Browning v. City of Waycross
| Citation | 58 L.Ed. 828,233 U.S. 16,34 S.Ct. 578 |
| Decision Date | 06 April 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 259,259 |
| Parties | E. A. BROWNING, Plff. in Err., v. CITY OF WAYCROSS |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
Messrs. Richard A. Jones, J. L. Sweat, and Nathan Frank for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 17 intentionally omitted] Mr. T. S. Felder, Attorney General of Georgia, and Mr. W. W. Lambdin for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from page 18 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:
The plaintiff in error was charged in a municipal court with violating an ordinance which imposed an annual occupation tax of $25 upon 'lightning rod agents or dealers engaged in putting up or erecting lightning rods within the corporate limits' of the city of Waycross. Althought admitting that he had carried on the business, he pleaded not guilty, and defended upon the gound that he had done so as the agent of a St. Louis corporation on whose behalf he had solicited orders for the sale of lightning rods; had received the rods when shipped on such orders from St. Louis, and had erected them for the corporation, the price paid for the rods to the corporation including the duty to erect them without further charge. This it was asserted constituted the carrying on of interstate commerce which the city could not tax without violating the Constitution of the United States. Although the facts alleged were established without dispute, there was a conviction and sentence, and the same result followed from a trial de novo in the superior court of Ware county, where the case was carried by certiorari. On error to the court of appeals that judgment was affirmed, the court stating its reasons for doing so in a careful and discriminating opinion reviewing and adversely passing upon the defense under the Constitution of the United States (11 Ga. App. 46, 74 S. E. 564). From that judgment this writ of error is prosecuted because of the constitutional question, and because under the law of Georgia the court of appeals had final authority to condlude the issue.
The general principles by which it has been so frequently determined that a state may not burden by taxation or otherwise the taking of orders in one state for goods to be shipped from another, or the shipment of such goods in the channels of interstate commerce up to and including the consummation by delivery of the goods at the point of shipment, have been so often stated as to cause them to be elementary, and as to now require nothing but a mere outline of the principle. The sole question, therefore, here, is whether carrying on the business of erecting lightning rods in the state, under the conditions established, was interstate commerce beyond the power of the state to regulate or directly burden. The solution of the inquiry will, we think, be most readily reached by briefly reviewing a few of the more recently decided cases which are relied upon to establish that although the interstate transit of the lightning rods had terminated any they had been delivered at the point of destination to the agent of the seller, the business of subsequently attaching them to the houses for which they were intended constituted the carrying on of interstate commerce. The cases relied on are Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U. S. 622, 47 L. ed. 336, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 229; Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507, 51 L. ed. 295, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 159; and Dozier v. Alabama, 218 U. S. 124, 54 L. ed. 965, 28 L.R.A. (N.S.) 264, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 649.
Caldwell v. North Carolina concerned the validity of an ordinance of the village of Greensboro, imposing a tax upon the business of selling or delivering picture frames, photographs, etc. The question was whether Caldwell, the agent of an Illinois corporation, was liable for this tax, because in Greensboro he had taken from a railroad freight office certain packages of frames and pictures which were awaiting delivery, and which had been shipped to Greensboro by the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Chassanoil v. City of Greenwood
... ... an interstate commerce business, [166 Miss. 865] protected by ... the commerce clause;' Browning v. Waycross, 233 ... U.S. 16, 23, 58 L.Ed. 828, 34 S.Ct. 578, 580; at least when ... the contract achieves nothing else. The importance of the ... ...
-
Palmer v. Aeolian Co.
...interstate sale, and that the transaction should be governed by the principle announced in cases such as Browning v. City of Waycross, 233 U. S. 16, 34 S. Ct. 578, 580, 58 L. Ed. 828; General Railway Signal Co. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 118 Va. 301, 87 S. E. 598, affirmed in 246 U. S. 50......
-
United States v. Eason Oil Co.
...in close connection with interstate commerce. Cornell v. Coyne, 192 U. S. 418, 24 S. Ct. 383, 48 L. Ed. 504; Browning v. Waycross, 233 U. S. 16, 22, 34 S. Ct. 578, 58 L. Ed. 828; Delaware, Lackawanna & Western R. R. Co. v. Yurkonis, supra; General Railway Signal Co. v. Virginia, 246 U. S. 5......
-
Creamery Package Mfg. Co. v. Cheyenne Ice Cream Co.
...Penn Heat & Power Co., 178 F. 696. The doctrine announced in the foregoing cases has been followed in the following cases: Browning v. City of Waycross, 233 U.S. 16; Signal Company v. Virginia ex rel. State Commission, 246 U.S. 500; Power Specialty Company v. Michigan Power Co. (Mich.) 157 ......