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NEBBIA V. NEW YORK, 291 U. S. 502 - Volume 291 - 1934 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 291 > NEBBIA V. NEW YORK, 291 U. S. 502 (1934) > Full Text
NEBBIA V. NEW YORK, 291 U. S. 502 (1934)
1. As a basis for attacking a discriminatory regulation of prices, under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the party complaining must show that he himself is adversely affected by it. P. 291 U. S. 520.
2. A regulation fixing the price at which storekeepers may buy milk from milk dealers at a higher figure than that allowed dealers in buying from producers, and allowing dealers a higher price than it allows storekeepers in sales to consumers, held consistent with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because of the distinctions between the two classes of merchants. P. 291 U. S. 521.
4. The use of private property and the making of private contracts are, as a general rule, free from governmental interference; but they are subject to public regulation when the public need requires. P. 291 U. S. 523.
5. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment conditions the exertion of regulatory power by requiring that the end shall be accomplished by methods consistent with due process, that the regulation shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained. P. 291 U. S. 525.
6. It results that a regulation valid for one sort of business, or in given circumstances, may be invalid for another sort, or for the same business under other circumstances, because the reasonableness of each regulation depends upon the relevant facts. P. 291 U. S. 525.
8. There is no principle limiting price regulation to businesses which are public utilities, or which have a monopoly or enjoy a public grant or franchise. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. P. 291 U. S. 531.
9. To say that property is "clothed with a public interest," or an industry is "affected with a public interest," means that the property or the industry, for adequate reason, is subject to control for the public good. Pp. 291 U. S. 531-536.
10. There is no closed class or category of businesses affected with a public interest, and the function of courts in the application of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is to determine in each case whether circumstances vindicate the challenged regulation as a reasonable exertion of governmental authority or condemn it as arbitrary or discriminatory. P. 291 U. S. 536.
11. Decisions denying the power to control prices in businesses found not to be "affected with a public interest" or "clothed with a public use" must rest finally upon the basis that the requirements of due process were not met because the laws were found arbitrary in their operation and effect. P. 291 U. S. 536.
12. So far as the requirement of due process is concerned, and in the absence of other constitutional restriction, a State is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose. The courts are without authority either to declare such policy, or, when it is declared by the legislature, to override it. If the laws passed are seen to have a reasonable relation to a proper legislative purpose, and are neither arbitrary nor discriminatory, the requirements of due process are satisfied, and judicial determination to that effect renders a court functus officio. P. 291 U. S. 503.
13. The legislature is primarily the judge of the necessity of such an enactment; every possible presumption is in favor of its validity, and though the court may think the enactment unwise, it may not be annulled unless palpably in excess of legislative power. P. 291 U. S. 537.
14. If the lawmaking body, within its sphere of government, concludes that the conditions or practices in an industry make unrestricted competition an inadequate safeguard of the consumer's interests, produce waste harmful to the public, threaten ultimately to cut off the supply of a commodity needed by the public, or portend the destruction of the industry itself, appropriate statutes passed in an honest effort to correct the threatened consequences may not be set aside because the regulation adopted fixes prices -- reasonably deemed by the legislature to be fair to those engaged in the industry and to the consuming public. P. 291 U. S. 538.
15. This is especially clear where the economic maladjustment is one of price, which threatens harm to the producer at one end of the series, and the consumer, at the other. P. 291 U. S. 538.
16. The Constitution does not secure to anyone liberty to conduct his business in such fashion as to inflict injury upon the public at large, or upon any substantial group of people. P. 291 U. S. 539.
17. Price control, like any other form of regulation, is unconstitutional only if arbitrary, discriminatory, or demonstrably irrelevant to the policy the legislature is free to adopt, and hence an unnecessary and unwarranted interference with individual liberty. P. 291 U. S. 539.
