State v. Associated Press

Decision Date18 December 1900
Citation159 Mo. 410,60 S.W. 91
PartiesSTATE ex rel. STAR PUB. CO. v. ASSOCIATED PRESS.
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

5. Const. U. S. Amend. art. 14, § 1, provides that no state shall deprive any person of property without due process of law. Const. Mo. art. 2, § 30, provides that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law. Respondent in mandamus was a corporation engaged in the gathering and transmitting of news for publication. It had no grant of special or exclusive privileges or other benefits from the state, and employed no means in gathering or transmitting the news that were not open to any others who might engage in the same business. Held, that the mere facts that respondent had greater ability to gather news than others, or that its business had become one of great magnitude, or that corporate existence, without any rights additional to what it had before, had been granted it, did not give the state any right to interfere with its freedom to contract with whom it chose, and compel it to furnish news to relator on equal terms with others, the right of free contract being one of the natural rights of personal liberty, and protected by the federal and state constitutions.

6. Mandamus will not be granted to compel a corporation engaged in gathering and transmitting news for publication to furnish a newspaper the same news service extended to others, on the ground that the corporation had succeeded in establishing a monopoly of the business; since there can be no monopoly in anything but property, and news is not a subject of property rights until published and copyrighted.

7. Mandamus will not be granted to compel a corporation engaged in gathering and transmitting news for publication to furnish relator the same news service extended to others on the ground that respondent had succeeded in establishing a monopoly of the business, where the evidence showed that there were other organizations in the same field competing more or less successfully with respondent, since mandamus, being a discretionary writ, will not be granted to determine a mere barren, technical right.

8. Mandamus will not be granted to compel respondent to furnish relator with the same news service extended to others on the ground that respondent's business of gathering and transmitting news for publication, by reason of its vast extent and the public interest therein, was a public utility, and therefore subject to public regulation, since the fact that a private business has spread so far as to influence the commerce of a large section of the country does not give the courts power to declare it impressed with a public use, or to apply the rules of public employments thereto.

9. Rev. St. 1899, § 8965, forbids any pool, trust, combination, or agreement to regulate or fix the price of any article of manufacture, mechanism, merchandise, commodity, convenience, repair, product of mining, or any article or thing, or any insurance premium, or to fix or regulate the production of things whose price could not be regulated. Other sections of the chapter provide fines, forfeiture of corporate franchise, and other penalties for disobedience. Relator petitioned for mandamus to compel respondent, a corporation engaged in gathering and transmitting news for publication, to furnish it with the same news service extended to others, on the ground that respondent's by-laws were in violation of the anti-trust law. Held, that the writ should be denied, since the statute, being highly penal, will not be construed to include things not within its express terms.

10. Mandamus cannot be granted to compel respondent, a corporation engaged in gathering and transmitting news for publication, to furnish relator with the same news service extended to others on the ground that respondent's by-laws violated the federal anti-trust law, since the federal law cannot be invoked in the state courts.

11. Mandamus cannot be granted to compel respondent, a corporation engaged in gathering and transmitting news for publication, to furnish relator with the same news service extended to others on the ground that respondent's by-laws were in violation of the Illinois anti-trust law; the Illinois statute not being in force in Missouri.

In banc. Original application for mandamus by the state, on the relation of the Star Publishing Company, against the Associated Press. Writ denied.

Seymour D. Thompson, Wm. J. Stone, and Nathan Frank, for relator. Boyle, Priest & Lehmann, R. E. Ball, and F. N. Judson, for respondent.

SHERWOOD, J.

The object of this original proceeding is to compel respondent, the Associated Press, to furnish to the Star Publishing Company, for publication in its newspaper, The Star, the budget of news collected daily by respondent, and also its Saturday night news reports. Relator avers tender of a sum above that for which other papers of St. Louis are served by respondent with such news, and also avers demand made on respondent for furnishing to it its Sunday morning reports as per contract I, and for such daily news reports, and its refusal to furnish the same. Relator also alleges: "That the relator herein now is, and has been for a long time past, to wit, for the period of six months, ready and willing to enter into a proper contract with the said Associated Press to receive and pay the reasonable charges of the said Associated Press not only for its Saturday night news reports, but also for its daily news reports, and to comply with all the terms and conditions which the said Associated Press imposes upon its other publishers of daily English newspapers in the city of St. Louis receiving such news reports." But there is no averment that relator demanded of respondent to enter with it into such "proper contract," nor that respondent refused to enter into such a contract, nor in what such a contract would consist, although the mandate of the alternative writ commands: "That you do serve this relator, the Sayings Company, at the city of St. Louis, state of Missouri, with your regular afternoon news reports, and with your regular Saturday night news reports, the same being the reports which you serve at said city to the Pulitzer Publishing Company under your subsisting contract with the said company, upon the payment to you by said relator of the same just and reasonable charges for said news reports which you receive from said Pulitzer Publishing Company, and upon compliance with such reasonable agreement in that behalf as you shall make with this relator, and with such reasonable by-laws, rules, and regulations as you have made or shall have made in that behalf; and that you continue so to furnish this relator with your said daily afternoon news reports and your said Saturday night news reports so long as this relator shall comply with the contract made between you and it in that behalf." The substance of the issues presented by the pleadings of the parties to this litigation has been very well condensed by counsel for respondent, and we adopt such condensation: Relator asserts: (1) That it has a contract with the Associated Press for the Sunday morning news. (2) That the gathering of general news for publication in a daily newspaper is a public employment, which must be exercised by those who engage in it for all publishers of dailies who may desire it, upon equal terms, and without discrimination. (3) That the Associated Press has, by its charter, assumed this public employment, and so is bound to exercise it on behalf of the relator, upon tender of compensation equal to that paid by other publishers similarly situated, and receiving a similar service. (4) That the Associated Press has broken down all competitors, and secured a monopoly of the business of newsgathering, in consequence of which it is not practicable to publish a daily newspaper without the aid of its service. (5) That the Associated Press has been granted telegraph and telephone franchises by the states of Illinois and Missouri, and also...

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