Jay Delamater v. State of South Dakota

• Decision Date: 11 March 1907
• Docket Number: No. 149,149
• Parties: JAY DELAMATER, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

205 U.S. 93

27 S.Ct. 447

51 L.Ed. 724

JAY DELAMATER, Plff. in Err.,

v STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

No. 149.

Argued January 10, 11, 1907.

Decided March 11, 1907.

Mr. Herbert Jackson for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Aubrey Lawrence, S. M. Howard, and Philo Hall for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsels from pages 94-95 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

A firm established in St. Paul, Minnesota, which was engaged in dealing in intoxicating liquors, employed Delamater, the plaintiff in error, as a traveling salesman. As such salesman Delamater, in the state of South Dakota, carried on the business of soliciting orders from residents of that state for the purchase, from the firm in St. Paul, of intoxicating liquors in quantities of less than 5 gallons. The course of dealing was this: The orders were procured in the form of proposals to buy, and when accepted by the firm the liquor was shipped from St. Paul to the persons in South Dakota who made the proposals, at their risk and cost, on sixty days' credit. At the time Delamater engaged in South Dakota in the business just stated the law of that state imposed an annual license charge upon 'the business of selling or offering for sale' intoxicating liquors within the state, 'by any traveling salesman who solicits orders by the jug or bottle in lots less than 5 gallons.' A violation of the statute was made a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, in the discretion of the court. Delamater, not having paid the license charge, was prosecuted under the statute. At the trial, although the uncontradicted proof established the carrying on of business within the state, as above mentioned, Delamater requested a binding instruction to the jury in his favor, on the ground that the statute did not apply and if it did, that it was void because repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. Exception was taken to the refusal to give the instruction. The Federal ground was reiterated in motions to arrest and for a new trial, and the supreme court of the state, to which the cause was taken, in affirming the judgment of conviction, expressly considered and disposed of such Federal ground. 104 N. W. 537.

All the assignments of error involve the proposition that the state statute, as construed and applied by the court below, is repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution. It is manifest, as the subject dealt with is intoxicating liquors, that the decision of the cause does not require us to determine whether the restraints which the statute imposes would be a direct burden on interstate commerce if generally applied to subjects of such commerce, but only to decide whether such restraints are a direct burden on interstate commerce in intoxicating liquors as regulated by Congress in the act commonly known as the Wilson act. 26 Stat. at L. 313, chap. 728, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3177. For this reason we at once put out of view decisions of this court, which are referred to in argument and which are noted in the margin,¹ because they concerned only the power of a state to deal with articles of interstate commerce other than intoxicating liquors, or which, if concerning intoxicating liquors, related to controversies originating before the enactment of the Wilson law.

The general power of the states to control and regulate the business of dealing in or soliciting proposals within their borders for the purchase of intoxicating liquors is beyond question. With the existence of this general power we are not, therefore, concerned. We are hence called upon only to consider whether the general power of the state to control and regulate the liquor traffic and the business of dealing or soliciting proposals for the dealing in the same within the state was inoperative as to the particular dealings here in question, because they were interstate commerce, and therefore could not be subjected to the sway of the state statute without causing that statute to be repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States.

It is well at once to give the taxt of the Wilson act, which is as follows (26 Stat. at L. 313, chap. 728):

'That all fermented, distilled, or other intoxicating liquors or liquids transported into any state or territory or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage therein, shall, upon arrival in such state or territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such state or territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers, to the same extent and in the same manner as though such liquids or liquors had been produced in such state or territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced therein in original packages or otherwise.'

It is settled by a line of decisions of this court, noted in the margin,¹ that the purpose of the Wilson act, as a regulation by Congress of interstate commerce, was to allow the states, as to intoxicating liquors, when the subject of such commerce, to exert ampler power than could have been exercised before the enactment of the statute. In other words, that Congress, sedulous to prevent its exclusive right to regulate commerce from interfering with the power of the states over intoxicating liquor, by the Wilson act adopted a special rule enabling the states to extend their authority as to such liquor shipped from other states before it became commingled with the mass of other property in the state by a sale in the original package.

The proposition relied upon, therefore, when considered in the light of the Wilson act, reduces itself to this: Albeit the state of South Dakota had power within its territory to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors, even when shipped into that state from other states, yet South Dakota was wanting in authority to prevent or regulate the carrying on within its borders of the business of soliciting proposals for the purchase of liquors, because the proposals were to be consummated outside of the state, and the liquors to which they related were also outside the state. This, however, but comes to this: That the power existed to prevent sales of liquor, even when brought in from without the state, and yet there was no authority to prevent or regulate the carrying on of the accessory business of soliciting orders within the state. Aside, however, from the anomalous situation to which the proposition thus conduces, we think to maintain it would be repugnant to the plain spirit of the Wilson act. That act, as we have seen, manifested the conviction of Congress that control by the states over the traffic of dealing in liquor within their borders was of such importance that it was wise to adopt a special regulation of interstate commerce on the subject. When, then, for the carrying out of this purpose, the regulation expressly provided that intoxicating liquors coming into a state should be as completely under the control of a state as if the liquor had been manufactured therein, it would be, we think, a disregard of the purposes of Congress to hold that the owner of intoxicating liquors in one state can, by virtue of the commerce clause, go himself or send his agent into such other state, there, in defiance of the law of the state, to carry on the business of soliciting proposals for the purchase of intoxicating liquors.

Passing from these general considerations, let us briefly more particularly notice some of the arguments relied upon.

As we have stated, decisions of this court interpreting the Wilson act have held that that law did not authorize state power to attach to liquor shipped from one state into another before its arrival and delivery within the state to which destined. From this it is insisted, as none of the liquor covered by the proposals in this case had arrived and been delivered within South Dakota, the power of the state did not attach to the carrying on of the business of soliciting proposals, for, until the liquor arrived in the state, there was nothing on which the state authority could operate. But this is simply to misapprehend and misapply the cases and to misconceive the nature of the act done in the carrying on the business of soliciting proposals. The rulings in the previous cases to the effect that, under the Wilson act, state authority did not extend over liquor shipped from one state into another until arrival and delivery to the consignee at the point of destination, were but a recognition of the fact that Congress did not intend, in adopting the Wilson act, even if it lawfully could have done so, to authorize one state to exert its authority in another state by preventing the delivery of liquor embraced by transactions made in such other state. The proposition here relied on is widely different, since it is that, despite the Wilson act, the state of South Dakota was without power to regulate or control the business carried on in South Dakota of soliciting proposals for the purchase of liquors, because the proposals related to liquor situated in another state. But the business of soliciting proposals in South Dakota was one which that state had a right to regulate, wholly irrespective of when or where it was contemplated the proposals would be accepted or whence the liquor which they embraced was to be shipped. Of course, if the owner of the liquor in another state had a...