The Legislature of New York established, by Chapter 158 of the Laws of 1933, a Milk Control Board with power, among other things, to "fix minimum and maximum . . . retail prices to be charged by . . . stores to consumers for consumption off the premises where sold." The Board fixed nine cents as the price to be charged by a store for a quart of milk. Nebbia, the proprietor of a grocery store in Rochester, sold two quarts and a five cent loaf of bread for eighteen cents, and was convicted for violating the Board's order. At his trial, he asserted the statute and order contravene the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and renewed the contention in successive appeals to the county court and the Court of Appeals. Both overruled his claim and affirmed the conviction. [Footnote 1]
So long as the surplus burden is unequally distributed, the pressure to market surplus milk in fluid form will be a serious disturbing factor. The fact that the larger distributors find it necessary to carry large quantities of surplus milk, while the smaller distributors do not, leads to price-cutting and other forms of destructive competition. Smaller distributors, who take no responsibility for the surplus, by purchasing their milk at the blended prices (i.e., an average between the price paid the producer for milk for sale as fluid milk, and the lower surplus milk price paid by the larger organizations) can undersell the larger distributors. Indulgence in this price-cutting often compels the larger dealer to cut the price, to his own and the producer's detriment.
The legislature adopted Chapter 158 as a method of correcting the evils, which the report of the committee showed could not be expected to right themselves through the ordinary play of the forces of supply and demand, owing to the peculiar and uncontrollable factors affecting the industry. The provisions of the statute are summarized in the margin. [Footnote 2]
five cents per pint, and to resell at not less than nine and six, whereas the same dealer may buy his supply from a farmer at lower prices and deliver milk to consumers at ten cents the quart and six cents the pint. We think the contention that the discrimination deprives the appellant of equal protection is not well founded. For aught that appears, the appellant purchased his supply of milk from a farmer as do distributors, or could have procured it from a farmer, if he so desired. There is therefore no showing that the order placed him at a disadvantage, or, in fact, affected him adversely, and this alone is fatal to the claim of denial of equal protection. But if it were shown that the appellant is compelled to buy from a distributor, the difference in the retail price he is required to charge his customers, from that prescribed for sales by distributors, is not, on its face, arbitrary or unreasonable, for there are obvious distinctions between the two sorts of merchants which may well justify a difference of treatment, if the legislature possesses the power to control the prices to be charged for fluid milk. Compare American Sugar Refining Co. v. Louisiana, 179 U. S. 89; Brown-Forman Co. v. Kentucky, 217 U. S. 563; State Board of Tax Commissioners v. Jackson, 283 U. S. 527.
Save the conduct of railroads, no business has been so thoroughly regimented and regulated by the State of New York as the milk industry. Legislation controlling it in the interest of the public health was adopted in 1862, [Footnote 3] and subsequent statutes [Footnote 4] have been carried into the general
codification known as the Agriculture and Markets Law. [Footnote 5] A perusal of these statutes discloses that the milk industry has been progressively subjected to a larger measure of control. [Footnote 6] The producer or dairy farmer is in certain circumstances liable to have his herd quarantined against bovine tuberculosis; is limited in the importation of dairy cattle to those free from Bang's disease; is subject to rules governing the care and feeding of his cows and the care of the milk produced, the condition and surroundings of his barns and buildings used for production of milk, the utensils used, and the persons employed in milking (§§ 46, 47, 55, 72-88). Proprietors of milk gathering stations or processing plants are subject to regulation (§ 54), and persons in charge must operate under license and give bond to comply with the law and regulations; must keep records, pay promptly for milk purchased, abstain from false or misleading statements and from combinations to fix prices (§§ 57, 57a, 252). In addition, there is a large volume of legislation intended to promote cleanliness and fair trade practices, affecting all who are engaged in the industry. [Footnote 7] The challenged amendment
Under our form of government, the use of property and the making of contracts are normally matters of private, and not of public, concern. The general rule is that both shall be free of governmental interference. But neither property rights [Footnote 8] nor contract rights [Footnote 9] are absolute, for government cannot exist if the citizen may at will use his property to the detriment of his fellows, or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental with the private right is that of the public to regulate it in the common interest. As Chief Justice Marshall said, speaking specifically of inspection laws, such laws form
"a portion of that immense mass of legislation which embraces every thing within the territory of a State . . . , all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State . . . are component parts of this mass. [Footnote 10]"
That all those powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what may, perhaps, more properly be called internal police, are not thus surrendered or restrained, and that, consequently, in relation to these, the authority of a state is complete, unqualified, and exclusive. [Footnote 11]"
"But what are the police powers of a State? They are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty to the extent of its dominions. And whether a State passes a quarantine law, or a law to punish offences, or to establish courts of justice, or requiring certain instruments to be recorded, or to regulate commerce within its own limits, in every case, it exercises the same powers -- that is to say, the power of sovereignty, the power to govern men and things within the limits of its dominion. It is by virtue of this power that it legislates, and its authority to make regulations of commerce is as absolute as its power to pass health laws, except insofar as it has been restricted by the constitution of the United States. [Footnote 12]"
Thus has this court, from the early days, affirmed that the power to promote the general welfare is inherent in government. Touching the matters committed to it by the Constitution, the United States possesses the power, [Footnote 13] as do the states in their sovereign capacity touching all subjects jurisdiction of which is not surrendered to the federal government, as shown by the quotations above given. These correlative rights, that of the citizen to exercise exclusive dominion over property and freely to contract about his affairs and that of the state to regulate the use of property and the conduct of business, are always in collision. No exercise of the private right can be
The Fifth Amendment, in the field of federal activity, [Footnote 14] and the Fourteenth, as respects state action, [Footnote 15] do not prohibit governmental regulation for the public welfare. They merely condition the exertion of the admitted power by securing that the end shall be accomplished by methods consistent with due process. And the guaranty of due process, as has often been held, demands only that the law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a real and substantial relation to the object sought to be attained. It results that a regulation valid for one sort of business, or in given circumstances, may be invalid for another sort or for the same business under other circumstances, because the reasonableness of each regulation depends upon the relevant facts.
