Luther v. State, 83 Neb. 455, 20 L.R.A.(N.S.) 1146, 120 N. W. 125; Pennell v. State, 141 Wis. 35, 123 N. W. 115. We cannot say that there is no basis for this widespread conviction.
The state, within the limits we have stated, must decide upon the measures that are needful for the protection of its people, and, having regard to the artifices which are used to promote the sale of intoxicants under the guise of innocent beverages, it would constitute an unwarrantable departure from accepted principle to hold that the prohibition of the sale of all malt liquors, including the beverage in question, was beyond its reserved power.

References: § 1
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.