N.Y. Cent. & Hudson River R.R. Co. v. Beaham, 242 U.S. 148 (1916)
Case details
Citation
242 U.S. 148
Full caption
NEW YORK CENTRAL & HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY v. BEAHAM.
Country
United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided
Dec. 4, 1916
Majority
Brandeis (Justice)
NEW YORK CENTRAL & HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY v. BEAHAM.
ERROR TO THE KANSAS CITY COURT OF APPEALS, STATE OF MISSOURI.
No. 118. Argued November 16, 1916.—Decided December 4,1916.
When a passenger claims damages from a carrier for the loss of baggage accepted by the carrier for transportation between States, the rights and liabilities of the parties depend upon the Acts of Congress, the agreement of the parties and the common-law principles accepted and enforced by the federal courts.
In such case, the carrier is entitled to the presumption that its business was being rightfully conducted.
Where a stipulation, limiting a carrier’s liability for baggage unless its value is stated and an extra charge paid, is printed on the face of a ticket as an ingredient of the ticket contract, and is, in substance, reiterated on a baggage check, one who, purchasing the ticket, employs it at once in checking baggage, receives the check and accepts and uses both ticket and check without objection, may be presumed to have assented to the stipulation, although he did not read it.
As bearing on its baggage liability, an interstate carrier has a right to put in evidence applicable tariff schedules on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and to have them duly considered by the court.
In an action over lost baggage, copies of tariff schedules on file with
the Interstate Commerce Commission, certified by its Chairman, and containing clauses limiting baggage liability, were offered by the defendant and received in evidence notwithstanding objection to the mode of certification. Judgment having been rendered on the theory that the limitation could not bind the plaintiff without her assent, the court below, on appeal, though holding such theory erroneous, affirmed the judgment upon the ground that the certification was insufficient and the copies therefore inadmissible. Held, that, whether the certification was sufficient or not, it was error to affirm the judgment and thus foreclose the defendant from protecting itself by introducing other evidence on a new trial.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Mr. Albert S. Marley, with whom Mr. John S. Marley and Mr. Robert J. Cary were on the brief, for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Justin D. Bowersock, with whom Mr. Robert B. Fizzell was on the briefs, for defendant in error.
Mr . Just ice Mc Reynolds delivered the opinion of the court.
At its New York City Station, in September, 1910, Miss Beaham purchased of plaintiff in error a first class ticket over its own and connecting lines on the face of which was printed—“Issued by the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. Good for one passage of the class indicated on coupons attached to Kansas City, Missouri, when stamped and sold by an agent holding written authority as prescribed by law, and presented with coupons attached. Subject to the following Contract: . . . 5. Baggage liability is limited to wearing apparel not to exceed one hundred (100) dollars in value for a whole ticket and fifty (50) dollars for a half ticket unless a greater value is declared by the owner, and excess charge thereon paid at the time of taking passage.”
Immediately after purchasing the ticket she presented it at the baggage department; her trunk was received for transportation; and she accepted a check or receipt therefor upon which were the words—“See conditions on back. Value not stated.” On the back this was printed—“Notice to Passengers. Baggage consists of a passenger’s personal wearing apparel and liability is limited to $100 (except a greater or less amount is provided in tariffs) on full fare ticket, unless a greater value is declared by owner at time of checking and payment is made therefor.”
The trunk and contents having been lost she sued plaintiff in error for their full value in the Circuit Court, Jackson County, Missouri. Admitting responsibility for one hundred dollars the company claimed exemption from any larger recovery because of limitations specified in the ticket and impliedly assented to when it was ac~ cepted and used; and also because of the same limitations embodied in its tariff schedules filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission.
A jury being waived the cause was tried by the court. Acceptance and use of both ticket and check were shown and nothing in the evidence indicated any purpose to deceive or mislead the purchaser or inability on her part to appreciate the provisions in question; she disclaimed having read them and denied their validity under general principles of law. Counsel for the railroad offered in evidence copies of its tariff schedules on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission, certified by the Chairman of that body. These contained clauses limiting liability for baggage to one hundred dollars unless greater value was declared and paid for; and they were admitted notwithstanding an objection to mode of their authentication.