The court has repeatedly sustained curtailment of enjoyment of private property in the public interest. The owner's rights may be subordinated to the needs of other private owners whose pursuits are vital to the paramount interests of the community. [Footnote 16] The state may control the
use of property in various ways; may prohibit advertising billboards except of a prescribed size and location, [Footnote 17] or their use for certain kinds of advertising; [Footnote 18] may in certain circumstances authorize encroachments by party walls in cities; [Footnote 19] may fix the height of buildings, the character of materials, and methods of construction, the adjoining area which must be left open, and may exclude from residential sections offensive trades, industries and structures likely injuriously to affect the public health or safety; [Footnote 20] or may establish zones within which certain types of buildings or businesses are permitted and others excluded. [Footnote 21] And although the Fourteenth Amendment extends protection to aliens as well as citizens, [Footnote 22] a state may for adequate reasons of policy exclude aliens altogether from the use and occupancy of land. [Footnote 23]
Laws passed for the suppression of immorality, in the interest of health, to secure fair trade practices, and to safeguard the interests of depositors in banks, have been found consistent with due process. [Footnote 24] These measures not
only affected the use of private property, but also interfered with the right of private contract. Other instances are numerous where valid regulation has restricted the right of contract, while less directly affecting property rights. [Footnote 25]
pleases. Certain kinds of business may be prohibited; [Footnote 26] and the right to conduct a business, or to pursue a calling, may be conditioned. [Footnote 27] Regulation of a business to prevent waste of the state's resources may be justified. [Footnote 28] And statutes prescribing the terms upon which those conducting certain businesses may contract, or imposing terms if they do enter into agreements, are within the state's competency. [Footnote 29]
Legislation concerning sales of goods, and incidentally affecting prices, has repeatedly been held valid. In this class fall laws forbidding unfair competition by the charging of lower prices in one locality than those exacted in another, [Footnote 30] by giving trade inducement to purchasers, [Footnote 31] and by other forms of price discrimination. [Footnote 32] The public policy with respect to free competition has engendered state and federal statutes prohibiting monopolies, [Footnote 33] which have been upheld. On the other hand, where the policy of the state dictate that a monopoly should be granted, statutes having that effect have been held inoffensive to the constitutional guarantees. [Footnote 34] Moreover, the state or a municipality may itself enter into business in competition with private proprietor, and thus effectively
although indirectly control the prices charged by them. [Footnote 35]
maladjustments by legislation touching prices? We think there is no such principle. The due process clause makes no mention of sales or of prices any more than it speaks of business or contracts or buildings or other incidents of property. The thought seems nevertheless to have persisted that there is something peculiarly sacrosanct about the price one may charge for what he makes or sells, and that, however able to regulate other elements of manufacture or trade, with incidental effect upon price, the state is incapable of directly controlling the price itself. This view was negatived many years ago. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. The appellant's claim is, however, that this court, in there sustaining a statutory prescription of charges for storage by the proprietors of a grain elevator, limited permissible legislation of that type to businesses affected with a public interest, and he says no business is so affected except it have one or more of the characteristics he enumerates. But this is a misconception. Munn and Scott held no franchise from the state. They owned the property upon which their elevator was situated, and conducted their business as private citizens. No doubt they felt at liberty to deal with whom they pleased, and on such terms as they might deem just to themselves. Their enterprise could not fairly be called a monopoly, although it was referred to in the decision as a "virtual monopoly." This meant only that their elevator was strategically situated, and that a large portion of the public found it highly inconvenient to deal with others. This court concluded the circumstances justified the legislation as an exercise of the governmental right to control the business in the public interest; that is, as an exercise of the police power. It is true that the court cited a statement from Lord Hale's De Portibus Maris, to the effect that, when private property is "affected with a public interest, it ceases to be juris privati only"; but the court proceeded at once to define what it understood by
