State v. Chicago Great Western Railroad Co.
| Decision Date | 01 May 1914 |
| Docket Number | 18,790 - (267) |
| Citation | 147 N.W. 109,125 Minn. 332 |
| Parties | STATE v. CHICAGO GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant was accused in the municipal court of St. Paul of unlawfully shipping one can of cream over its railroad line a distance of more than 65 miles, said shipment not having been made in a refrigerator car effectively iced, and in a sanitary condition, and said cream not having previously undergone an effective process of pasteurization, contrary to the statute. The case was tried before Hanft, J., who denied defendant's motion to quash the complaint, for the reason that chapter 433, Laws 1913, upon which the complaint was based, was unconstitutional and void and not a legitimate exercise of the police power of the state, and defendant's motion for its discharge upon the same grounds, and fined defendant $15. From the judgment entered pursuant to the order of court, defendant appealed. Reversed.
Shipment of cream -- act void.
Chapter 433, Laws 1913, prohibiting the shipment of cream over any railroad in this state for a greater distance than 65 miles held to apply to all railroad companies doing business in the state, and to shipments arising without and terminating within, as well as to those originating within and terminating without the state, and as such an unreasonable interference with and prohibition of interstate commerce and void.
Briggs, Thygeson & Everall and Durment, Moore & Oppenheimer, for appellant.
Lyndon A. Smith, Attorney General, John C. Nethaway, Assistant Attorney General, and Richard D. O'Brien, County Attorney, for respondent.
Defendant was prosecuted before the municipal court of the city of St. Paul, for a violation of chapter 433, p. 632, Laws 1913, and appealed from a judgment of conviction.
1. The Attorney General makes the preliminary point that the appeal should be dismissed for the reason that defendant, before the appeal was taken, voluntarily paid the fine imposed by the court below, thereby waiving the right of appeal. A majority of the court are of the opinion that the payment of the fine before taking the appeal was not so wholly voluntary that the right of appeal was lost, and that the cause should be disposed of upon the merits. The facts in reference to this feature of the case are as follows: The trial court, after hearing the evidence, adjudged defendant guilty of the charge and imposed a fine of $15. Though the record is not quite clear, it is apparent that defendant requested a stay of proceedings to enable it to perfect an appeal. This the court declined to grant, holding that under the statute creating that court, a stay of proceedings after conviction of a criminal charge is prohibited until the fine imposed has been paid. Defendant thereupon and under protest paid the fine, and thereafter perfected this appeal. We are all agreed that the learned court was in error in applying the provisions of the statute under which the court was organized, namely, section 5, chapter 48, p. 624, Sp. Laws 1887, for that statute, properly construed, applies only to prosecutions for municipal offenses, and not to violations of the state laws. But this is unimportant, since the majority hold that by reason of the refusal of the court to grant the stay of proceedings the payment was not voluntary within the rule holding that such a payment precludes the right of appeal from the judgment so paid. The authorities upon the question will be found collected in 30 Ann. Cas. 300, and 45 Am. St. 272.
2. We come then to the merits of the case. The prosecution was for the violation of chapter 433, supra, by the shipment of a quantity of cream from St. Paul to Austin, a distance greater than 65 miles, and a violation thereof by defendant is not disputed. The whole contention of defendant is that the statute is unconstitutional and void. In this we concur.
The statute enacts as follows:
Section 2 provides a penalty for a violation of the act, and also a penalty for the issuance by any person of a false certificate of pasteurization, but there is no provision authorizing the railroad to accept any such certificate as evidence of pasteurization.
We do not consider the various contentions of defendant to the effect that the statute is unconstitutional and void because arbitrary, unreasonable or class legislation, for we are clear that, properly construed, it is an attempted interference by the state with interstate commerce and invalid for that reason. It is therefore unnecessary to consider the other contentions.
The statute applies, by its express language, to all railroads operated within the state, and prohibits shipments of cream over any of them for a distance greater than 65 miles. It is not limited to shipments originating and terminating within the state, but to any shipment, wherever it may have originated, which extends into or through the state for the prohibited distance. It thus prohibits a shipment of cream...
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