Standard Oil Company of Kentucky v. State of Tennessee, Upon the Relation of Charles Cates
| Decision Date | 02 May 1910 |
| Docket Number | No. 160,160 |
| Citation | 30 S.Ct. 543,54 L.Ed. 817,217 U.S. 413 |
| Parties | STANDARD OIL COMPANY OF KENTUCKY, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF TENNESSEE, UPON THE RELATION OF CHARLES T. CATES, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Tennessee |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. John J. Vertrees for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 414-416 intentionally omitted] Mr. Charles T. Cates, Jr., for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 416-419 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
The plaintiff in error is a Kentucky corporation, and seeks to reverse a decree of the supreme court of Tennessee, forbidding it to do business, other than interstate commerce, in the latter state. 120 Tenn. 86, 110 S. W. 565. The ground of the decree is that the corporation and certain named agents entered into an arrangement for the purpose and with the effect of lessening competition in the sale of oil at Gallatin, Tennessee, and with the further result of advancing the price of oil there. The acts proved against the corporation were held to entail the ouster under a statute of Tennessee. Act of March 16, 1903. The corporation brings the case here on the contentions that the statute, as construed by the court, is contrary to the 14th Amendment, and also is an unconstitutional interference with commerce among the states.
The basis of the former contention is that, by § 3 of the act, any violation of it is made a crime, punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both, and that this section has been construed as applicable only to natural persons. Standard Oil Co. v. State, 117 Tenn. 618, 10 L.R.A.(N.S.) 1015, 100 S. W. 705. Hence, it is said, this statute denies to corporations the equal protection of the laws. For although it is addressed generally to the prevention of a certain kind of conduct, whether on the part of corporations or unincorporated men, the latter cannot be tried without a preliminary investigation by a grand jury, an indictment or presentment, a trial by jury, the right to an acquittal unless their guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt, and the benefit of a statute of limitations of one year. Corporations, on the other hand, are proceeded against by bill in equity on relation of the attorney general, without any of these advantages, except, perhaps, the right to a jury. Complaint is not made of the difference between fine or imprisonment and ouster, but it is insisted that this is a general criminal statute, that ouster is a punishment as much as a fine, and that it is not a condition attached to the doing of business by foreign corporations (Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co. 199 U. S. 401, 409, 50 L. ed. 246, 249, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 66), or, indeed, a regulation of the conduct of corporations, as such, at all. Therefore the plaintiff in error complains that it is given a wrongful immunity from the procedure of the criminal law. This suit is for the same transaction for which, in the earlier case cited above, an agent of the company was indicted and fined.
The foregoing argument is one of the many attempts to construe the 14th Amendment as introducing a factitious equality without regard to practical differences that are best met by corresponding differences of treatment. The law of Tennessee sees fit to seek to prevent a certain kind of conduct. To prevent it the threat of fine and imprisonment is likely to be efficient for men, while the latter is impossible and the former less serious to corporations. On the other hand, the threat of extinction or ouster is not monstrous, and yet is likely to achieve the result with corporations, while it would be extravagant as...
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