State v. Littlefield

• Decision Date: 05 October 1914
• Citation: 91 A. 945,112 Me. 211
• Parties: STATE v. LITTLEFIELD.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

91 A. 945

112 Me. 211

STATE

v. LITTLEFIELD.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Oct. 5, 1914.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, York County, at Law.

John G. Littlefield was charged with doing business as an itinerant vendor without having procured the license required by law. On report. Judgment for defendant.

Argued before SAVAGE, C. J., and SPEAR, KING, HALEY, HANSON, and PHILBROOK, JJ.

Hiram Willard, Co. Atty., of Sanford, for the State. Cleaves, Waterhouse & Emery, of Biddeford, for respondent.

HALEY, J. This is a complaint and warrant against the defendant for conducting business as an itinerant vendor in the town of York in the county of York, by selling from a car, at retail, goods, wares, and merchandise, without having procured the licenses required by chapter 45 of the Revised Statutes, and is before this court upon report.

Section 1 of said chapter reads as follows:

"Every itinerant vendor who shall sell or expose for sale, at public or private sale, any goods, wares and merchandise without state and local licenses therefor, issued as hereinafter provided, shall be punished for each offense. * * *"

Section 15 of the same chapter defines the words "itinerant vendor" as follows:

"The words 'itinerant vendors' for the purposes of this chapter shall be construed to mean and include all persons, both principals and agents, who engage in a temporary or transient business in this state, either in one locality or in traveling from place to place selling goods, wares and merchandise, and who, for the purposes of carrying on such business,, hire, lease or occupy any building or structure for the exhibition and sale of such goods, wares and merchandise, or who sell goods, wares and merchandise, at retail from a car, steamer or vessel."

The facts are undisputed, and it is agreed that the evidence may be considered an agreed statement of facts.

The defendant, at the time complained of, was a citizen of Wells, an adjoining town to the town of York, in the county of York, and was, and had been for a number of years, engaged in the grocery business at said Wells, and as a part of that business sold at retail and at wholesale flour, grain, sugar, and feed. For a number of years prior to 1913, he had been selling flour, sugar, and feed in car load lots to Mr. Plaisted, a merchant of York, but in the spring of 1913 Mr. Plaisted gave up the handling of those goods, and about six weeks prior to April 1st the defendant went to York and solicited and took orders from residents of that town for grain, flour, sugar, and feed, in quantities to load a freight car, with the understanding that defendant was to send the orders out of the state to be filled. The defendant sent the orders out of the state for goods enough to fill the orders taken in York and other places and for his business at Wells, three or four car loads in all. The goods arrived at Kennebunk on the tracks of the Boston & Maine Railroad, and the defendant sorted out of the goods, those to fill the orders taken in York, placed them all in one car, and forwarded them to York village, some 12 to 15 miles distant, by the Atlantic Shore Line Railway. The goods arrived at York village on April 3d, and the defendant delivered from the car to the parties in York the goods ordered by them, and was paid the price agreed upon, the bills varying from $50 to $170 for each party, except that, as the goods did not arrive in York as early as expected, some of the parties who had given orders did not call for the goods, and those goods the defendant sold from the car, selling to one Ralph Merrill two 100-pound bags of sugar, to Gilbert II. Martin two 100-pound bags of sugar and one barrel of flour and two or three bags of grain, and to Charles Blake one 100-pound bag of sugar. The state claims a conviction for two reasons:

First. The delivery from the freight car by the defendant of the goods ordered by the parties who received them; they having been ordered to be shipped from another state, and having been so shipped and delivered by the defendant.

Second. The sale and delivery to the three persons above named, who purchased the goods ordered by parties who did not call for them.

First. The acts of the defendant in soliciting orders for the goods, and delivering them from the car to the parties ordering them, were not unlawful. The facts upon this branch of the case are practically the same as in Stewart v. Michigan, 232 U. S. 665, 34 Sup. Ct. 476, 58 L. Ed. 786, in which case the defendant was convicted in the state court under a statute for doing, without a license, similar acts to the acts done by the defendant in this case, without a license, and it was held on a writ of error that the conviction was error. By the rules of law declared in that case and in Crenshaw v. Arkansas, 227 U. S. 389, 33 Sup. Ct. 294, 57 L. Ed. 565, the acts of the defendant were not unlawful. The soliciting of orders for goods to be shipped from another state, their shipment from another state to this state, and the delivery of the goods to the persons who ordered them was interstate commerce, and the state cannot burden interstate commerce by compelling persons engaged in that commerce to pay a special tax for the privilege of engaging in such commerce.

Second. Did the sale, to the three persons above named, of goods that had been ordered by other parties from the defendant to be shipped...