Court Opinion

ID: 9418470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:26:42.101749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:03.404134
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brandeis,
with whom concurred
Mr. Justice Clarke, dissenting.
The writ of error should, in my opinion, be dismissed. The obstacle to our assuming jurisdiction is not procedural; as it is in those cases where a plaintiff fails because the claim was not made seasonably or in appropriate form.1 Here, the obstacle is the nature of the constitutional question sought to be reviewed. It involves a state statute. But the validity of the statute is not actually drawn in question. Only the propriety of the application or use of the statute is questioned. Since the Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, § 2, 39 Stat. 726, such questions are not reviewable in this court as of right. They may now be reviewed only in the court’s discretion; and exercise of the discretion must be invoked by a petition for a writ of certiorari.
This court has now, as it had before that act, jurisdiction under § 237 of. the Judicial Code to review a final judgment of the highest court of a State whenever a right under the Federal Constitution duly claimed has been denied in applying a state statute. And in no case involving a state statute can jurisdiction attach unless the statute has been applied. For unless it was applied, there could not have been an invasion of the party’s constitutional right; and unless there was such invasion the con*294stitutional question presented, whatever its nature, would be moot. But the Act of 1916 made the nature of the constitutional question raised in applying the statute a matter of importance. If the question is a denial of the power of the legislature to enact the statute as construed, a review may be had as of right. If the question concerns merely the propriety of the particular use of the statute or of the manner of applying or administering it, the review may be had only in this court’s discretion. The classification thus introduced rests upon broad considerations of policy. The steady increase of the business of this court had made it necessary to limit the appellate jurisdiction in cases arising under § 237. To this end Congress determined in 1916 that even cases involving constitutional questions should be reviewed here only where the public interest appeared to demand it: Congress left parties a review as of right where the validity of a state statute had been drawn in question; because the decision of such a question is usually a matter of general interest. But whether a valid state statute has in a particular case been so used as to violate a constitutional guaranty is ordinarily a matter of merely private interest. Hence, Congress provided that where the validity of the statute is not assailed, the denial of a claim that in applying it a right, privilege or immunity had been violated, should not be reviewed, unless this court, in its discretion to be exercised upon petition for a writ of certiorari, should direct the review. That is, Congress treated a right, privilege or immunity claimed to have been violated by the courts’ erroneously applying a confessedly valid statute, to the particular facts of a case, just as it treated a claim -that the right, privilege or immunity had been violated by a decision erroneous in some other respect.
In considering whether in this case the validity of the state .statute was drawn in question, it is necessary to bear in mind that, in every case involving a statute, the state *295court must perform (aside from the consideration of any constitutional questions) two functions essentially different. First the court must construe the statute; that is, determine its meaning and scope. Then it must apply the statute, as so construed, to the facts of the case.1 In this case the construction of the statute was never in controversy. It had been settled by earlier decisions that the statute referred only to corporations when transacting business in intrastate commerce. Here the only controversy concerned the character of the particular transaction to which defendant sought to have the statute applied. Was it interstate commerce? If so, the transaction was not within the scope of the statute. To decide that controversy two determinations had to be made. One was of fact: whether the wheat was sold and bought for shipment to Tennessee. The other was of law: whether the fact that the wheat was so sold and bought makes the transaction one in interstate commerce. Did that controversy over the character of the commerce draw in question- the validity of the statute or did it draw in question merely the propriety, that is, the constitutionality, of its application? What the character of the controversy was must be decided upon the record presented here.
The validity of a statute, as was said in Baltimore & Potomac R. R. Co. v. Hopkins, 130 U. S. 210, 224, is drawn in question whenever the power to enact it “ as it is by its terms, or is made to read by construction, is fairly open to denial and denied.” The power to enact *296§ 571, Kentucky Statutes, as construed by the highest court of the State, was not fairly open to denial; for the statute was construed as affecting only intrastate transactions of foreign corporations. See International Textbook Co. v. Pigg, 217 U. S. 91; Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648. A writ of error which rested solely upon the challenge of -the statute so construed would have presented no substantial claim and must have been dismissed as frivolous. Equitable Life Assurance Society v. Brown, 187 U. S. 308, 311; Sugarman v. United States, 249 U. S. 182, 184. Compare Blumenstock Bros. Advertising Agency v. Curtis Publishing Co., 252 U. S. 436, 441. Nor was the power to enact § 571 as construed actually denied. The question decided below and presented for review here is merely whether this valid statute has been so used — not construed — as to deny to the .plaintiff a privilege or immunity guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.
