Cotting v. Kansas City Stock-Yards Co.

• Decision Date: 12 April 1897
• Citation: 79 F. 679
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas
• Parties: COTTING v. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. et al. HIGGINSON v. SAME.

79 F. 679

COTTING v. KANSAS CITY STOCK-YARDS CO. et al.

HIGGINSON v. SAME.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

April 12, 1897

Waggener Horton & Orr, for complainant.

L. C Boyle, Atty. Gen., and David Martin, for defendant Louis C Boyle.

Complainant Cotting is a citizen of Massachusetts, and a stockholder in the defendant corporation to the amount of about $30,000. He presents this bill to enjoin the attorney general and other defendants from enforcing the act of the legislature hereinafter set forth. The defendant is a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Kansas, and is engaged in the business of operating public stock yards at Kansas City, situated on both sides of the state line; about 120 acres of its land being in Kansas, and about 40 acres in Missouri. About 65 per cent. of its earnings are derived from its business in Kansas, and about 35 per cent. from its business in Missouri. Its corporate stock is $7,500,000. It appears from the bill of complaint that a total number of 5,471,444 head of live stock were received during the year 1896. The gross earnings were $1,023,870.20, and the total expenditures $549,351.80; leaving net earnings of $474,518.40, being about 6 11/25 per cent. on its capital stock. On March 12th last, an act of the legislature entitled 'An act defining what shall constitute public stock yards, defining the duties of the person or persons operating the same, and regulating all charges thereof, and removing restrictions in the trade of dead animals, and prescribing penalties for violations of this act,' became a law. This act defines what shall be a public stock yard. Section 1 reads as follows:

'Section 1. Any stock yards within this state into which live stock is received for the purpose of exposing or having the same exposed for sale or feeding, and doing business for a compensation, and which, for the preceding twelve months shall have had an average daily receipt of not less than one hundred head of cattle or three hundred head of hogs or three hundred head of sheep, are hereby declared to be public stock yards.'

Section 2 provides that any person or corporation owning or operating any such stock yard in this state is declared to be a public stock yard operator, whether living within this state or not. Section 3 requires such operator of a public stock yard to file annually on the 31st day of December, with the secretary of state, an itemized statement of the number of head of cattle, calves, sheep, hogs, horses, and mules received during the preceding year. Sections 4 and 5 read as follows:

'Sec. 4. It shall be unlawful for the owners, proprietors or the employes of the owners or proprietors of any such public stock yards within this state, to charge for driving, yarding, watering and weighing of stock, greater prices than the following: For driving, yarding, watering and weighing of cattle, 15 cents per head; calves, 8 cents per head; hogs, 6 cents per head; sheep, 4 cents per head; and there shall be but one yardage charged.

'Sec. 5. It shall be unlawful for the owner, owners, or proprietors or their employes of any such stock yards within this state, to sell and deliver at the rate of less than two thousand pounds for a ton of hay, or any part thereof, the same to be of good quality, or to charge for or to sell the same at more than one hundred per cent. above the average market price or value of such hay upon the markets of the towns or cities wherein such stock yards are located, upon the day preceding such sale and delivery; and it shall also be unlawful for any such owners or proprietors or employes, to sell and deliver less than seventy pounds of corn in the ear for a bushel, or to charge for or sell the same at more than one hundred per cent. above the average market price

or value of such ear corn or shelled corn on the markets of the towns or cities wherein said stock yards are located, on the day next preceding such sale and delivery. All feed not above names shall be sold for no greater per cent. of profit than hereinbefore provided.'

Section 6 makes it unlawful for the owners of stock yards to prohibit the owner of any dead stock from selling such stock to any person or persons. Sections 7 and 8 read as follows:

'Sec. 7. That any person or persons violating any of the provisions of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined for the first offense not more than one hundred dollars; for the second offense not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred dollars; and for the third offense not less than two hundred dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars, and by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months for each offense; and for each subsequent offense he or they shall be fined in any sum not less than one thousand dollars, and by imprisonment in the county jail not less than six months.

'Sec. 8. It is hereby made the duty of the attorney general to prosecute all violations of the provisions of this act.'

The bill charges that said law is unconstitutional and void, because it violates the third clause of section 8 of article 1, and article 8, and the fifth and fourteenth amendments of the constitution of the United States, in this, to wit: It violates the exclusive power granted to congress to regulate commerce among the several states. It violates section 1 of the fourteenth amendment, which provides as follows: 'Nor shall any state deprive any person of * * * liberty or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ' It also charges that said law is void under the constitution of the state of Kansas. There are several other objections made to the law, which will be mentioned hereafter. The attorney general objects to any proofs under the bill, and contends that it presents no cause of action, and that he is improperly made a party.

FOSTER, District Judge (after stating the facts).

There has been some discussion about the jurisdiction of this court, but it is not seriously challenged; and the objection by the attorney general that he is improperly made a party defendant is not well taken, as the court has jurisdiction to enjoin a state officer from enforcing an unconstitutional law. Reagan v. Trust Co., 154 U.S. 388, 14 Sup.Ct. 1047.

The complainant insists that the act is objectionable as class legislation, and is not of uniform operation; that it is really special legislation under the disguise of general terms, etc. These objections are not apparent. The act first defines what shall be a public stock yard. It is a stock yard which, for the preceding 12 months, shall have had an average daily receipt of a certain number of live stock. The word 'preceding' does not mean anterior to the passage of the act, but that a stock yard, to come under the law, must have maintained for a period of 12 months a stated volume of business, and the annual report of its business required by the law indicates this intention. The act is general in its terms and the classification is not strained or unnatural. It is uniform in its operation on all yards coming within the designated class. The laws of Kansas divide the cities of the state into three classes, based exclusively on population, and the cities, by force of this alone, pass from one class to another by merely increase or decrease of population. Such laws have been sustained by the supreme court of Kansas, and other courts. Leavenworth Co. v. Miller, 7 Kan. 491; Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U.S. 163; McAunich v. Railroad Co., 20 Iowa, 343; Dow v. Beidelman, 125 U.S. 691, 8 Sup.Ct. 1028.

It is contended that this is not such a public corporation or business as justifies the legislature in imposing rules and regulations for its government, but a brief reference to decide cases dispels this contention. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113; Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. Iowa, Id. 155; Spring Valley Waterworks v. Schottler, 110 U.S. 347 4 Sup.Ct. 48; Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418, 10 Sup.Ct. 462, 702; Banking Co. v. Smith, 128 U.S. 174, 9 Sup.Ct. 47; Budd v. New York, 143 U.S. 517, 12...