Bender v. Connor

• Decision Date: 11 August 1939
• Docket Number: No. 141.,141.
• Citation: 28 F. Supp. 903
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: BENDER et al. v. CONNOR, Com'r of Motor Vehicles.

28 F. Supp. 903

BENDER et al. v. CONNOR, Com'r of Motor Vehicles.

No. 141.

District Court, D. Connecticut.

August 11, 1939.

Woodruff & Klein, of New Haven, Conn. (Robert J. Woodruff and Arthur Klein, both of New Haven, Conn., of counsel), for plaintiffs.

Frank J. DiSesa, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Francis A. Pallotti, Atty. Gen., for defendant.

Before CLARK, Circuit Judge, and GODDARD and HINCKS, District Judges.

CLARK, Circuit Judge.

This is an action to enjoin the Motor Vehicle Commissioner of the State of Connecticut from enforcing against plaintiffs, dealers in used motor vehicles, the provisions of an act of the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, approved by the Governor on June 20, 1939, entitled "An Act Concerning Registration of Used Motor Vehicles," and known as Senate Bill No. 1023, Chapter 329 of the Public Acts of Connecticut 1939, on the ground that the provisions thereof violate the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution, art. 1, § 8, Cl. 3, U.S.C.A., and the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment thereto. A statutory court of three judges was constituted pursuant to section 266 of the Judicial Code, as amended, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380, to pass upon the application for an interlocutory injunction. Upon the hearing, evidence was taken, and by stipulation of the parties the case was submitted for final decree upon the pleadings and the evidence.

The pleadings herein consist of the plaintiffs' complaint and an amendment thereto allowed at the hearing, the defendant's answer, the plaintiffs' reply, and the defendant's rejoinder. Though under Rule 7(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, the reply and the rejoinder are improper, they contain only limited allegations of fact agreed to by the parties and brought out in evidence, and may be treated as superfluous without formal action.

The following is the text of the statute in question: "Section 545c of the 1935 supplement to the general statutes is amended by adding the following: `Every person, who shall bring any used motor vehicle into this state, for the purpose of sale or resale, except a trade-in on a new or used motor vehicle, shall, before offering such motor vehicle for sale, and within ten days from the date of entry into the state, and, after such vehicle has passed the inspection required in this section, register separately each such used motor vehicle with the commissioner of motor vehicles. The commissioner shall require from such person a description of the make, year of model, style, motor number, condition of such used motor vehicle, together with proof of title of the vendor thereto and of freedom from liens thereon and the payment of a fee of ten dollars on each such registration, no such registration to be transferable. No action to recover any such used motor vehicle, or any part of the selling price thereof, shall be maintained in the courts of this state by any vendor of a used motor vehicle or his successors or assigns unless there has been a compliance with the provisions of this section.'"

The statute to which this act is an addition, section 545c of the 1935 Supplement to the General Statutes, in force since July 1, 1935, re-enacted earlier general provisions requiring registration of motor vehicles with the Commissioner before their operation upon Connecticut highways, and contained also this provision: "The commissioner shall not register any motor vehicle which has been reported to him by a previous owner as having been sold for junk, or any motor vehicle not previously registered in this state, except a new motor vehicle, until the same shall have been presented during business hours at the main office or a branch office of the department of motor vehicles, and shall have passed the inspection of its safety features as required by said commissioner. The owner of such motor vehicle shall make application for inspection on forms provided by the commissioner and shall pay one dollar for each inspection." The plaintiffs have not objected to the safety inspection, and the fee therefor, required by the 1935 act, but direct their attack solely against the new statute because of its threat of material damage to their respective businesses through the substantial fee to be exacted.

Before a court of the United States can interfere at all with state governmental processes, its jurisdiction must be made to appear. Although here the complaint contains no allegation of jurisdiction, as required by Rule 8(a), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and although the defendant did not raise the issue of or urge the lack of jurisdiction, we must consider it of our own accord. Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., 306 U.S. 583, 59 S.Ct. 744, 83 L.Ed. 1001. Our general jurisdiction is based on section 24(1) of the Judicial Code, as amended, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(1), giving jurisdiction to the district courts of the United States "of all suits of a civil nature * * * where the matter in controversy exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of $3,000, and (a) arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States * * *."

So far as concerns the requirement that the matter in controversy must arise under the United States Constitution, we think that a substantial, even grave, constitutional issue is presented herein. In Park McLain, Inc., v. Hoey, D.C.E.D.N.C., 19 F. Supp. 990, a three-judge court in 1937 held unconstitutional a statute of North Carolina which was similar to this and even contained certain identical language, in requiring a fee of $10 for registration of a used motor vehicle brought into the state for sale, but which also contained an additional requirement from the dealer of a bond not exceeding $1,000, conditioned upon the payment of all losses that might be occasioned by reason of failure of title, or fraudulent representations or breaches of warranty as to freedom from liens, quality, condition, or use, of the motor vehicle. The opinion by Circuit Judge Parker holds both the bond and the fee provisions to be discriminatory against, and improper burdens upon, interstate commerce. And in Ingels v. Morf, 300 U.S. 290, 57 S.Ct. 439, 81 L.Ed. 653, affirming D.C.S.D.Cal., 14 F.Supp. 922, the Supreme Court in the same year held unconstitutional the California Caravan Act, St.Cal.1935, p. 1453, which prohibited "caravaning," i. e., the transportation into the state for the purpose of sale "of any motor vehicle operated on its own wheels, or in tow of another motor vehicle" without a special permit, for which a fee of $15 was exacted. The Court held that the charge bore no reasonable relation to the expense to the state of providing facilities or enforcing the regulation and that it was excessive, and hence that it imposed an unconstitutional burden upon interstate commerce, of the nature, as the court below stated, of a protective tariff by the state against the motor vehicles in question.

Nevertheless in Clark v. Paul Gray, Inc., supra, decided April 17, 1939 (a decision not cited to us by counsel, although the defendant did cite the decision below, here reversed,. Paul Gray, Inc. v. Ingels, D.C.S.D.Cal., 23 F.Supp. 946, and stated erroneously that no appeal had been taken from it), the Supreme Court upheld a second...