That the character of the commerce — and not the validity of the statute — was the only question actually in' controversy and is the only question which the plaintiff actually seeks to present for review, appears from the following statement in its brief filed in this court, as well as from the supporting argument:
“ The sole question for decision by this court is whether the contract sued on is a part of interstate commerce or purely a transaction in intrastate commerce. If this court should conclude that the contract is any part of interstate commerce, the judgment of the Kentucky Court of Appeals must be reversed; otherwise, it should be affirmed.”
A party’s conception or characterization of the question presented by the record is, of course, not conclusive of his right to a review. The right is determined by the record. But in this case the record confirms the plaintiff’s conception of ‘the question submitted for review. The judgment of the Court of Appeals brought before us is that of October 17, 1919, which affirmed the judgment below en*297tered after the second trial before a jury. In 1917 the Court of Appeals, in delivering its first opinion which directed the second trial, 175 Ky. 774, said:
“ This court has heretofore held that section 571, supra, does not have any application to a foreign corporation, which is engaged strictly in interstate commerce with citizens of this State. . . . Hence, if the contract sought to be enforced was an interstate commerce transaction, the failure to comply with section 571, supra, would not affect the right of appellee to sue and recover upon its contract, but if it was an intrastate business, the failure to have complied with section 571, supra, is fatal to appellee’s right of recovery. ... So the question for decision is, was the contract between appellant and appellee one which is protected by article I, chapter 8, paragraph 3, of the Federal Constitution, from regulation' by the State of Kentucky, as being a transaction in interstate commerce? ”
Since 1903 it had been the settled law of the State, as then declared by its highest court, that § 571 did not affect transactions in interstate commerce. Commonwealth v. Hogan, McMorrow & Tieke Co., 74 S. W. 737.1 Thus, before this action was begun, it was the' settled law that such transactions of foreign corporations were not within the scope of the statute. In 1915, after this action was begun but before the first trial; that rule was again applied in Louisville Trust Co. v. Bayer Co., 166 Ky. 744, 746. When,, -therefore., this case was before the Circuit Court at the seco d trial and when it was before the Court of Appeals for the second time, there clearly was no actual controversy over the validity of the statute. It *298is true that plaintiff had used in pleading language which imported not only a claim of immunity because the transaction was interstate commerce but also an assertion that § 571, if construed so as to affect it, was invalid. But a review by this court as of right cannot be acquired by inaccurately describing, or by disguising, the nature of the constitutional claim actually made. Nor could there have been a conscious purpose to do this when the reply was filed. In 1915 the exact nature of the claim under the Constitution was not material. At that time the denial of any claim of constitutional right, whatever its nature, still gave the party a review in this court as of right. It was the Act of September 6, 1916, which made the division of cases involving constitutional questions into two classes a matter of substance.
If jurisdiction upon writ of error can be obtained by the mere claim in words that a state statute is invalid, if so construed as to “ apply ” to a given state of facts, the right to a review will depend, in large classes of cases, not upon the nature of the constitutional question involved but upon the skill of counsel. The result would be particularly regrettable, because the decision of such cases often depends not upon the determination of important questions of law (which should in the main engage the attention of this court), but upon the appreciation of evidence frequently voluminous. Thus, in proceedings under State Workmen’s Compensation Acts or State Employers’ Liability Acts, the question whether a carrier is liable depends often upon the question whether at the time of the accident the employee was engaged in interstate or in intrastate commerce. Since the Act of September 6, 1916, certiorari is the proper means of reviewing a judgment involving that question. Southern Pacific Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 251 U. S. 259. If the rule now insisted upon obtains, the carrier could in every such case secure a review on writ of error by simply claim*299ing that the state statute is invalid under the commerce clause if construed so as to apply to the special facts of the case. Yet it was preeminently the decision of questions like these from which Congress sought to relieve this court by the Act of September 6, 1916.1 Likewise, in cases involving state taxation the validity of the tax often depends upon the question whether the specific thing taxed was property within or property without the taxing State — a question which, as held in Dana v. Dana, 250 U. S. 220, and Citizens National Bank v. Durr, ante, 99, can be reviewed here only on writ of certiorari. If the rule now insisted upon should prevail, jurisdiction in such cases could be secured on writ of error by the simple device of claiming that the taxing statute is invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment if construed so as to apply to the specific property involved. So, in suits in state courts against foreign corporations, the question whether there is jurisdiction depends often upon the question whether the corporation was doing business within the State and •had expressly or impliedly consented to be sued there.2 The correctness of the decision of a state court of this question has been held to be. reviewable here only upon certiorari, Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. v. Gilbert, 245 U. S. 162. But if the rule now insisted upon *300should prevail, jurisdiction on writ of error may be secured by simply making the claim that the state statute is invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment if construed so as to apply to the facts of the case.