"From this, it is apparent that, down to the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was not supposed that statutes regulating the use, or even the price of the use, of private property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due process of law. Under some circumstances, they may, but not under all. The amendment does not change the law in this particular; it simply prevents the States from doing that which will operate as such a deprivation. [Footnote 36]"
In the same volume, the court sustained regulation of railroad rates. [Footnote 37] After referring to the fact that railroads are carriers for hire, are incorporated as such, and given extraordinary powers in order that they may better serve the public, it was said that they are engaged in employment " affecting the public interest," and therefore, under the doctrine of the Munn case, subject to legislative control as to rates. And in another of the group of railroad cases then heard, [Footnote 38] it was said that the property of railroads is "clothed with a public interest" which permits legislative limitation of the charges for its use. Plainly, the activities of railroads, their charges and practices, so nearly touch the vital economic interests of society that the police power may be invoked to regulate their charges, and no additional formula of affection or clothing with a public interest is needed to justify the regulation. And this is evidently true of all business units supplying transportation, light, heat, power and water to communities, irrespective of how they obtain their powers.
North Dakota, 153 U. S. 391, a similar control of prices of grain elevators was upheld in spite of overwhelming and uncontradicted proof that about six hundred grain elevators existed along the line of the Great Northern Railroad, in North Dakota; that, at the very station where the defendant's elevator was located, two others operated, and that the business was keenly competitive throughout the state.
In German Alliance Insurance Co. v. Lewis, 233 U. S. 389, a statute fixing the amount of premiums for fire insurance was held not to deny due process. Though the business of the insurers depended on no franchise or grant from the state, and there was no threat of monopoly, two factors rendered the regulation reasonable. These were the almost universal need of insurance protection and the fact that, while the insurers competed for the business, they all fixed their premiums for similar risks according to an agreed schedule of rates. The court was at pains to point out that it was impossible to lay down any sweeping and general classification of businesses as to which price-regulation could be adjudged arbitrary or the reverse.
Many other decisions show that the private character of a business does not necessarily remove it from the realm of regulation of charges or prices. The usury laws fix the price which may be exacted for the use of money, although no business more essentially private in character can be imagined than that of loaning one's personal funds. Griffith v. Connecticut, 218 U. S. 563. Insurance agents' compensation may be regulated, though their contracts are private, because the business of insurance is considered one properly subject to public control. O'Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 282 U. S. 251. Statutes prescribing in the public interest the amounts to be charged by attorneys for prosecuting certain claims, a matter ordinarily one of personal and private nature,
are not a deprivation of due process. Frisbie v. United States, 157 U. S. 160; Capital Trust Co. v. Calhoun, 250 U. S. 208; Calhoun v. Massie, 253 U. S. 170; Newman v. Moyers, 253 U. S. 182; Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U. S. 540; Margolin v. United States, 269 U. S. 93. A stockyards corporation, "while not a common carrier, nor engaged in any distinctively public employment, is doing a work in which the public has an interest," and its charges may be controlled. Cotting v. Kansas City Stockyards Co., 183 U. S. 79, 183 U. S. 85. Private contract carriers, who do not operate under a franchise, and have no monopoly of the carriage of goods or passengers, may, since they use the highways to compete with railroads, be compelled to charge rates not lower than those of public carriers for corresponding services, if the state, in pursuance of a public policy to protect the latter, so determines. Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 287 U. S. 274.
