American Sugar Refining Co. v. McFarland

• Decision Date: 17 January 1916
• Docket Number: 15285.
• Parties: AMERICAN SUGAR REFINING CO. v. McFARLAND et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

229 F. 284

AMERICAN SUGAR REFINING CO. v. McFARLAND et al.

No. 15285.

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana.

January 17, 1916

This cause came on to be heard on the application of complainant for an interlocutory injunction during the pendency of the suit at this term and was argued by counsel, and thereupon upon consideration thereof, and for the written reasons on file, it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed as follows, viz That the defendants, and each of them, be and they are hereby enjoined and restrained, during the pendency of this suit and until a final decree herein, from enforcing or attempting to enforce, or causing to be enforced or attempted to be enforced, against the American Sugar Refining Company, the complainant herein, the provisions of Act No. 10 of the Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly of Louisiana of 1915, and any and all regulations which may be formulated or promulgated thereunder. Done and signed at New Orleans, this 17th day of January, 1916.

Joseph W. Carroll, George Denegre, and Hugh C. Cage, all of New Orleans, La., and James M. Beck, of New York City, for complainant.

Ruffin G. Pleasant, Atty. Gen., of Louisiana, and Donelson Caffery of New Orleans, La., for defendants.

Before WALKER, Circuit Judge, and NEWMAN and FOSTER, District Judges.

PER CURIAM.

This suit brings into question the validity of an act of the Legislature of Louisiana, approved June 10, 1915, which purports to regulate the business of refining sugar and to prohibit certain irregularities and practices in that business.

'Unless the Legislature may arbitrarily select one corporation or one class of corporations, one individual or one class of individuals, and visit a penalty upon them which is not imposed upon others guilty of like delinquency this statute cannot be sustained. * * * Arbitrary selection can never be justified by calling it classification. The equal protection demanded by the Fourteenth Amendment forbids this. ' Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway v. Ellis, 165 U.S 150, 159, 17 Sup.Ct. 255, 258 (41 L.Ed. 666).

'A state may in its wisdom classify property for purposes of taxation, and the exercise of its discretion is not to be questioned in a court of the United States, so long as the classification does not invade rights secured by the Constitution of the United States. But different considerations control when the state, by legislation, seeks to regulate the enjoyment of rights and the pursuit of callings connected with domestic trade. In prescribing regulations for the conduct of trade, it cannot divide those engaged in trade into classes and make criminals of one class if they do certain forbidden things, while allowing another and favored class engaged in the same domestic trade to do the same things with impunity. It is one thing to exert the power of taxation so as to meet the expenses of government and at the same time, indirectly, to build up or protect particular interests or industries. It is quite a different thing for the state, under its general police power, to enter the domain of trade or commerce, and discriminate against some by declaring that particular classes within its jurisdiction shall be exempt from the operation of a general statute making it criminal to do certain things connected with domestic trade or commerce. Such a statute is not a legitimate exertion of the power of classification, rests upon no reasonable basis, is purely arbitrary, and plainly denies the equal protection of the laws to those against whom it discriminates. ' Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Company, 184 U.S. 562, 22 Sup.Ct. 431, 46 L.Ed. 679.

As to what constitutes arbitrary selection, as distinguished from legal classification, see, also, Watson v. Maryland, 218 U.S. 173, 30 Sup.Ct. 644, 54 L.Ed. 987. That the statute in question is a case of arbitrary selection of those who are sought to be made the victims of the penalties it prescribes in the absence of any 'fair reason for the law that would not require with equal force its extension to others whom it leaves untouched,' we think is demonstrated by a statement of its methods of selecting those engaged in the sugar trade who are to be subject to its provisions, and of distinguishing them from others engaged in the same business whom it leaves untouched. A prime object of the statute, plainly disclosed by its provisions, is...