Plaintiff relies upon a number of cases, assumed to be similar, in which, after the Act of September 6, 1916, jurisdiction was (mainly without discussion) taken on writ of error. They are not in point. In some of them orders of railroad commissions were challenged as violating the Constitution.1 ■ Such an order, unlike decisions of courts, “being legislative in its nature and made by an instrumentality of the State, is a state law within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress regulating our jurisdiction.” Lake Erie & Western R. R. Co. v. State Public Utilities Commission, 249 U. S. 422; 424. In each of these cases, therefore, attacking the validity of the order was drawing in question the validity of a law. In others the validity of state statutes as construed was actually drawn in question.2 McGinis v. California, 247 U. S. 91, and McGinis v. Cali*301fornia, 247 U. S. 95, involved, like the case at bar, the determination whether the transaction in question was one in interstate or foreign commerce. Although they did not draw in question the validity of any statute, this court properly entertained the writ of error in each of those cases, because, as the original records disclose, the judgment was of a date so early as not to come within the Act of September 6, 1916. It is true that § 237 of the Judicial Code, which reenacted § 709 of the Revised Statutes, and § 2 of the Act of February 5, 1867, c. 28, 14 Stat. 385, 386, used, in defining the jurisdiction of this court, the phrase “ where is drawn in question the validity of a statute.” But under none of these acts could there be occasion for deciding the question here under discussion; for each contained also the more comprehensive provision giving jurisdiction where any right, title, privilege or immunity claimed under the. Constitution had been denied. And under § 25 of the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, c. 20,1 Stat. 73, 85, which embodied the.'law prior to 1867, the conditions were substantially the same. Hence little help can be derived from the consideration of cases involving judgments entered before the Act of September 6, 1916, became effective.1
*302Nor can we be aided in construing the Act of September 6, 1916, by considering cases arising under § 238 of the Judicial Code (reenacting § 5 of the Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, 827, as amended). For the third clause thereof empowers this court to review by writ of error or appeal decisions of United, States District Courts “ in any case that involves the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States.” This comprehensive provision renders immaterial in this connection the nature of the constitutional.question. The specification in the fourth clause, of cases “ in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States . . . is drawn in question,” and in the fifth' clause, of cases “ in which the constitution or law of a State is claimed to be in contravention of the Constitution of the United States,” adds nothing. Nor can we derive aid from cases involving review by this court of cases coming from the Circuit Court of Appeals under § 241 of the Judicial Code (reenacting § 6 of the act, 26 Stat. 826, 828). For under it the right of review where available exists regardless of the nature of the constitutional question.
But cases coming from the District of Columbia and from the Territories in which a review by this court was' sought (under the Act of March 3, 1885, c. 355, 23 Stat. 443, and under § 250 of the Judicial Code) on the ground that the validity of an authority or of a statute was drawn in question, are persuasive as to the meaning of the phrase drawing in question tne -validity of a statute, as used in the Act of 1916. And they were recognized in Ireland v. Woods, 246 U. S. 323, 329, as controlling. Thus United States ex rel. Champion Lumber Co. v. Fisher, 227 U. S. 445, and United States ex rel. Foreman v. Meyer, 227 U. S. 452, hold that -.the validity .of an authority is not drawn in question where the controversy is confined to determining whether the facts upon which a person can *303exercise that authority do or do not exist; and the writs of error were dismissed because the validity was not “ drawn in question” in the sense in which that phrase is used in the statute, that is, brought forward or made a ground of decision.1
It is, of course, permissible to make the claim that" a statute is invalid and also that as administered or applied it violates a right or immunity under the Constitution. ■In such a case the writ of error is clearly appropriate. But in the case at bar there never has been a real claim that the statute as construed by the highest court of Kentucky .is invalid. The actual claim was and is that a. confessedly valid statute was misapplied and, thereby, a constitutional guaranty was violated. A review as of right is not to be obtained by misdescribing the question in controversy. When Congress declared that there should be a review as of right duly where the validity of the statute was drawn in question, it did not provide for securing the right by the use of a form of words — a potent formula which should operate as an “.Open Sesame.” It was dealing with substance. It legislated to relieve an overburdened court.