It is clear that there is no closed class or category of businesses affected with a public interest, and the function of courts in the application of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is to determine in each case whether circumstances vindicate the challenged regulation as a reasonable exertion of governmental authority or condemn it as arbitrary or discriminatory. Wolff Packing Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S. 522, 262 U. S. 535. The phrase "affected with a public interest " can, in the nature of things, mean no more than that an industry, for adequate reason, is subject to control for the public good. In several of the decisions of this court wherein the expressions "affected with a public interest" and "clothed with a public use" have been brought forward as the criteria of the validity of price control, it has been admitted that they are not susceptible of definition and form an unsatisfactory test of the constitutionality of legislation directed at business practices or prices. These decisions must rest, finally, upon the basis that the requirements of due process were
not met, because the laws were found arbitrary in their operation and effect. [Footnote 39] But there can be no doubt that, upon proper occasion and by appropriate measures, the state may regulate a business in any of its aspects, including the prices to be charged for the products or commodities it sells.
Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 193 U. S. 337-338. And it is equally clear that, if the legislative policy be to curb unrestrained and harmful competition by measures which are not arbitrary or discriminatory, it does not lie with the courts to determine that the rule is unwise. With the wisdom of the policy adopted, with the adequacy or practicability of the law enacted to forward it, the courts are both incompetent and unauthorized to deal. The course of decision in this court exhibits a firm adherence to these principles. Times without number, we have said that the legislature is primarily the judge of the necessity of such an enactment,
that every possible presumption is in favor of its validity, and that, though the court may hold views inconsistent with the wisdom of the law, it may not be annulled unless palpably in excess of legislative power. [Footnote 40]
The lawmaking bodies have in the past endeavored to promote free competition by laws aimed at trusts and monopolies. The consequent interference with private property and freedom of contract has not availed with the courts to set these enactments aside as denying due process. [Footnote 41] Where the public interest was deemed to require the fixing of minimum prices, that expedient has been sustained. [Footnote 42] If the lawmaking body, within its sphere of government, concludes that the conditions or practices in an industry make unrestricted competition an inadequate safeguard of the consumer's interests, [Footnote 43] produce waste harmful to the public, threaten ultimately to cut off the supply of a commodity needed by the public, or portend the destruction of the industry itself, appropriate statutes passed in an honest effort to correct the threatened consequences may not be set aside because the regulation adopted fixes prices reasonably deemed by the legislature to be fair to those engaged in the industry and to the consuming public. And this is especially so where, as here, the economic maladjustment is one of price, which threatens harm to the producer at one end of the series and the consumer at the other. The Constitution does
Many of these regulations have been unsuccessfully challenged on constitutional grounds. See People v. Cipperly, 101 N.Y. 634, 4 N.E. 107; People v. Hill, 44 Hun 472; People v. West, 106 N.Y. 293, 12 N.E. 610; People v. Kibler, 106 N.Y. 321, 12 N.E. 795; People v. Hills, 64 App.Div. 584, 72 N.Y.S. 340; People v. Bowen, 182 N.Y. 1; 74 N.E. 489; Lieberman v. Van de Carr, 199 U. S. 552; St. John v. New York, 201 U. S. 633; People v. Koster, 121 App.Div. 852, 106 N.Y.S. 793; People v. Abramson, 208 N.Y. 138, 101 N.E. 849; People v. Frudenberg, 209 N.Y. 218, 103 N.E. 166; People v. Beakes Dairy Co., 222 N.Y. 416, 119 N.E. 115; People v. Teuscher, 248 N.Y. 454, 162 N.E. 484; People v. Perretta, 253 N.Y. 305; 171 N.E. 72; People v. Ryan, 230 App.Div. 252, 243 N.Y.S. 644; Mintz v. Baldwin, 289 U. S. 346.
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 94 U. S. 124, 94 U. S. 125; Orient Ins. Co. v. Daggs, 172 U. S. 557, 172 U. S. 566; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 193 U. S. 351, and see the cases cited in notes 16-23 infra.
Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, 165 U. S. 591; Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186, 219 U. S. 202; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, 219 U. S. 567; Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 287 U. S. 274.
Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 22 U. S. 203.
New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 36 U. S. 139.
United States v. Dewitt, 9 Wall. 41; Gloucester Ferry Co. v. Pennsylvania, 114 U. S. 196, 114 U. S. 215.
Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211, 175 U. S. 228-229.
Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 113 U. S. 31; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Drainage Comm'rs, 200 U. S. 561, 200 U. S. 592.
Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361; Strickley v. Highland Boy Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527.
Cusack Co. v. Chicago, 242 U. S. 526; St. Louis Poster Advertising Co. v. St. Louis, 249 U. S. 269.
Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 U. S. 105.
Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22.
Fischer v. St. Louis, 194 U. S. 361; Welch v. Swasey, 214 U. S. 91; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U. S. 394; Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171.
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365; Zahn v. Board of Public Works, 274 U. S. 325; Gorieb v. Fox, 274 U. S. 603.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 118 U. S. 369.
Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U. S. 197; Webb v. O'Brien, 263 U. S. 313.
Forbidding transmission of lottery tickets, Lottery Case, 188 U. S. 321; transportation of prize fight films, Weber v. Freed, 239 U. S. 325; the shipment of adulterated food, Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U. S. 45; transportation of women for immoral purposes, Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470; transportation of intoxicating liquor, Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U. S. 311; requiring the public weighing of grain, Merchants Exchange v. Missouri, 248 U. S. 365; regulating the size and weight of loaves of bread, Schmidinger v. Chicago, 226 U. S. 578; Petersen. Baking Co. v. Bryan, 290 U. S. 570; regulating the size and character of packages in which goods are sold, Armour & Co. v. North Dakota, 240 U. S. 510; regulating sales in bulk of a stock in trade, Lemieux v. Young, 211 U. S. 489; Kidd, Dater & Price Co. v. Musselman Grocer Co., 217 U. S. 461; sales of stocks and bonds, Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U. S. 539; Merrick v. Halsey & Co., 242 U. S. 568; requiring fluid milk offered for sale to be tuberculin tested, Adams v. Milwaukee, 228 U. S. 572; regulating sales of grain by actual weight, and abrogating exchange rules to the contrary, House v. Mayes, 219 U. S. 270; subjecting state banks to assessments for a state depositors' guarantee fund, Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104.
Prescribing hours of labor in particular occupations, Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366; B. & O. R. Co. v. I.C.C., 221 U. S. 612; Bunting v. Oregon, 243 U. S. 426; prohibiting child labor, Sturges & Burn Co. v. Beauchamp, 231 US. 320; forbidding night work by women, Radice v. New York, 264 U. S. 292; reducing hours of labor for women, Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412; Riley v. Massachusetts, 232 U. S. 671; Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373; fixing the time for payment of seamen's wages, Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169; Strathearn S.S. Co. v. Dillon, 252 U. S. 348; of wages of railroad employes, St. Louis, I. M. & St.P. Ry. Co. v. Paul, 173 U. S. 404; Erie R. Co. v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685; regulating the redemption of store orders issued for wages, Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 US. 13; Keokee Consolidated Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U. S. 224; regulating the assignment of wages, Mutual Loan Co. v. Martell, 222 US. 225; requiring payment for coal mined on a fixed basis other than that usually practiced, McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539; Rail & River Coal Co. v. Yaple, 236 U. S. 38; establishing a system of compulsory workmen's compensation, New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219.
Sales of stock or grain on margin, Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425; Brodnax v. Missouri, 219 U. S. 285; Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606; the conduct of pool and billiard rooms by aliens, Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392; the conduct of billiard and pool rooms by anyone, Murphy v. California, 225 U. S. 623; the sale of liquor, Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623; the business of soliciting claims by one not an attorney, McCloskey v. Tobin, 252 U. S. 107; manufacture or sale of oleomargarine, Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678; hawking and peddling of drugs or medicines, Baccus v. Louisiana, 232 U. S. 334; forbidding any other than a corporation to engage in the business of receiving deposits, Dillingham v. McLaughlin, 264 U. S. 370, or any other than corporations to do a banking business, Shallenberger v. First State Bank, 219 U. S. 114.
Physicians, Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114; Watson v. Maryland, 218 U. S. 173; Crane v. Johnson, 242 U. S. 339; Hayman v. Galveston, 273 U. S. 414; dentists, Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165; Graves v. Minnesota, 272 U. S. 425; employment agencies, Brazee v. Michigan, 241 U. S. 340; public weighers of grain, Merchants Exchange v. Missouri, 248 U. S. 365; real estate brokers, Bratton v. Chandler, 260 U. S. 110; insurance agents, La Tourette v. McMaster, 248 U. S. 465; insurance companies, German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Lewis, 233 U. S. 389; the sale of cigarettes, Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U. S. 183; the sale of spectacles, Roschen v. Ward, 279 U. S. 337; private detectives, Lehon v. Atlanta, 242 U. S. 53; grain brokers, Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262 U.S. l; business of renting automobiles to be used by the renter upon the public streets, Hodge Co. v. Cincinnati, 284 U. S. 335.
Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Comm'n, 286 U. S. 210. Compare Bandini Petroleum Co. v. Superior Court, 284 U. S. 8, 284 U. S. 21-22.
Contracts of carriage, Atlantic Coast Line v. Riverside Mills, 219 U. S. 186; agreements substituting relief or insurance payments for actions for negligence, Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549; affecting contracts of insurance, Orient Ins. Co. v. Daggs, 172 US. 557; Whitfield v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 205 U. S. 489; National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Wanberg, 260 U. S. 71; Hardware Dealers Mut. F. I. Co. v. Glidden Co., 284 U. S. 151; contracts for sale of real estate, Selover, Bates & Co. v. Walsh, 226 U. S. 112; contracts for sale of farm machinery, Advance-Rumely Co. v. Jackson, 287 U. S. 283; bonds for performance of building contracts, Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Nelson Mfg. Co., 291 U. S. 352.
Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 226 U. S. 157.
Rast v. Van Deman & Lewis Co., 240 U. S. 342.
Van Camp & Sons Co. v. American Can Co., 278 U. S. 245.
State statutes: Smiley v. Kansas, 196 U. S. 447; National Cotton Oil Co. v. Texas, 197 U. S. 115; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), 212 U. S. 86; Hammond Packing Co. v. Arkansas, 212 U. S. 322; Grenada Lumber Co. v. Mississippi, 217 U. S. 433; International Harvester Co. v. Missouri, 234 U. S. 199.
Federal statutes: United States v. Joint Traffic Assn., 171 U. S. 505, 171 U. S. 559, 171 U. S. 571-573; Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211, 175 U. S. 228-229; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 193 U. S. 332; United Shoe Mach. Corp. v. United States, 258 U. S. 451, 258 U. S. 462-464.
Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Conway v. Taylor's Executor, 1 Black 603; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86.
Madera Water Works v. Madera, 228 U. S. 454; Jones v. Portland, 245 U. S. 217; Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233; Standard Oil Co. v. Lincoln, 275 U.S. 504.
Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155. It will be noted that the emphasis is here reversed, and the carrier is said to be in a business affecting the public, not that the business is somehow affected by an interest of the public
Peik v. C. & N.W. Ry. Co., 94 U. S. 164.
See Wolff Packing Co. v. Industrial Court, supra; Tyson & Bro. v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418; Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U. S. 350; Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235.
See McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539, 211 U. S. 547; Tanner v. Little, 240 U. S. 369, 240 U. S. 385; Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233, 253 U. S. 240; O'Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 282 U. S. 251, 282 U. S. 257-258; Gant v. Oklahoma City, 289 U. S. 98, 289 U. S. 102.
Public Service Comm'n v. Great Northern Utilities Co., 289 U. S. 130; Stephenson v. Binford, supra. See the Transportation Act, 1920, 41 Stat. 456, §§ 418, 422, amending § 15 of the Interstate Commerce Act, and compare Anchor Coal Co. v. United States, 25 F.2d 462; New England Divisions Case, 261 U. S. 184, 261 U. S. 190, 261 U. S. 196.
This is the vital distinction pointed out in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann (285 U.S. 262, 285 U. S. 277). . . ."
"We are accustomed to rate regulation in cases of public utilities and other analogous cases, and to the extension of such regulative power into similar fields. . . . This case, for example, may be distinguished from the Oklahoma ice case (New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 285 U. S. 277), holding that the business of manufacturing and selling ice cannot be made a public business, to which it bears a general resemblance. The New York law creates no monopoly; does not restrict production; was adopted to meet an emergency; milk is a greater family necessity than ice. . . . Mechanical concepts of jurisprudence make easy a decision on the strength of seeming authority. . . ."
Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398. Sixty years ago, in Milligan's case, this Court declared it inimical to Constitutional government, and did "write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it."
Ex parte Milligan (1866), 4 Wall. 2, 71 U. S. 120.
Adams v. Tanner, 244 U. S. 590, condemned a Washington initiative measure which undertook to destroy the business of private employment agencies because it unduly restricted individual liberty. We there said --
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, held ineffective an ordinance which forbade negroes to reside in a city block where most of the houses were occupied by whites.
