Street v. Lincoln Safe Deposit Co

• Decision Date: 08 November 1920
• Docket Number: No. 278,278
• Citation: 254 U.S. 88,65 L.Ed. 151,41 S.Ct. 31
• Parties: STREET v. LINCOLN SAFE DEPOSIT CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

254 U.S. 88

41 S.Ct. 31

65 L.Ed. 151

STREET

v LINCOLN SAFE DEPOSIT CO. et al.

No. 278.

Argued April 26, 1920.

Decided Nov. 8, 1920.

Messrs. Joseph S. Auerbach and Charles H. Tuttle, both of New York City, for appellant.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson, for appellees.

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the court.

By the motion to dismiss the bill filed in this suit it is admitted: that the defendant Lincoln Safe Deposit Company is a corporation, organized under the laws of the state of New York, and authorized to engage in the warehousing business; that prior to the effective date of the National Prohibition (Volstead) Act (41 Stat. 305) the appellant was the lessee of a room in the warehouse of the defendant Deposit Company, in which he had stored wines and liquors lawfully acquired by him which 'are in his exclusive possession and control and are intended to be and will be used only for personal consumption by the plaintiff and the members of his family or bona fide guests'; that the defendant Daniel L. Porter is an agent of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, charged with the duty of enforcing the Volstead Act, who in his offcial capacity has publicly declared and thereatened that such storage of liquor by the defendant Deposit Company would be unlawful after the Volstead Act became effective, and would expose plaintiff and the Deposit Company to the penalties of that act, which would be enforced against them; that the appellant desired to continue to store his liquors in said rented room after the Volstead Act should become effective, and intended to report the same to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, as therein required; and that the Deposit Company, moved wholly by the notices and threats of defendant Porter, had notified plaintiff that he must remove his liquors from its warehouse, or that it would remove and deliver them to Porter as outlawed property, to be dealt with under the Volstead Act after it became effective.

Averring as a matter of law that such possession of liquors in a warehouse is not forbidden by the Eighteenth Amendment or the Volstead Act, the appellant prayed that an injunction should issue, restraining the defendants from interfering with his possession of the room in the warehouse and from removing or disposing of his liquors.

The motion to dismiss was sustained, and a constitutional question being involved, appellant brought the case by direct appeal to this court.

Thus is presented for decision the question:

May a warehousing corporation lawfully permit to be stored in its warehouse, after the effective date of the Volstead Act, liquors admitted to have been lawfully acquired before that date and which are so stored, solely and in good faith, for the purpose of preserving and protecting them until they shall be consumed by the owner and his family or bona fide guests?

Since the Volstead Act has been held by this court to be a valid law, the answer to this question must be found in its provisions, and the sections of it which it is argued sustain the negative anwer to the question given by the court below, are 3, 21, and 25 of title II.

Since here, as always, the purpose of Congress in enacting a law is of importance in determining the meaning of it, it is noteworthy that title II of the Volstead Act was passed under the grant of power to enforce the first section of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, but does not indicate any purpose to confiscate liquors lawfully owned at the time the amendment should become effective and which the owner intended to use in a lawful manner.

Section 33 of the act is the only one which deals specifically with liquors lawfully acquired before it should take effect and it is therefore of first importance in the consideration of the case before us. That section declares:

'It shall not be unlawful to possess liquors in one's private dwelling while the same is occupied and used by him as his dwelling only and such liquor need not be reported, provided such liquors are for use only for the personal consumption of the owner thereof and his family residing in such dwelling and of his bona fide guests when entertained by him therein.'

The admissions of fact under which this case is considered bring the liquors here involved precisely within these immunity provisions of section 33, except that they are stored in a public warehouse instead of in a private dwelling. They were lawfully acquired and were intended for a lawful use and thus the question is narrowed to, whether such custody by the warehouse company as is shown by the admissions was forbidden by the act.

Coming now to the sections relied upon as rendering the custody or possession of the liquors by the warehouse company unlawful:

Section 25 declares that——

'It shall be unlawful to have or possess any liquor * * * intended for use in violating this title. * * *'

But since section 33 declares that the uses to which it is admitted the plaintiff intends to devote his liquors are not unlawful, obviously this section does not apply to the case for the unlawfulness declared by it is conditioned upon the intended use in violating the act.

Section 21 declares that——

'Any room, house, building * * * or place where intoxicating liquor is manufactured, sold, kept, or bartered in violation of this title, and all intoxicating liquor and property kept and used in maintaining the same, is hereby declared to be a common nuisance,' and for the maintaining of such a place penalties are provided.

The word 'kept' in this section is the only one of...