The Circuit Court held no agreement limiting liability resulted from acceptance and use of ticket and check, p. 151and that, “even if the local and interstate tariffs of excess baggage rates introduced in evidence were filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, and properly posted as required by the Interstate Commerce Act, still plaintiff would be entitled to recover the reasonable value of her trunk and the reasonable value of the articles of baggage contained therein, unless she expressly assented to the provisions of said tariffs limiting the liability of the defendant to $100 for loss of baggage unless a greater value should be declared and paid for.” A judgment for $1771.52 was affirmed by the Kansas City Court of Appeals. It held that Boston and Maine Railroad v. Hooker, 233 U. S. 97, would necessitate a reversal but for the fact that the record contained no competent evidence to show a schedule on file with the Commission specifying liability for baggage; “the Federal statute provides that copies of tariff rates on file with that commission, shall be received in evidence, if certified by the Secretary, under the seal of the commission,” and certification by the Chairman is insufficient. It therefore wholly disregarded the copies in the record and treated the cause as though they had not been introduced.
The transactions in question related to interstate commerce; consequent rights and liabilities depend upon acts of Congress, agreement between the parties, and common law principles accepted and enforced in federal courts. And the carrier is entitled to the presumption that its business is being conducted lawfully. Southern Express Company V. Byers, 240 U. S. 612, 614; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway Co. v. Rankin, 241 U. S. 319, 326.
In the circumstances disclosed, acceptance and use of the ticket sufficed to establish an agreement prima fade valid which limited the carrier’s liability. Mere failure by the passenger to read matter plainly placed before her p. 152could not overcome the presumption of assent. Railroad Company v. Fraloff, 100 U. S. 24, 27; The Kensington, 183 U. S. 263; Phineas Fonseca v. Cunard Steamship Co., 153 Massachusetts, 553.
In order to determine the liability assumed for baggage it was proper to consider applicable tariff schedules on file with the Interstate Commerce Commission; and the carrier had a federal right not only to a fair opportunity to put these in evidence but also that when before the court they should be given due consideration. Southern Express Company v. Byers, 240 U. S. 614; Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Jones, 241 U. S. 181. After their admission in evidence by the trial court the schedules could not be disregarded arbitrarily without denying the railroad’s federal right; and we think they were so treated by the Court of Appeals. We are cited to no decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri recognizing any settled rule of practice there which required such action and the unjust consequences of it are apparent. Assuming, without deciding, the correctness of its opinion that the schedules as certified were inadmissible and improperly received, nevertheless the court should not have destroyed the carrier’s opportunity to protect itself by introducing other evidence upon a new trial.
Reverse and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.
Mr . Justice Pitney dissents.
242 U. S. Argument for Plaintiffs in Error.
HUTCHINSON ICE CREAM COMPANY ET AL. v.
STATE OF IOWA.1
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IOWA.
CROWL v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF
PENNSYLVANIA.
Nos. 40, 50. Argued November 13, 1916.—Decided December 4, 1916.
Laws forbidding the sale, offering for sale, etc., as “Ice Cream” of any article not containing butter-fat in reasonable proportion fall fairly within the state police power.
The fact that the name ‘Tee Cream,” as commonly used, includes many compounds which are entirely wholesome yet contain no cream or butter-fat, does not render such legislation arbitrary or unreasonable, but tends rather to support it as serving to prevent the public from being misled in the purchase of a food article of general consumption.
Whether the State may prohibit the sale of wholesome products if the public welfare seems to require such action is a question not involved in these cases.
