Willis v. Standard Oil Co.
| Decision Date | 27 June 1892 |
| Citation | 50 Minn. 290 |
| Parties | H. B. WILLIS <I>vs.</I> STANDARD OIL CO. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
The plaintiff, H. B. Willis, was the State Inspector of illuminating oils. Between July 8 and September 30, 1891, he inspected, without consent or request of defendant, 15,260 barrels of its oil manufactured without the state from petroleum and designed for sale within the state; a part in tank railroad cars and a part after it had been drawn into storage tanks. The District Court gave him judgment for said amount, as his fees for his services in making the inspection. Laws 1889, ch. 246, provides that the inspector shall receive a salary of $2,400 per annum; that he shall collect the fees for inspecting oils and pay them over to the state treasurer; that he may inspect and test illuminating oils in tank railroad cars on the track, and it shall not be transferred into storage tanks or unloaded, until so inspected. The fees are prescribed by 1878 G. S. ch. 6, § 117, and are forty cents for testing and marking a single barrel, cask or package, thirty cents each when not exceeding five in number, twenty-five cents each when not exceeding ten in number, and twenty cents each when in number or packages greater than ten, submitted at one time for inspection.
Hahn & Hawley; Stringer & Seymour; John D. O'Brien and James G. Flanders, for appellant.
Moses E. Clapp, Atty. General, H. W. Childs and Lusk, Bunn & Hadley, for respondent.
The principal questions in this case relate to the construction of Laws 1889, ch. 246, especially of section 4, and to its validity under the constitution. That chapter is one of a series of acts passed in different years having for their purpose to provide for the inspection of mineral illuminating oils, and the prevention of their sale for illuminating purposes, until inspected and ascertained to stand a test that would show them to be safe for use for purposes of illuminating. The first of these acts was passed in 1875, ch. 86. It prescribed a test, and required an inspection and a branding by the inspector on the package, cask, or barrel of the word "Approved," or the words "Rejected for illuminating purposes;" and prescribed a penalty for the sale to any person in this state of such oils for illuminating purposes, whether manufactured, refined, or produced in this state or not, before such inspection. This act was repealed by Laws 1876, ch. 90, which made fuller provision than did the prior act for inspection, and for preventing sales for illuminating purposes without inspection and approval. Laws 1877, ch. 71, made some slight amendments to the act of 1876. Laws 1878, ch. 37, also amended in a few particulars the act of 1876. These several acts contemplated an inspection in the barrel, cask, or package, and at the manufactory or refinery where made or refined, or at the shop, store, or warehouse where kept for sale, except the act of 1878 provided for inspection in quantities less than fifty (50) barrels at any railroad or river station, and the fees for inspecting were at a specified rate per barrel, cask, or package. It seems, from statements made by both parties on the argument, that, after the last of these acts was passed, a new mode of putting up such oils for transportation, and of transporting and handling them, came into use, so that they were carried in large tanks, holding each as much as one hundred barrels, placed on railroad cars, from which the oils were removed to what are called "storage tanks," being stationary tanks, holding as much as 2,000 barrels each, where they were kept until taken out for sale, or they were taken from the railroad tanks into small tanks placed on wagon wheels, which were driven about, and the oils sold from them. The provisions of law providing for inspection in barrels, casks, or packages did not seem to include inspection in these railroad tanks, and this was probably one reason for passing the act of 1889. The first three sections contain provisions not in question here. Section 4 is as follows:
The oil inspected in this case, the fees for inspecting which were allowed by the court below, was inspected part of it in railroad tanks, and the remainder in storage tanks to which it had been removed from railroad tanks without having been inspected. This raises the point for construction of the section, the inspector claiming that he is entitled to charge for inspecting in the storage tanks the oil so removed before inspection from the railroad tanks the same fees as are fixed by the section for inspection in the latter receptacles, to wit, at the rate of so much per barrel of fifty gallons; while the defendants claim that the section does not fix the rate of fees for the inspections made in the storage tanks, and that the fee is that fixed by the general law, so much per barrel, cask, or package, and that for the purpose the storage tank is to be taken to be a package. It would be a strange use of the term "package" to apply it to such a receptacle into which the oil is put, not for the purpose of handling, transportation, or sale, but only for keeping. We might as soon expect to hear it applied to a grain elevator or a storage coal bin. But whether it may be called a package or not is not a practical question; for it is beyond question that the legislature intended the inspection to be in the railroad tank, without reference to the will of the owner. The clause "such oil shall not be transferred into warehouse or storage tanks, or unloaded, until so inspected," is as emphatic an expression of legislative intent that the oil is to be inspected in the railroad tank as though the law expressly attached a penalty to such forbidden transferring or unloading; and the proposition needs no argument to prove it, that the owner of the oil cannot be permitted to gain anything by removal contrary to the prohibition of the statute, — cannot either evade inspection, or the fees for inspection, in the place where the act provides it shall be made. Upon such unauthorized removal the inspector may follow the oil to the place where it is taken, and there inspect it, and charge the same fees for inspection as he would be entitled to for inspecting in the railroad tank.
The point is made that the stipulation for submitting the case does not show the oils for inspecting which fees are claimed were illuminating oils. But the stipulation,...
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