Rearick v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

• Decision Date: 17 December 1906
• Docket Number: No. 47,47
• Citation: 203 U.S. 507,27 S.Ct. 159,51 L.Ed. 295
• Parties: N. L. REARICK, Piff. in Err., v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

203 U.S. 507

27 S.Ct. 159

51 L.Ed. 295

N. L. REARICK, Piff. in Err.,

v COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.

No. 47.

Submitted October 19, 1906.

Decided December 17, 1906.

Messrs. Campbell M. Voorhees and Philemon S. Karshner for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 507-508 intentionally omitted] Messrs. S. P. Wolverton and Harry S. Knight for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 508-509 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This case comes here upon a writ of error to the superior court of Pennsylvania, an appeal to the supreme court of the state having been disallowed by the last-named court. The superior court affirmed a conviction of the plaintiff in error for violating an ordinance of the borough of Sunbury, which made it unlawful to solicit orders for, sell, or deliver, at retail, either on the streets or by traveling from house to house, foreign or domestic goods, not of the parties' own manufacture or production, without a license, for which a large fee was required. In the court of quarter sessions, where the plaintiff in error was convicted, the case was heard upon an agreed statement of facts. Upon these facts the plaintiff in error asked for a ruling that his acts were done in carrying on interstate commerce, and that the ordinance was void as to him, under clause 3, § 8, article 1, of the Constitution, the commerce clause; and saved his rights. The 14th Amendment also was relied upon, but it is unnecessary to state details concerning that.

The following is a shortened statement of the facts agreed. And Ohio corporation employed an agent to solicit in Sunbury retail orders to the company for groceries. When the company had received a large number of such orders it filled them at its place of business in Columbus, Ohio, by putting up the objects of the several orders in distinct packages, and forwarding them to the defendant by rail, addressed to him 'For A. B.,' the customer, with the number of the order also on the package, for further identification. The company ultimately kept the orders, but it kept no book accounts with the customers, looking only to the defendant. The defendant alone had authority to receive the goods from the railroad, and when he received them he delivered them, as was his duty, to the customers, for cash paid to him. He then sent the money to the corporation. The customer had the right to refuse the goods if not equal to the sample shown to him when he gave the order. In that or other cases of nondelivery the defendant returned the goods to Columbus. No shipments were made to the defendant except to fill such orders, and no deliveries were made by him except to the parties named on the packages. In the case of brooms, they were tagged and marked like the other articles, according to the number ordered, but they then were tied together into bundles of about a dozen, wrapped up conveniently for shipment. The defendant had no license, but relied upon the invalidity of the ordinance, as we have said.

If the acts of the plaintiff in error were done in the course of commerce between several states, the law is established that his request for a ruling was right, and that he should have been discharged. Robbins v. Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, 497, 30 L. ed. 694, 697, 1 Inters. Com. Rep. 45, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100, 34 L. ed. 128, 3 Inters. Com. Rep. 36, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 681; Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U. S. 622, 47 L. ed. 336, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 229. It will be seen from the insertion of the statement concerning the brooms that a ground relied upon by the prosecution to avoid that conclusion was that the goods, or at least this part of them, were not in the original packages when delivered, and that therefore the case did not fall within the decisions last cited, but rather within Austin v. Tennessee, 179 U. S. 343, 45 L. ed. 224, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 132; May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496, 44 L. ed. 1165, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 976; and Cook v. Marshall County, 196 U. S. 261, 49 L. ed. 471, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 233. In other words, it was contended that the brooms, before they were sold, had become mingled with, or part of, the common mass of goods in the state, and so subject to the local law. But the doctrine as to original packages primarily concerns the right to sell within the prohibiting or taxing state goods coming into it from outside. When the goods have been sold before arrival the limitations that still may be found to the power of the state will be due, generally, at least, to other reasons, and we shall consider whether the limitations may not exist, irrespective of that doctrine, in some cases where there is no executed sale. Hence the prosecution, whatever its assumption on the point last mentioned, sought to show that there was no sale until the goods were delivered and the cash paid for them. The superior court contented itself with the suggestion that the contract would have been satisfied by the delivery of articles...