William Barrett v. City of New York No 83 City of New York v. William Barrett No 84

Citation232 U.S. 14,34 S.Ct. 203,58 L.Ed. 483
Decision Date05 January 1914
Docket NumberNos. 83 and 84,s. 83 and 84
PartiesWILLIAM N. BARRETT, as President of the Adams Express Company, etc., Appt., v. CITY OF NEW YORK et al. NO 83. CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Appts., v. WILLIAM N. BARRETT, as President of the Adams Express Company, etc. NO 84
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

Mr. William D. Guthrie for Barrett.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 15-21 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Terence Farley, Archibald R. Watson, and William E. C. Mayer for the city of New York et al.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 21-23 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

This suit was brought to restrain the enforcement against the Adams Express Company of a group of ordinances of the Board of Aldermen of the city of New York, upon the ground that, as applied to that company, these ordinances constitute an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce and deny to it the equal protection of the laws. The ordinances are contained in chapter 7 of the Code of Ordinances adopted in the year 1906, as amended (Cosby's ed. 1911), and the material sections, together with portions of the context, are set forth in the margin.

The chapter relates to specified businesses in which no one is permitted to engage except under an annual license granted by the mayor and revocable by him. Among these is the business of 'expressmen' (§§ 305, 306). It is provided that no person is to be licensed 'except a citizen of the United States, or one who has regularly declared intention to become a citizen' (§ 307). The license fee is 'for each express wagon,' $5, and 'for each driver of any licensed vehicle,' 50 cents with provision for renewal at one-half these rates (§ 308). Every person driving a licensed 'express' is to be 'licensed as such driver, and every application for such license shall be indorsed, in writing, by two reputable residents of the city of New York, testifying to the competence of the applicant' (§ 315). Every vehicle 'kept or used for the conveyance of baggage, packages, parcels, and other articles within or throught the city of New York for pay' is to be deemed a public express (§ 330). It is to bear a designation according with its official number (§ 331). Its owner is to give a bond to the state for 'every vehicle licensed in a penal sum of $100, with sufficient surety, approved by the mayor or chief of the Bureau of Licenses, conditioned for the safe and prompt delivery' of all articles (§ 332). Provision is also made for the regular inspection of 'all licensed vehicles and places of business' (§ 374), the report of any change of residence to the Bureau of Licenses (id. the exhibition of licenses upon demand (§ 375), and the display of the prescribed letters and numbers (§ 376). Penalties are provided for the violation of these requirements, and any person carrying on any business regulated by the ordinance, without license, is guilty of a misdemeanor (§§ 307, 315, 379).

The Adams Express Company, an unincorporated association organized under the laws of New York, has been engaged in interstate commerce, as a common carrier of packages, since the year 1854. It transacts its business in many states; and in the city of New York it handles daily about 50,000 interstate shipments, employing 341 wagons and 68 automobiles. About one half of these wagons are stabled in Jersey City. Its shipments from New York City to the south and west are hauled to Jersey City and there loaded on express cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad; those destined to points east are taken to the terminal in New York city of the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad; and there is also traffic for points on the New York, Ontario, & Western Railroad, and tributary thereto, which is carried to the terminal of that road at Weehawken, New Jersey. Shipments received from out of the state for delivery in New York city are taken by the company's vehicles to the consignees either directly from these railroad terminals or through intermediate distributing offices. The company also does a local business in the city of New York, and, in addition, receives packages for transportation between that city and such points within the state of New York as are on the line of the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad. The interstate business, however, in the number of packages, comprises 98 per cent of the total business transacted in New York city, and, it being impracticable to effect a separation, the local and the other intrastate shipments are handled in the same vehicles, and by the same men, that are employed in connection with the interstate transportation. It was not until recently that the city sought to compel the company, in the transaction of this business, to comply with its license ordinances, although there have been ordinances requiring licenses for both express wagons and their drivers for over fifty years (Kent's ed. [1856]; Valentine's ed. [1859] pp. 374, 375; Shepard & Shafer's ed. [1881] §§ 380-386; Laird's ed. [1894] §§ 380-386; Percy & Collins's ed. §§ 497-504). The provisions here involved (except § 315) received their present form in 1899. (Ord. app. May 22, 1899, ante, p. 25 note.) It is conceded that the company has never been compelled to obtain a license for the conduct of its interstate express business, and that its wagons and drivers employed therein have never been licensed, except 'that for several years last past about fourty licenses for wagons and drivers have been taken out.' The evidence shows that in 1908 an arrangement was made, by way of compromise, that the forty licenses should be issued (twenty having been taken out the year before). The company agreed to this number, without prejudice, asserting that it was larger in proportion to the total number of wagons than the local business warranted, and also that the latter was merely incidental to the interstate business, and hence not subject to the license requirements. In the fall of 1910, however, at a time when the business of the company was interrupted by a strike of its drivers, and it was endeavoring to replace those who had stopped work, the city, through its officers, undertook to enforce the ordinances with respect to all the wagons and drivers of the company, threatening to arrest unlicensed drivers of unlicensed wagons notwithstanding they might be engaged in interstate transportation, and to remove, if necessary, unlicensed wagons from the streets. This was the occasion of the present suit.