168 Iowa, 1; 245 Pa. St. 554, affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Mr. Walter Jeffreys Carlin and Mr. R. L. Parrish for plaintiffs in error:
While the police power may be exercised to protect the public health, morals, safety and general welfare, it may
1 Pursuant to stipulation, the case of Sanders Ice Cream Co. et al. v. State of Iowa, No. 39, October. Term, 1916, in error to the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, was argued on the record in the Hutchinson Case, supra, and disposed of in the same way.
Argument for Plaintiffs in Error. 242 U. S.
not destroy private rights arbitrarily; and whether its exercise in a given case is valid or not is a judicial question.
“Ice Cream” is a generic term, embracing a large number and variety of products, many of which, though entirely wholesome, do not contain either cream of milk or butter-fat. The term, as generally used and understood, does not imply the presence of such ingredients in definite proportions or at all. The product, thus broadly defined, is not an imitation or substitute for any other confection or food, but an admittedly wholesome article passing honestly by its own name.
The standard enacted is purely arbitrary. The legislature selects one variety of the product and declares that henceforth all other varieties of the same product shall cease to bear the name under which they have customarily been sold for more than a hundred years. The percentages are without reasonable basis. It also arbitrarily excludes from the standard product ingredients which are wholesome and commonly employed. Such arbitrary classifications are unconstitutional. Truax v. Raich, 229 U. S. 33; People ex rel. Farrington v. Mensching, 187 N. Y. 8; Nichols v. Ames, 173 U. S. 509, 521; State v. Miksicek, 125 S. W. Rep. 501.
The legislation has no tendency to prevent fraud. The cases involving colored oleomargarine have no application, there being here no substitute for a well known article of food. See State v. Layton, 61 S. W. Rep. 171, 176. The cases concerning milk are inapplicable. Milk is a definite product of nature. Its quality has been standardized to protect health and prevent fraud. Rigbers v. City of Atlanta, 66 S. E. Rep. 991; People v. Biesecker, 169 N. Y. 53, 57. Neither do cases apply which concern regulations of weight and measure.
This legislation if sustained, must be sustained solely as tending to prevent fraud, and only on the basis of the p. 155242 U. S. Counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
situation as it existed before the enactment, not on the basis of a situation created by the legislation itself, and since the incontrovertible facts of common knowledge absolutely negative the possibility that any purchaser of ice cream could have been misled by the term “ice cream” into assuming that the name implied any particular proportionate butter-fat content, or that the product was made of dairy cream alone, it necessarily follows that no fraud was possible and hence the law cannot be sustained as a police measure tending to prevent fraud and deceit.
The legislature cannot prohibit the sale of a wholesome commodity in the absence of fraud; but such is the effect of this legislation if sustained. When manufacturers are deprived of the name under which their product is always bought and sold, they are deprived of the right to sell it, their business is injured, and their property taken. The privilege to sell it as something else is a privilege of no value.
Under the Pennsylvania law ice cream containing less than 8 per cent, of butter-fat can not be sold under any name. This would absolutely forbid the sale of an innocent and wholesome commodity. It can not be done. See decision of the Iowa Supreme Court in the Hutchinson Case; also Rigbers v. City of Atlanta, supra; State v. Hanson (Minn.), 136 N. W. Rep. 412; People v. Marx, 99 N. Y. 383, 387; People v. Biesecker, supra.
Mr. George Cosson, Attorney General of the State of Iowa, for the State of Iowa.
Mr. William M. Hargest, Deputy Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with whom Mr. Francis Shunk Brown, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was on the brief, for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Mr . Justice Brandeis delivered the opinion of the court.