Southern Ry. Co. v. Virginia, 290 U. S. 190, 290 U. S. 196 --
Akins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525, 261 U. S. 545.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 262 U. S. 399, held invalid a State enactment (1919) which forbade the teaching in schools of any language other than English.
Schlesinger v. Wisconsin, 270 U. S. 230, 270 U. S. 240. "The State is forbidden to deny due process of law or the equal protection of the laws for any purpose whatsoever."
Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697, overthrew a Minnesota statute designed to protect the public against obvious evils incident to the business of regularly publishing malicious, scandalous and defamatory matters, because of conflict with the XIV Amendment.
In the following, among many other cases, much consideration has been given to this subject. United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81, 255 U. S. 88; Wolff Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S. 522, and 267 U. S. 267 U.S. 552; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Tyson & Bro. v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418; Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota, 274 U. S. 1; Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U. S. 350; Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378. All stand in opposition to the views apparently approved below.
Block v. Hirsh, 256 U. S. 135 and Marcus Brown Holding Co. v. Feldman, 256 U. S. 170, are much relied on to support emergency legislation. They were civil proceedings; the first to recover a leased building in the District of
Columbia; the second to gain possession of an apartment house in New York. The unusual conditions grew out of the World War. The questioned statutes made careful provision for protection of owners. These cases were analyzed, and their inapplicability to circumstances like the ones before us was pointed out, in Tyson & Bro. v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418. They involved peculiar facts, and must be strictly limited. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 260 U. S. 416, said of them --
Is the milk business so affected with public interest that the Legislature may prescribe prices for sales by stores? This Court has approved the contrary view; has emphatically declared that a State lacks power to fix prices in similar private businesses. United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81; Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525; Wolff Packing Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S. 522; Tyson & Bro. v. Banton, 273 U. S. 418; Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota, 274 U.S. l; Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U. S. 350; Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235; New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262; Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 287 U. S. 396.
Wolff Packing Co. v. Industrial Court, 262 U. S. 522, 262 U. S. 537. -- Here, the State's statute undertook to destroy the freedom to contract by parties engaged in so-called "essential" industries. This Court held that she had no such power.
On a second appeal, 267 U. S. 267 U.S. 552, 267 U. S. 569, the same doctrine was restated:
Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota, 274 U. S. 1, 274 U. S. 9. -- A statute commanded buyers of cream to adhere to uniform prices fixed by a single transaction. --
Williams v. Standard Oil Co., 278 U. S. 235, 278 U. S. 239. -- The State of Tennessee was declared without power to prescribe prices at which gasoline might be sold.
New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 285 U. S. 277. -- Here, Oklahoma undertook the control of the business of manufacturing and selling ice. We denied the power so to do.
of the fundamental right which one has to conduct his own affairs honestly, and along customary lines. The argument advanced here would support general prescription of prices for farm products, groceries, shoes, clothing, all the necessities of modern civilization, as well as labor, when some legislature finds and declares such action advisable, and for the public good. This Court has declared that a State may not, by legislative fiat, convert a private business into a public utility. Michigan Comm'n v. Duke, 266 U. S. 570, 266 U. S. 577. Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Comm'n, 271 U. S. 583, 271 U. S. 592. Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U. S. 553, 283 U. S. 563. And if it be now ruled that one dedicates his property to public use whenever he embarks on an enterprise which the Legislature may think it desirable to bring under control, this is but to declare that rights guaranteed by the Constitution exist only so long as supposed public interest does not require their extinction. To adopt such a view, of course, would put an end to liberty under the Constitution.
Munn v. Illinois (1877), 94 U. S. 113, has been much discussed in the opinions referred to above. And always the conclusion was that nothing there sustains the notion that the ordinary business of dealing in commodities is charged with a public interest and subject to legislative control. The contrary has been distinctly announced. To undertake now to attribute a repudiated implication to that opinion is to affirm that it means what this Court has declared again and again was not intended. The painstaking effort there to point out that certain businesses like ferries, mills, &c. were subject to legislative control at common law, and then to show that warehousing at Chicago occupied like relation to the public, would have been pointless if "affected with a public interest" only means that the public has serious concern about the perpetuity and success of the undertaking. That is true of almost all ordinary business affairs. Nothing in the
opinion lends support, directly or otherwise, to the notion that, in times of peace, a legislature may fix the price of ordinary commodities -- grain, meat, milk, cotton, &c.
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