Wallace v. Currin
Citation | 95 F.2d 856 |
Decision Date | 05 April 1938 |
Docket Number | No. 4224.,4224. |
Parties | WALLACE, Secretary of Agriculture, et al. v. CURRIN et al. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
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Morris R. Clark, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., and John H. Manning, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Raleigh, N. C. (Robert H. Jackson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hugh B. Cox and Robert L. Stern, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen., and J. O. Carr, U. S. Atty., of Wilmington, N. C., on the brief), for appellants.
B. S. Royster, Jr., of Oxford, N. C. (Royster & Royster, of Oxford, N. C., on the brief), for appellees.
Before PARKER, NORTHCOTT, and SOPER, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a decree enjoining officials of the Department of Agriculture and the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina from enforcing the provisions of the Tobacco Inspection Act of August 23, 1935, 7 U.S.C.A. § 511 et seq. The appellees, complainants below, are warehousemen operating tobacco auction warehouses in Oxford, North Carolina. Four questions are presented by the appeal: (1) Whether complainants have any standing under the facts as shown to ask the relief prayed; (2) whether the act is a valid regulation of interstate commerce or void as an invasion of the reserved power of the states; (3) whether the act is void as an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Secretary of Agriculture or to the growers of tobacco; and (4) whether the act violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Sales of tobacco are conducted throughout the tobacco growing sections of the United States according to the same general plan, which is as follows: After the tobacco has been cured and is ready for marketing, the grower grades it as best he can, arranges it in bundles and hauls it to the auction warehouse. It is unloaded at the warehouse and bundles or "hands" of tobacco are placed in baskets and weighed under the supervision of a warehouse employee. A ticket is placed on each pile, giving the name of the owner, the number of pounds of tobacco in the pile, and spaces for the name of the buyer and the price paid. The baskets are arranged in rows with a passageway between, and buyers may then come on the floor and inspect it. Sales are by auction and are conducted with great rapidity, the minimum speed being 360 baskets per hour, or one basket every ten seconds. As soon as a sale is made, a ticket marker places the name of the buyer and the price paid on the ticket. The grower may reject the bid and have the tobacco resold or withdraw it from the warehouse, but unless this is done promptly the buyer removes it and the sale is complete. Because of the speed with which the sale is conducted, there are many errors in grading which are prejudicial to the grower whose tobacco is being sold and who is generally without the technical knowledge of grading necessary for the protection of his own interest.
To remedy this evil, by establishing and promoting the use of standards of classification and by maintaining an official inspection service and grading the tobacco in advance of sale, as well as by furnishing to the grower information of the market price being paid for tobacco of the several grades, was the purpose of the act of Congress here under consideration. See Townsend v. Yeomans, 301 U.S. 441, 452, 57 S.Ct. 842, 847, 81 L.Ed. 1210. This was expressed in Report No. 1102 of the 74th Congress, First Session, as follows:
The act, in addition to providing for the establishing of official standards for grading tobacco and for distributing information relative to market supply, demand, and prices, provides for free inspection in those markets in which tobacco moves in interstate commerce and which have been designated by the Secretary of Agriculture to receive the inspection service. The Secretary is authorized to designate for this service auction markets where tobacco moves in commerce, and commerce within the meaning of the act is defined by section 1 (i) thereof, 7 U.S.C.A. § 511 (i), as follows: Before any market may be designated by the Secretary he is required to take a referendum vote of the growers who sold tobacco on the market during the preceding marketing season, and he is forbidden to designate any market for the service unless two-thirds of the growers voting in the referendum favor it. Section 5 of the act, 7 U.S.C.A. § 511d, which is the one pertinent to the question here presented, is as follows: ...
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