Superior Oil Co v. State of Mississippi Knox

Decision Date24 February 1930
Docket NumberNo. 28,28
Citation280 U.S. 390,74 L.Ed. 504,50 S.Ct. 169
PartiesSUPERIOR OIL CO. v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI ex rel. KNOX, Atty. Gen
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. William H. Watkins, of Jackson, Miss., and Warren Lee Guice, of Biloxi, Miss., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 391-392 intentionally omitted] Messrs. James W. Cassedy, Jr., of Brook-haven, Miss., and E. C. Sharp, of Jackson, Miss., for appellee, pro hac vice by special leave of Court.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit by the State of Mississippi to collect a tax on distributors of gasoline of three and four cents respectively per gallon sold, according to the statute in force at the time of the sales. The defense was that the sales were in interstate commerce.

The Supreme Court of the

State upheld the tax, 119 So. 360, and the defendant, the Superior Oil Company, appealed to this Court on the ground that the statutes as applied violated the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. Article 1, section 8.

The facts are as follows. The Superior Oil Company, a corporation created and doing business in Mississippi, sold gasoline to packers in Biloxi in that State and delivered it at the packers' wharves. The latter loaded the oil upon their own fishing boats and sent it out to the neighborhood of Grants Pass, Louisiana, where they delivered it to shrimp fishermen for use in fishing. The firshermen brought their catch back to Biloxi, sold it to the packers and were charged with the cost of the oil in account. The appellant received in each case from the purchaser what is called a bill of lading, signed by the master of the boat on which the oil was loaded and reading in part: 'Consigned to Gussie Fontaine Pkg. co. (or other purchasers). Destination: Grants Pass, La. By boat Frank Louis, owned or operated by Gussie Fontaine Pkg. Co.' The instrument then provided that 'the property consigned herein remains the property of said Superior Oil Company until it shall be delivered to consignee or consignee's agent at point of destination,' with provisions throwing all risks upon the purchasers. The seller of course paid no freight. The document seems to have had no other use than, as the Supreme Court of Mississippi said, to try to convert a domestic transaction into one of interstate commerce. There was no consignee at the point of destination. The goods were delivered to the so-called consignee before they started, and were in its hands throughout. There was no point of destination for delivering of the oil but merely a neighborhood in which the packers that had bought it and already held it expected to sell it again. The document hardly can affect the case, because it is 'not within the power of the parties by the form of their contract to convert what was exclusively a local business, subject to state control, into an interstate commerce business, protected by the commerce clause'; Browning v. Waycross, 233 U. S. 16, 23, 34 S. Ct. 578, 580, 58 L. Ed. 828; at least when the contract achieves nothing else.

The importance of the commerce clause to the Union of course is very great. But it also is important to prevent that clause being used to deprive the States of their lifeblood by a strained interpretation of facts. We may admit that ...

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135 cases
  • Chassanoil v. City of Greenwood
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • May 6, 1933
    ... ... SABIN v. SAME Nos. 30494, 30495 Supreme Court of Mississippi May 6, 1933 ... Suggestion Of Error Overruled June 12, ... 2 ... COMMERCE ... State ... is without power to tax interstate commerce, or right to ... engage ... throughout the world as being of a superior type, strength, ... and character; that the city of Greenwood is located ... does, to intrastate business alone. See State ex rel ... Knox v. G. M. & N. R. Co., 138 Miss. 70, 104 So. 689; ... Coe v. Errol, 116 ... ...
  • Deep South Oil Co. of Texas v. FEDERAL POWER COM'N
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    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
    • July 30, 1957
    ...541, 78 L.Ed. 1004. 22 See Coe v. Town of Errol, 116 U.S. 517, 525, 6 S.Ct. 475, 29 L.Ed. 715, 718; Superior Oil Co. v. State of Mississippi, 280 U.S. 390, 50 S.Ct. 169, 74 L.Ed. 504; Empresa Siderurgica, S.A. v. County of Merced, 337 U.S. 154, 157, 69 S.Ct. 995, 93 L.Ed. 1276, 1280; Depart......
  • State Board of Equalization v. Blind Bull Coal Co.
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    • Wyoming Supreme Court
    • April 16, 1940
    ...Court as to the right of a state to levy a sales tax upon gasoline, in which the court followed the rule laid down in Superior Oil Company v. Mississippi, supra, Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, Inc., 289 U.S. 249; Nashville R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249; Wiloil Corporation v. Pennsylvani......
  • Gardella v. Chandler
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
    • February 9, 1949
    ...529, 52 L.Ed. 828, 14 Ann.Cas. 560; Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U.S. 161, 168, 45 S.Ct. 475, 69 L.Ed. 897; Superior Oil Co. v. State of Mississippi, 280 U.S. 390, 50 S.Ct. 169, 74 L.Ed. 504; Empire Trust Co. v. Cahan, 274 U.S. 473, 478, 47 S.Ct. 661, 71 L.Ed. 1158, 57 A.L.R. 921; Haddock v. Haddock......
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2 books & journal articles
  • Fair Use and Home Videotape Copying of Television Broadcasts
    • United States
    • Seattle University School of Law Seattle University Law Review No. 1-01, September 1977
    • Invalid date
    ...sale of a tangible object. 89. Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55, 62 (1911). Accord, Superior Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 280 U.S. 390, 395 (1929). 90. 26 F. 519 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1886), reu'd on. retrial, 28 F. 613 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1886). At the second trial, the circuit court held ......
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    • University of Nebraska - Lincoln Nebraska Law Review No. 39, 2022
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    ...supra note 189 and accompanying text. 349. Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465, 469 (1935); Superior Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 280 U.S. 390, 395-96 (1930); United States v. Isham, 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 496, 506 (1873). 350. The First Amendment overbreadth doctrine permits a litigant ......

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