American Express Co. v. Miller

• Decision Date: 17 March 1913
• Citation: 104 Miss. 247,61 So. 306
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. GEORGE P. MILLER et al

61 So. 306

104 Miss. 247

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. GEORGE P. MILLER et al

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 17, 1913

March 1913

APPEAL from the chancery court of Warren county.

Suit by George P. Miller and others against the American Express Company to obtain a mandatory injunction, requiring it to receive and transport intoxicating liquors. From an order granting the writ, defendant appeals.

Section 1771 of the Code of 1906, referred to in the opinion provides: "If any person shall act as agent or assistant of either the seller or purchaser, in effecting the sale of liquor, bitters or drink, the sale of which without license is unlawful under the provisions of this chapter, in any county, district, territory, or municipality in which the Sale of such liquor, bitters or drinks are prohibited by law he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction, shall be punished," etc.

Affirmed.

Chas. N. Burch, H. D. Minor and Mayes & Mayes, attorneys for appellant.

Henry & Canizaro and Catchings & Catchings, attorneys for appellee.

No brief of counsel on either side found in the record.

Argued orally by C. N. Burch, for appellant.

OPINION

SMITH, C. J.

Appellees are engaged in the lawful sale of intoxicating liquor at various points in Louisiana, near the city of Vicksburg, Miss. They have numerous customers in Mississippi, from whom they receive, by mail, letters ordering liquor and containing money, drafts, etc., to cover the price thereof. Upon receipt of these orders, appellees prepare the liquor for shipment, and deliver the packages containing it, addressed to the customers at their residences in Mississippi, to various boats plying between the places at which they are engaged in business and the city of Vicksburg. Some of these boats are common carriers, and others seem to handle the business of appellees, or some of them, only, and it may be that appellees, or some of them, have an interest therein. When the packages containing this liquor are delivered to these boats, the owner or master thereof issues a bill of lading therefor, showing their ultimate destination, after he has been paid by the shipper a sum of money sufficient to pay for their transportation by the boat across the river to Vicksburg, the drayage from the wharf at Vicksburg to the office of appellant, and to prepay appellant's charges from Vicksburg to the point of destination in Mississippi. These boats are in no way connected with appellant, have no joint traffic arrangement with it, and are not of the class of carriers subject to the provisions of the act of Congress regulating commerce among the states. Appellant having declined to receive and transport this liquor, on the ground that by so doing it would violate section 1771 of the Code of 1906, as construed in Hart v. State, 87 Miss. 171, 39 So. 523, 112 Am. St. Rep. 437, and Powell v. State, 96 Miss. 608, 51 So. 465, appellees filed their bills in the court below, and obtained mandatory injunctions directing appellant to receive and transport the liquor, which injunctions, on final hearing, were made perpetual.

The question we are called upon to decide is whether the transportation of these packages of liquor from Vicksburg to their destination will be a transaction of inter or intra state commerce. If the former, appellant must receive and transport them; for in that event section 1771 of the Code can have no application.

It will be observed that, when these packages are delivered in Louisiana to the various boats, the transportation in what is contemplated to be a continuous passage by various disconnected carriers to the points of their destination in Mississippi will begin. Every part of this transportation, therefore, will be a transportation of interstate commerce as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and each carrier, common or private, participating therein, will, to this extent, be engaged in interstate commerce, without regard to the character of the bill of lading, if any, upon which the packages are being transported,...