Troppy v. La Sara Farmers Gin Co., 9411.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1940 |
| Docket Number | No. 9411.,9411. |
| Citation | 113 F.2d 350 |
| Parties | TROPPY v. LA SARA FARMERS GIN CO., Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
H. L. Hall, of Edinburg, Tex., for appellant.
Sid L. Hardin, of Edinburg, Tex., John S. L. Yost and W. Carroll Hunter, Sp. Assts. to the Atty. Gen., Douglas W. McGregor, U. S. Atty., of Houston, Tex., and Jas. L. Abney, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Brownsville, Tex., for appellees.
Before FOSTER, HUTCHESON, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
The appellant challenges the constitutional validity of the cotton-marketing quota provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.1 The judgment appealed from denied his right to recover from appellees amounts withheld under the act as penalties on sales of cotton in excess of marketing quotas established under the act for the marketing year 1938-1939. The United States was permitted to intervene as a defendant.2 To avoid repetition, reference is made to the complete statement of facts in the able opinion of the district court in this case.3
This cotton was produced on farms in Texas, and sold in Texas to appellees. They resold it to cotton merchants who, after compression, shipped it to an important concentration point in Texas, where large quantities of cotton were received from many states for reshipment almost entirely to foreign nations. Cotton concentrated at this point usually loses its identity as the product of any particular state or producer. Of the very small quantity reshipped to domestic points, a major portion goes to non-cotton-producing states. It is very probable that the final destination of this cotton was a foreign country, but it cannot be definitely traced beyond the State of Texas.
In 1937, Texas consumed slightly less than 2% of its production of 4,952,000 bales, Mississippi, slightly more than 2% of its 2,562,000, California, 3½% of its 723,000, and Arkansas, a negligible quantity of its 1,809,000 bales. The consumption, if any, in the producing states of Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma was too negligible to report. On the other hand, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia consumed more than they produced, but, in each of these states, substantial quantities of cotton produced therein were shipped to points outside of the state, and each also received substantial quantities produced in other states. It is estimated that a bale of cotton produced in the United States travels from farm to mill, on an average, a distance of 4,000 miles.
Although the penalties in this case were imposed upon intrastate sales, the question is whether or not they were sales in the stream, or affecting the stream, of interstate or foreign commerce, and as such were valid under the commerce clause of the federal constitution, art. 1, § 8, cl. 3. The district court answered this question in the affirmative, and we concur in its findings and conclusions. Our task is made easy by the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38, 59 S.Ct. 648, 83 L.Ed. 1092, sustaining the tobacco-marketing quota provisions of the same act against the challenge that such provisions constituted a regulation of the production of tobacco. The court held that the act did not purport to control production, and imposed no penalty upon the production of tobacco in excess of the marketing quota; that the statute operated, not on production, but prospectively on marketing. It further held that the motive of Congress in exerting the power was irrelevant to the validity of the legislation. There is no difference between the poundage quota for cotton and that for tobacco. The Mulford decision is controlling here.
In United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477, 102 A. L.R. 914, the Government relied upon the power to tax and to spend under the general welfare clause of the...
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United States v. Shafer, Civ. No. 8218.
...that it violates the Fifth Amendment. See also Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38, 59 S.Ct. 648, 83 L.Ed. 1092, and Troppy v. La Sara Farmers Gin Co., 5 Cir., 113 F.2d 350. The right to measure asserted by the government in this case is in aid of and ancillary to the right to regulate the market......
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Filburn v. Helke, 118.
...so upheld. Mulford v. Smith, supra. A like decision has been reached as to the provisions relating to cotton. Troppy v. La Sara Farmers Gin Co., Inc., 5 Cir., 113 F.2d 350. Denial of the same validity to wheat regulation, as a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce, as has been accor......
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Luke v. Review Committee, Civ. A. No. 6202.
...States v. Shafer, D.C., 132 F. Supp. 659; 4 Cir., 229 F.2d 124; Rodgers v. United States, 5 Cir., 138 F.2d 992; Troppy v. La Sara Farmers Gin Co., 5 Cir., 113 F.2d 350; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. We do not believe that the regulation in question violates the due......
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Enterprise Box Co. v. Fleming
...58 S.Ct. 656, 82 L.Ed. 954; United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L.R. 1430; Troppy v. La Sara Farmers Gin Co., 5 Cir., 113 F. 2d 350. 5 Cf. United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609, 132 A.L. R. ...