Joseph Triner Corporation v. Mahoney

• Decision Date: 23 October 1937
• Docket Number: No. 2836,2839.,2836
• Citation: 20 F. Supp. 1019
• Parties: JOSEPH TRINER CORPORATION v. MAHONEY, State Liquor Control Com'r, et al. FRANK McCORMICK, Inc. v. SAME.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

20 F. Supp. 1019

JOSEPH TRINER CORPORATION v. MAHONEY, State Liquor Control Com'r, et al.

FRANK McCORMICK, Inc. v. SAME.

Nos. 2836, 2839.

District Court, D. Minnesota, Fourth Division.

October 23, 1937.

Bradford, Cummins & Cummins, of St. Paul, Minn., for plaintiff Joseph Triner Corporation.

Thomas Gallagher, of Minneapolis, Minn., for plaintiff Frank McCormick, Inc.

G. H. Braddock, of Minneapolis, Minn., amicus curiæ.

William S. Ervin, Atty. Gen., and Roy C. Frank, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants.

Before SANBORN, Circuit Judge, and NORDBYE and JOYCE, District Judges.

PER CURIAM.

These are the same suits in which this court granted preliminary injunctions on June 29, 1935. Triner Corp. v. Arundel, 11 F.Supp. 145. The fact situation remains unchanged except for the substitution of the present defendants for their predecessors in office. The facts are sufficiently stated in our opinion granting the preliminary injunctions and will not be repeated. The plaintiffs are wholesalers and licensed to sell liquor in the state of Minnesota.

Chapter 390 of the Laws of Minnesota 1935 provides: "No licensed manufacturer or wholesaler shall import any brand or brands of intoxicating liquors containing more than 25 per cent of alcohol by volume ready for sale without further processing unless such brand or brands shall be duly registered in the patent office of the United States."

The ground upon which we granted the preliminary injunctions in these cases was that the classifying of brands of imported liquor on the basis of their registration in the Patent Office of the United States and the forbidding of the sale of imported brands not registered in the Patent Office had no reasonable relation to the regulation of the liquor traffic within the state of Minnesota, and that the classification adopted by the Legislature of Minnesota was purely arbitrary and unreasonable and therefore violated the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution, Amendment 14, § 1.¹

Our attention has now been directed to the decision of the District Court of the Southern District of California in Young's Market Co. et al. v. State Board of Equalization of California et al., 12 F.Supp. 140, in which case an injunction was granted by that court against the enforcement of a law of California which imposed an annual license tax on wholesalers selling beer imported from other states into California, upon the ground that the statute violated both the commerce clause and the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution because wholesalers selling beer made in California were not required to pay this license tax and therefore the wholesalers of imported beer were unreasonably discriminated against. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the District Court in State Board v. Young's Market Co., 299 U.S. 59, 57 S.Ct. 77, 81 L.Ed. 38. The District Court in granting the injunction against the enforcement of the California statute there challenged had relied to some extent upon our decision granting preliminary injunctions in these cases. Unless the situation with which we are confronted is distinguishable from that passed upon by the District Court of the Southern District of California and by the Supreme Court, we should reverse our holding and deny permanent injunctions.

A careful comparison of the cases therefore becomes necessary. In the cases before us, the plaintiffs — like the plaintiffs in the California case — are wholesalers licensed to do business in the state. The Minnesota statute prohibits the importation of liquors of a certain alcoholic content which are ready for sale without further processing, unless the brands of such liquors are registered in the Patent Office of the United States. In the California case the law prohibited a licensed wholesaler from dealing in beer imported from without the state unless he paid, in addition to his wholesaler's license fee, the importer's license fee or tax required of a wholesaler who sold beer imported into California. The discrimination complained of in the California case was that which arose between wholesalers who sold domestic beer and those who sold imported beer. Those who sold domestic beer were not required to pay the importer's license fee, while those who sold imported beer were required to pay it. The Minnesota statute discriminates between wholesalers who handle imported brands of liquor which are not registered in the Patent Office and those who handle imported brands of liquor which are registered in the Patent Office. It discriminates between those who import liquor requiring further processing in Minnesota and those importing liquor which does not require further processing in Minnesota. Imported liquor requiring further processing in the state may be sold in the state whether the brand is registered or not, whereas the same kind and quality of liquor, if it is imported into the state ready for sale, can only be sold provided the brand is registered. Those who sell only liquor manufactured in Minnesota are not affected by the law, while those who import liquor of equal goodness may not...