Pierce Oil Corporation v. City of Hope

• Decision Date: 27 January 1919
• Docket Number: No. 137,137
• Citation: Pierce Oil Corporation v. City of Hope, 248 U.S. 498, 39 S.Ct. 172, 63 L.Ed. 381 (1919)
• Parties: PIERCE OIL CORPORATION v. CITY OF HOPE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

248 U.S. 498

39 S.Ct. 172

63 L.Ed. 381

PIERCE OIL CORPORATION

v CITY OF HOPE.

No. 137.

Submitted Jan. 16, 1919.

Decided Jan. 27, 1919.

Messrs. W. E. Hemingway, G. B. Rose, and J. F. Loughborough, all of Little Rock, Ark., John D. Johnson, of St. Louis, Mo., and V. M. Miles, of Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a complaint brought by the plaintiff in error to enjoin the City of Hope from enforcing an ordinance that forbids the storing of petroleum, gasoline, &c. within three hundred feet of any dwelling, beyond certain small quantities specified. A demurrer to the complaint was sustained by the Supreme Court of the State. 127 Ark. 38, 191 S. W. 405. The plaintiff is engaged in the business of selling petroleum oil and gasoline and has tanks on the right of way of a railroad in the city, which it moved to that place at the city's request. The mode of construction is set forth and it is alleged that an explosion is impossible and that the presence of the tanks in no way endangers any buildings. The tanks are necessary for the business; the present position diminishes the cost of transferring oil from cars and cannot be changed without considerable expense and a reduction of the plaintiff's lawful profits. The plaintiff adds that it knows of no available place in the city where the tanks could be put and oil stored without violating the ordinance, that the ordinance is unnecessary and unreasonable, and that the enforcement of it will deprive the plaintiff of its property without due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

A long answer is not necessary. A state may prohibit the sale of dangerous oils, even when manufactured under a patent from the United States. Patterson v. Kentucky, 97 U. S. 501, 24 L. Ed. 1115. And it may make the place where they are kept or sold a criminal nuisance, notwithstanding the Fourteenth Amendment. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S 623, 8 Sup. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205. The power 'is a continuing one, and a business lawful today may in the future, because of the changed situation, the growth of population or other causes, become a menace to the public health and welfare, and be required to yield to the public good.' Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U. S. 223, 238, 25 Sup. Ct. 18, 21 (49 L. Ed. 169). The averment that the ordinance is unnecessary and unreasonable, if it be regarded as a conclusion of law upon the point which this Court must decide, is not admitted by the demurrer. If it be taken to allege that facts exist that lead to that conclusion, it stands no better. For if there are material facts of which the Court would not inform itself, as in many cases it would, Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210, 227, 29 Sup. Ct. 67, 53 L. Ed. 150, an averment in this general form is not enough. Southern Ry. Co. v. King, 217 U. S. 524, 534, 535, 30 Sup. Ct. 594, 54 L. Ed. 868. Only facts well pleaded are confessed.

Then as to the allegation that plaintiff's plant is safe and...