Hockett v. State

• Decision Date: 20 February 1886
• Citation: 5 N.E. 178,105 Ind. 250
• Parties: Hockett v. State.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

105 Ind. 250

5 N.E. 178

Hockett

v.State.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Filed February 20, 1886.

Appeal from Marion criminal court.McDonald, Butler & Mason, Baker, Hord & Hendricks, and Williams & Thompson, for appellant.

Harris & Calkins and Byfield & Howland, for appellee.

Niblack, C. J.

On the thirteenth day of April, 1885, the legislature of this state passed an act entitled “An act to regulate the rental allowed for the use of telephones, and fixing a penalty for its violation;” the tenor of which is as follows:

“Section 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of the state of Indiana, that no individual, company, or corporation, now or hereafter owning, controlling, or operating any telephone line, in operation in this state, shall be allowed to charge, collect, or receive as rental for the use of such telephone a sum exceeding three dollars per month, where one telephone only is rented by one individual, company, or corporation. Where two or more telephones are rented by the same individual, company, or corporation, the rental per month for each telephone so rented shall not exceed two dollars and fifty cents per month.

Sec. 2. Where any two cities or villages are connected by wire, operated or owned by any individual, company, or corporation, the price for the use of any telephone, for the purpose of conversation between such cities or villages, shall not exceed fifteen cents for the first five minutes; and for each additional five minutes no sum exceeding five cents shall be charged, collected, or received.

Sec. 3. Any owner, operator, agent, or other person who shall charge, collect, or receive for the use of any telephone any sum in excess of the rates fixed by this act, shall be deemed guilty of a public offense, and on conviction shall be fined in any sum not exceeding twenty-five dollars.”

On the twenty-seventh day of July, 1885, Theodore P. Haughey requested the Central Union Telephone Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Illinois, but owning and operating a telephone exchange and system of telephone lines at the city of Indianapolis, in this state, to rent him one telephone, to be used at his residence upon his farm, four and one-half miles from the company's telephone exchange, and two miles outside of the corporate limits of the city of Indianapolis, and to connect such telephone with the exchange by the erection of the necessary poles and wires. In response to this request, the company offered to rent to Haughey a hand telephone and magneto-bell, and to connect them with its exchange, and to furnish exchange service from 7 o'clock a. m. until 6 o'clock p. m. each day, for three dollars per month, the company to have the right to place other subscribers upon the same line. But Haughey declined to accept that offer, and instead entered into a contract with the company for the use of “one battery transmitter and one magneto-telephone,” and “the necessary appliances for connecting them with the exchange,” upon certain terms and conditions named in the contract, for which he agreed to pay the company the sum of $33.50 for each quarter, or $11.16 2/3 per month. The contract says:

“The above total sum is based upon the charges itemized as follows: Rental of one magneto-telephone and one battery transmitter (two telephones) at the rate of $20 per annum; labor and service, charges for switching, construction, and maintenance, charges for lines, batteries, central office apparatus, magneto-bell, and other appurtenances, at the rate of $114 per annum.”

The telephone company built the line, and furnished the equipments for the use of Haughey, called for by its contract with him. At the expiration of the first three months after the contract went into effect, the appellant, John E. Hockett, acting as the district superintendent and general agent of the company at Indianapolis, demanded of and received from Haughey the sum of $33.50, claimed to be due, under the contract, for the latter's use of the line, and equipments therein provided for during the preceding three months. An information was thereupon filed against Hockett, charging him with a violation of the provisions of the act of the legislature hereinabove set out, and, upon proof of the matters above stated, with others of a formal, incidental, or a merely collateral character, the court below found him guilty of having charged more for the use of a telephone than the law permitted him, as well as the company he represented, to do, and, after overruling a motion for a new trial, adjudged that he pay a fine as a penalty for the commission of a criminal offense.

It was shown at the trial that the articles furnished to Haughey as a telephone equipment, as well as all the other mechanical contrivances used by the company in the transmission of words and sounds over its wires, are patented articles, and that the company holds the right to use these patented articles by assignment, either direct or remote, from the patentees. It is first and most earnestly contended that, as the articles used by the company as above are patented under the constitution and laws of the United States, the legislature of a state has no power to limit the price, use, sale, or rental value of such articles, and that, as a consequence, all acts of a state legislature of the class to which the one before us belongs are inoperative and ineffectual for any practical purpose.

Conceding the force as well as the plausibility of many of the arguments and illustrations used by counsel, the ready and indeed inevitable answer is that the question thus presented ought no longer be regarded as an open question. There is a reserved and at the same time well-recognized power, affecting their domestic concerns, remaining in all the states, which the government of the United States cannot and has seldom attempted to invade. This power is so varied and comprehensive that an exact definition, as applicable to all its phases, has so far been found to be impracticable, but the instance in which the existence of such a power has been judicially recognized in particular cases are quite numerous,as well as various in their application to our complex system of government. This reserved power is usually, though perhaps not always accurately, denominated the police power of a state, and embraces the entire system of internal state regulation, having in view, not only the preservation of public order, and the prevention of offenses against the state, but also the promotion of such intercourse between the inhabitants of the state as is calculated to prevent a conflict of rights, and to promote the interests of all. Cooley, Const. Lim. § 572. It is a power inherent in every sovereignty, and is, in its broadest sense, nothing more than the power of a state to govern men and things within the limits of its own dominion. License Cases, 5 How. 582. It extends to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and convenience, as well as the property, of all persons within the state. It authorizes the legislature to prescribe the mode and manner in which every one may so use his own as not to injure others, and to do whatever is necessary to promote the public welfare not inconsistent with its own organic law. Thorpe v. Rutland & B. R. Co., 27 Vt. 149.

In 1867 letters patent were issued to one De Witt for a discovery in the manufacture of a quality of oil known as “Aurora Oil,” and one Patterson became the assignee of the right conferred upon De Witt by his letters patent. Under a system of inspection provided by the laws of Kentucky, some casks containing this Aurora oil were branded, “Unsafe for illuminating purposes,” and, notwithstanding a statute of that state making it a penal offense to sell oil thus branded, Patterson sold the casks of oil in question to one Davis. Patterson was thereupon indicted, tried, and convicted in one of the Kentucky courts for the alleged unlawful sale of these condemned casks of oil. This judgment convicting Patterson of a criminal offense having been affirmed by the court of appeals of that state, the cause was taken to the supreme court of the United States to test the validity of the statute under which Patterson was so convicted, as a restraint upon the sale of a commodity covered by letters patent from the United States. Upon a review of all the questions involved, the validity of the statute was maintained, and the judgment of the court of appeals was in all things affirmed. See Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501. The court held in that case, and as we have no doubt correctly, that all that the letters patent secured was the exclusive right in the discovery, and that the right thus secured was an incorporeal right, and hence without “tangible substance;” that the right to sell the oil was not derived from the letters patent, but existed and could have been exercised before the issuing of such letters, unless prohibited by some local statute; that because the patentee acquired a monopoly in his discovery, and was hence secure against interference, it did not follow that the tangible property, which came into existence by the application of the discovery, was beyond the control of state legislation; that, on the contrary, the right of property in the physical substance, which is the fruit of the discovery, is altogether distinct from the discovery itself, just as the property in the instruments or plate by which copies of a map are multiplied is distinct from the copyright itself; that hence the right conferred upon the patentee, and his assigns, to make, use, and vend the corporeal article or commodity, brought into existence by the application of the patented discovery, must be exercised in subordination to the police or local regulations established by the state. The doctrine of that case was approved and followed in the more recent case of Webber v. Virginia, 103 U. S. 344, and has the support, either in direct...