 See Jett Bros. Co. v. Carrollton, 252 U. S. 1, 6; Mergenthaler Linotype Co. v. Davis, 251 U. S. 256, 258; Godchaux Co. v. Estopinal, 251 U. S. 179.

 The word “ apply ” is used in connection with statutes in two senses. When construing a statute, in describing the class of persons, things or functions which are within its scope; as that the statute does not “ apply ” to transactions in interstate commerce. When discussing the use made of a statute, in referring to the process by which the statute is made operative; as where the jury is told to “ apply ” the statute of limitation if they, find that the cause of action arose before a given date. In this opinion it is used in the latter sense.

 See also Ryman Steamboat Line Co. v. Commonwealth, 125 Ky. 253; Commonwealth v. Chattanooga Implement & Mfg. Co., 126 Ky. 636; Commonwealth v. Eclipse Hay Press Co., 104 S. W. 224; Three States Buggy & Implement Co. v. Commonwealth, 105 S. W. 971.

 See Report of Judiciary Committee, House Doc. No. 794, 64th Cong., 1st sess., House Rep. vol. 3. Of the cases on the docket for the preceding term of this court 37 presented the question whether the employee was engaged in interstate or intrastate commerce. See New York Central R. R. Co. v. Winfield, 244 U. S. 147, 168, note 1; St. Louis, San Francisco & Texas Ry. Co. v. Seale, 229 U. S. 156; Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co. v. Hancock, 253 U. S. 284; Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co. v. Di Donato, 256 U. S. 327; Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co. v. Polk, 256 U. S. 332.

 See e. g., Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co. v. McKibbin, 243 U. S. 264; People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., 246 U. S. 79; Chipman, Limited, v. Jeffery Co., 251 U. S. 373, as illustrating the issues involved.

 Union Pacific R. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 248 U. S. 67; Lake Erie & Western R. R. Co. v. State Public Utilities Commission, 249 U. S. 422; Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. Ochs, 249 U. S. 416; Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 250 U. S. 566, and St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 254 U. S. 535.

 Union Tank Line Co. v. Wright, 249 U. S. 275; Corn Products Refining Co. v. Eddy, 249 U. S. 427; Chalker v. Birmingham & Northwestern Ry. Co., 249 U. S. 522; New Orleans & Northeastern R. R. Co. v. Scarlet, 249 U. S. 528; Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. R. Co. v. Mullins, 249 U. S. 531; Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411; Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412; Missouri Pacific R. R. Co. v. Ault, 256 U. S. 554; and Merchants’ National Bank v. Richmond, 256 U. S. 635. In Eureka Pipe Line Co. v. Hallanan, ante, 265, and United Fuel Gas Co. v. Hallanan, ante, 277, it was assumed, (in my opinion erroneously) that the situation presented was similar in this respect to that in Merchants’ National Bank v. Richmond, supra.

 Thus comprehensive constitutional claims were made the basis of the writ of error in Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 520, and in Kelley v. Rhoads, 188 U. S. 1, 4, which presented the question, whether the. property taxed was in interstate commerce and hence exempt from taxation under a general law; and in Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific R. R. Co. v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665, 667, which presented the question whether the charter of a railroad granted tax exemption so that a later general tax law-if applied to it would impair its contract rights; and in Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 198 U. S. 341, 352, which presented the question whether the tax appraiáal for the purpose of fixing the value of the capital stock could include tangible personal property permanently located outside the State. (See original records.) Compare Planters’ Bank v. Sharp, 6 How. 301, 307.

 Compare also Snow v. United States, 118 U. S. 346, 353; Baltimore & Potomac R. R. Co. v. Hopkins, 130 U. S. 210; District oColumbia v. Gannon, 130 U. S. 227, 229; United States v. Lynch, 137 U. S. 280; Ferry v. King County, 141 U. S. 668; South Carolina v. Seymour, 153 U. S. 353; Linford v. Ellison, 155 U. S. 503; Taylor v. Taft, 203 U. S. 461; where the validity of an authority or of a statute was held not to have been drawn in question; with Clayton v. Utah Territory, 132 U. S. 632; Clough v. Curtis, 134 U. S. 361, 369; Steinmetz v. Allen, 192 U. S. 543; McLean & Co. v. Denver & RiGrande R. R. Co., 203 U. S. 38, 47; Smoot v. Heyl, 227 U. S. 518, 522; where such was held to have been drawn in question.