The circuit court held that §§ 305 and 306 were inoperative so far as they purported to require the complainant to obtain a local license for transacting its interstate business, and further, that the requirement of licenses as to express automobiles and chauffeurs had been superseded by a state statute (Laws of 1910, chap. 374). To this extent the city and its officers, who were codefendants, were enjoined. But with respect to the payment of license fees for express wagons and drivers, and the other regulations which we have briefly described, the court held that the enactments were valid and an injunction was refused. 189 Fed. 268. Both parties appeal, the company insisting that it was entitled to the entire relief sought, and the city, that no relief whatever should have been granted.

In restraining the enforcement of §§ 305 and 306, as stated, we think that the court was right. In the absence of a controlling state decision construing the group of ordinances in question and the statute authorizing the city to license businesses (Greater New York charter, § 51), we are not satisfied that they were designed, despite the broad definition contained in § 330, to apply to interstate business. The practical construction which they received before the present controversy arose is very persuasive to the contrary (New York City v. New York City R. Co. 193 N. Y. 543, 549, 86 N. E. 565; United States v. Cerecedo Hermanos y Compa nia, 209 U. S. 338, 339, 52 L. ed. 821, 822, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 532.) But, if the above-mentioned sections are to be deemed to require that a license must be obtained as a condition precedent to conducting the interstate business of an express company, we are of the opinion that, so construed, they would be clearly unconstitutional. It is insisted that, under the authority of the state, the ordinances were adopted in the exercise of the police power. But that does not justify the imposition of a direct burden upon interstate commerce. Undoubtedly, the exertion of the power essential to assure needed protection to the community may extend incidentally to the operations of a carrier in its interstate business, provided it does not subject that business to unreasonable demands and is not opposed to Federal legislation. Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 31 L. ed. 508, 1 Inters. Com. Rep. 804, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 564; Hennington v. Georgia, 163 U. S. 299, 41 L. ed. 166, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1086; New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628, 41 L. ed. 853, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 418; Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co. v. Ohio, 173 U. S. 285, 43 L. ed. 702, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 465. It must, however, be confined to matters which are appropriately of local concern. It must proceed upon the recognition of the right secured by the Federal Constitution. Local police regulations cannot go so far as to deny the right to engage in interstate commerce, or to treat it as a local privilege, and prohibit its exercise in the absence of a local license. Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, 35 L. ed. 649, 652, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 851; Robbins v. Taxing Dist. 120 U. S. 489, 496, 30 L. ed. 694, 697, 1 Inters. Com. Rep. 45, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 592; Leloup v. Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, 645, 32 L. ed. 311, 313, 2 Inters. Com. Rep. 134, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1380; Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, 129 U. S. 141, 148, 32 L. ed. 637, 639, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 256; Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507, 51 L. ed. 295, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 159; ...

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