337 921, 69 1152 People of State of California v. Zook

Decision Date25 April 1949
Docket NumberNo. 355,355
Citation93 L.Ed. 1005,69 S.Ct. 841,336 U.S. 725
PartiesSee 337 U.S. 921, 69 S.Ct. 1152. PEOPLE OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA v. ZOOK et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Mr. John L. Bland, of Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.

Mr. D. M. Manning, of Los Angeles, Cal., for respondents.

Mr. Justice MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court.

A California statute prohibits the sale or arrangement of any transportation over the public highways of the State if the transporting carrier has no permit from the Interstate Commerce Commission.1 The federal Motor

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Carrier Act has substantially the same provision.2 The question is whether the State act as applied in this case is invalid in view of the federal act.

Respondents operate a travel bureau in Los Angeles, and receive commissions for arranging 'share-expense' passenger transportation in automobiles. Owners of private cars desiring passengers for a trip register with respondents' agency, as do prospective passengers. State lines are crossed in many of the trips. Until 1942 the federal act specifically exempted such 'casual, occasional, or reciprocal' transportation.3 But in that year the Interstate Commerce Commission removed the exemption,4 as the Motor Carrier Act empowered it to do.5 Both the California and federal statutes now require respondents to sell transportation only in carriers having permits from the I.C.C.

Respondents were prosecuted under the State act. They admitted their unlawful activity, but demurred to the criminal complaint on the sole ground that the State statute entered an exclusive congressional domain. The trial court disagreed, and entered a judgment of con-

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viction, but the appellate court6 upheld respondents' contention, and ordered the complaint dismissed. 87 Cal.App.2d Supp. 921, 197 P.2d 851. The case is here on certiorari, 335 U.S. 883, 69 S.Ct. 238.

Certain first principles are no longer in doubt. Whether as inference from congressional silence, or as a negative implication from the grant of power itself, when Congress has not specifically acted we have accepted the Cooley case's broad delineation of the areas of state and national power over interstate commerce. Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia, to use of Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, Their Widows and Children, 12 How. 299, 13 L.Ed. 996; Southern Pacific Co. v. State of Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 768, 65 S.Ct. 1515, 1519, 1520, 89 L.Ed. 1915. See Ribble, State and National Power Over Commerce, ch. 10. Absent congressional action, the familiar test is that of uniformity versus locality: if a case falls within an area in commerce thought to demand a uniform national rule, State action is struck down. If the activity is one of predominantly local interest, State action is sustained. More accurately, the question is whether the State interest is outweighed by a national interest in the unhampered operation of interstate commerce.

There is no longer any question that Congress can redefine the areas of local and national predominance, Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U.S. 408, 66 S.Ct. 1142, 90 L.Ed. 1342, 164 A.L.R. 476; Southern Pacific Co. v. State of Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, supra, 325 U.S. at page 769, 65 S.Ct. at page 1520, 89 L.Ed. 1915, despite theoretical inconsistency with the rationale of the Commerce Clause, art. 1, § 8, cl. 3, as a limitation in its own right. The words of the Clause—a grant of power—admit of no other result. When Congress enters the field by legislation, we try to discover to what extent it intended to exercise its power of redefinition; here we are closer to an intent that can be demonstrated with assurance, although we may em-

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ploy presumptions grounded in experience in doubtful cases.

But whether Congress has or has not expressed itself, the fundamental inquiry, broadly stated, is the same: does the State action conflict with national policy? The Cooley rule and its later application, Southern Pacific Co. v. State of Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, supra, the question of congressional 'occupation of the field,' and the search for conflict in the very terms of state and federal statutes are but three separate particularizations of this initial principle.

We restate the familiar because respondents would have us pronounce an additional rule: that when Congress has made specified activity unlawful, 'coincidence is as ineffective as opposition,' and State laws 'aiding' enforcement are invalid. Respondents seem to argue that this is as fundamental as the rule of conflict with national authority, and that it rests upon wholly independent premis s.

