Carolene Products Co. v. Wallace

• Decision Date: 22 May 1939
• Docket Number: No. 1462.,1462.
• Citation: 27 F. Supp. 110
• Parties: CAROLENE PRODUCTS CO. OF LITCHFIELD, ILL., v. WALLACE, Secretary of Agriculture, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

27 F. Supp. 110

CAROLENE PRODUCTS CO. OF LITCHFIELD, ILL., v. WALLACE, Secretary of Agriculture, et al.

No. 1462.

District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.

March 20, 1939.

Order affirmed May 22, 1939.

Frank K. Nebeker, of Washington, D. C., and George N. Murdock, of Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

David A. Pine, U. S. Dist. Atty., Harry L. Underwood, Asst. U. S. Dist. Atty., and William Garbose, Department of Justice, all of Washington, D. C., for defendants.

Before EDGERTON, Associate Justice, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, LUHRING and LETTS, Justices, District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.

Order affirmed May 22, 1939. See 59 S.Ct. 1033, 83 L.Ed. ___.

LETTS, Justice.

The plaintiff seeks a temporary injunction restraining the defendants from prosecuting a criminal proceeding which has been instituted against plaintiff for and on account of the shipment or delivery of plaintiff's products "The New Vitamin A Carolene" and "The New Vitamin A Milnut" in interstate commerce in alleged violation of the provision of the "Filled Milk Act" of March 4, 1923 (chapter 262, 42 Stat. 1486, 21 U.S.C. §§ 61-63, 21 U.S.C.A. §§ 61-63), and from instituting and prosecuting threatened proceedings of like nature. The act prohibits the shipment in interstate commerce of skimmed milk compounded with any fat or oil other than milk fat so as to resemble milk or cream. Plaintiff asserts that the act is unconstitutional as applied to its products; that it transcends the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and infringes the Fifth Amendment.

Plaintiff is aware that the statute has been judicially declared to be valid on its face. The United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 58 S.Ct. 778, 784, 82 L.Ed. 1234. We think in that case Justice Stone speaking for the court indicated the narrow scope within which plaintiff's case must fall if maintainable: he said "Similarly we recognize that the constitutionality of a statute, valid on its face, may be assailed by proof of facts tending to show that the statute as applied to a particular article is without support in reason because the article, although within the prohibited class, is so different from others of the class as to be without the reason for the prohibition, * * *, though the effect of such proof depends on the relevant circumstances of each case, as for example the administrative difficulty of excluding the article from the regulated class. * * * But by their very nature such inquiries, where the legislative judgment is drawn in question, must be restricted to the issue whether any state of facts either known or which could reasonably be assumed affords support for it. * * * And it is evident from all the considerations presented to Congress, and those of which we may take judicial notice, that the question is at least debatable whether commerce in filled milk should be left unregulated, or in some measure restricted, or wholly prohibited. As that decision was for Congress, neither the finding of a court arrived at by weighing the evidence, nor the verdict of a jury can be substituted for it."

Viewing the circumstances of the case at bar, shown in the affidavits, we conclude that they fairly prove that plaintiff's products are wholesome and nutritious articles of food; but we think the evidence fails to show plaintiff's products to be in any wise different from other articles within the prohibited class. Plaintiff claims that since its products are wholesome and nutritious, it is not within the reason for the prohibition. An examination of the evidence, which includes the hearings before committees of Congress and the reports of such committees, persuades us that the wholesome and nutritious qualities of plaintiff's products do not exclude such products from the regulated class. The issue which plaintiff presents draws in question the legislative judgment and we think the Congressional hearings and reports in evidence, clearly reveal a state of facts which furnishes ample support for the legislative action of which plaintiff complains. Upon the considerations placed before the committees and the Congress, it became a legislative function to regulate, restrict or prohibit articles of food, though wholesome and nutritious in the exercise of its commerce power. Legislative acts, when subjected to judicial scrutiny, must be presumed to rest on a rational basis if such would exist under any conceivable state of facts; and if a practical question be addressed to the law making department it will require a plain case of departure from every public purpose which could reasonably be conceived to justify the intervention of a court: when public evils ensue from individual misfortune or need, the legislature may strike at the evil at its source. If the purpose is legitimate because public, it will not be defeated. Carmichael v. Southern Coal Co., 301 U.S. 495, 518, 57 S.Ct. 868, 81 L.Ed. 1245, 109 A. L.R. 1327.

It has been held competent for a state legislature, in the exercise of its police power, to recognize the difficulties besetting the administration of laws aimed at the prevention of traffic in intoxicants: and it was held that in dealing with a class of beverages which in general are regarded as intoxicating, it is not bound to resort to discrimination with respect to ingredients and processes of manufacture, which in the endeavor to eliminate innocuous beverages from the condemnation, would facilitate subterfuges and frauds and fetter...