But respondents seize upon only one part of the familiar phrase in Charleston & Western C.R. Co. v. Varnville Furniture Co., 237 U.S. 597, 604, 35 S.Ct. 715, 716, 717, 59 L.Ed. 1137, Ann.Cas.1916D, 333. We said that when 'Congress has taken the particular subject-matter in hand, coincidence is as ineffective as opposition * * *' See also, Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Public Service Commission of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 250 U.S. 566, 569, 40 S.Ct. 36, 37, 64 L.Ed. 1142; Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Porter, 273 U.S. 341, 346, 47 S.Ct. 383, 385, 71 L.Ed. 672. Respondents' argument assumes the stated premise—that Congress has 'taken the particular subject-matter in hand,' to the exclusion of state laws. The Court could not have intended to enunciate a mechanical rule, to be applied whatever the other circumstances indicating congressional intent. Neither the language nor the facts of the cases cited support an approach in such marked contrast with this Court's consistent decisional bases. The Varnville case struck down a South Carolina statute which had the effect of holding a connecting carrier liable for goods damaged in inter-

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state commerce, when Congress had determined that the initial carrier should bear primary responsibility; the Pennsylvania Railway case held invalid a state measure requiring a specified type of rear platform different from the detailed specifications of the Interstate Commerce Commission; and in the Porter case, the Court thought Congress intended to leave the terms of a uniform bill of lading to the I.C.C., and that state laws on the subject were meant to be ineffective. See Cloverleaf Butter Co. v. Patterson, 315 U.S. 148, 157-159, 62 S.Ct. 491, 496-498, 786, 86 L.Ed. 754.

The 'coincidence' rationale is only an application of the first principle of conflict with national policy. The phrase itself simply states that familiar rule. If State laws on commerce are identical with those of Congress, the Court may find congressional motive to exclude the States: Congress has provided certain limited penalties, 'and a state law is not to be declared a help because it attempts to go farther than Congress has seen fit to go,' Varnville, supra, 237 U.S. at page 604, 35 S.Ct. at page 717, 59 L.Ed. 1137, Ann.Cas.1916D, 333—that is, if Congress has 'occupied the field.' But the fact of identity does not mean the automatic invalidity of State measures. Coincidence is only one factor in a complicated pattern of facts guiding us to congressional intent.7 As the Court

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stated in the Pennsylvania Railway case, 250 U.S. at page 569, 40 S.Ct. at page 37, 64 L.Ed. 1142, the 'question whether Congress and its commissions acting under it have so far exercised the exclusive jurisdiction that belongs to it as to exclude the State, must be answered by a judgment upon the particular case.' Statements concerning the 'exclusive jurisdiction' of Congress beg the only controversial question: whether Congress intended to make its jurisdiction exclusive.

This has long been settled. Fox v. State of Ohio, 5 How. 410, 12 L.Ed. 213, announced uncertainly what United States v. Marigold, 9 How. 560, 13 L.Ed. 257, later made clear: that 'the same act might, as to its character and tendencies, and the consequences it involved, constitute an offence against both the State and Federal governments, and might draw to its commission the penalties denounced by either, as appropriate to its character in reference to each.' 9 How. at page 569, 13 L.Ed. 257.8 See Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 390, 25 L.Ed. 717; United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377, 384, 43 S.Ct. 141, 143, 67 L.Ed. 314. And see Union Brokerage Co. v. Jensen, 322 U.S. 202, 208, 64 S.Ct. 967, 971, 972, 88 L.Ed. 1227, 152 A.L.R. 1072.

Asbell v. State of Kansas, 209 U.S. 251, 28 S.Ct. 485, 52 L.Ed. 778, 14 Ann.Cas. 1101, is a further illustration. A Kansas statute provided criminal penalties for the importation of cattle from any point south of the State, except for immediate slaughter, without approval of the proper State officials or the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States. The congressional Act, 32 Stat. 791, 792, 21 U.S.C.A. §§ 111—113, 120—122, allowed cattle to be transported into a state if inspected and passed by an inspector of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry. Violation of the federal act brought criminal sanctions. Yet we affirmed a conviction under the State law. We said that 'if the state law conflicts with (federal law) the state law must yield. But the law of Kansas now before us recognizes the supremacy of the national law and conforms to it.'

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209 U.S. at page 258, 28 S.Ct. at page 487, 52 L.Ed. 778, 14 Ann.Cas. 1101. And see the similar problem and similar answer by Brandeis, J., for the Court in Dickson v. Uhlmann Grain Co., 288 U.S. 188, 53 S.Ct. 362, 77 L.Ed. 691, 83 A.L.R. 492.

To limit our inquiry to respondents' single standard would restrict us to unreality. For Congress is often explicit when it wishes state laws to conclude federal prosecution, to avoid the double punishment possible in a federal system. See, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 659, 18 U.S.C.A. § 659, defining the crime of stealing from an interstate carrier; 18 U.S.C. § 660, 18 U.S.C.A. § 660, misapplication of funds by an...

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