These cases were argued together. In each a state statute which prohibits the sale of ice cream containing less than a fixed percentage of butter-fat is assailed as invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment; the Supreme Court of each State having held its statute constitutional. State v. Hutchinson Ice Cream Co., 168 Iowa, 1; Commonwealth v. Crowl, 245 Pa. St. 554. Iowa makes 12 per cent, the required minimum; Pennsylvania 8 per cent. The material provisions of the several statutes are copied in the margin.1
1
Iowa: Code Supp., 1913, § 4999-a20: “No person, firm or corporation, . . . shall manufacture or introduce into the state, or solicit or take orders for delivery, or sell, exchange, defiver or have in his possession with the intent to sell, exchange or expose or offer for sale or exchange, any article of food which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this act.” Code Supp., 1913, § 4999-a31e: “For the purpose of this act,an article of food shall be deemed to be adulterated: “ First. If any substance or substances has or have been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality, strength or purity. “Second. If any substance or substances has or have been substituted wholly or in part for the article. “Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted. “Fourth. If it does not conform to the standards established by law.” Chap. 175, Acts 34th G. A. (1911), p. 192: “Ice -Crea m .” “1. Ice-cream is the frozen product made from pure wholesome ^weet cream, and sugar, with or without flavoring, and if desired, the addition of not to exceed one per cent. (1%) by weight of a harmless thickener, and contains not less than twelve per cent. (12%) by weight coloring substance deleterious to health: Provided, That this paragraph shall not be construed to prohibit the use of harmless coloring matter in ice cream, when not used for fraudulent purposes. “Third. If it shall contain any deleterious flavoring matter, or flavoring matter not true to name. “Fourth. If it be an imitation of, or offered for sale under, the name of another article. . . . “Secti on 4. No ice cream shall be sold within the State containing less than eight (8) per centum butter fat, except where fruit or nuts are used for the purpose of flavoring, when it shall not contain less than six (6) per centum butter fat.”
The right of the State under the police power to regulate the sale of products with a view to preventing frauds or protecting the public health is conceded by plaintiffs in error. And they do not contend that the particular percentages of butter-fat set by Iowa and Pennsylvania are so exacting as to be in themselves unreasonable. Thirteen other States have by similar legislation set 14 per cent, as the miniminn; five other States 12 per cent.; only eight States have fixed a percentage as low as Pennsylvania; and
of milk fat, and the acidity shall not exceed three tenths (3-10) of one per cent (1%).”
Pennsylvania: P. L., 1909, p. 63, Purden’s Dig., vol. 5, p. 5209:
“An act for the protection of the public health and to prevent fraud and deception in the manufacture, sale, offering for sale, exposing for sale, and having in possession with intent to sell, of adulterated or deleterious ice cream; fixing a standard of butter fat for ice cream; providing penalties for the violation thereof, and providing for the enforcement thereof.
“Sec tio n 1. Be it enacted, &c., That no person, firm, or corporate body, by himself, herself, itself or themselves, or by his, her or their agents, servants, or employees, shall sell, offer for sale, expose for sale, or have in possession with intent to sell, ice cream adulterated within the meaning of this act.
“Sec ti on 2. Ice cream shall be deemed to be adulterated within the meaning of this act—
“First. If it shall contain boric acid, formaldehyde, saccharine, or any other added substance or compound that is deleterious to health.
“Second. If it shall contain salts of copper, iron oxide, ochres, or any p. 158the United States Department of Agriculture has declared 14 per cent, to be standard.1 The main objection urged is this: To require that ice cream, in order to be legally salable, must contain some butter-fat is a regulation so unreasonable and arbitrary as to be a deprivation of property without due process of law and a denial of the equal protection of the laws. To support this contention the following trade facts are shown:
The ice cream of commerce is not iced or frozen cream. It is a frozen confection—a compound. The ingredients of this compound may vary widely in character, in the number used and in the proportions in which they are used. These variations are dependent upon the ingenuity, skill and judgment of the maker, the relative cost at a particular time or at a particular place of the possible ingredients, and the requirements of the market in respect to taste or selling price. Thus, some Philadelphia Ice Cream is made of only cream, sugar and a vanilla flavor. In making other Philadelphia Ice Cream the whites of eggs are added; and according to some formulas Vanilla Ice Cream may be made without any cream or milk whatsoever; for instance by proper manipulation of the yolks of eggs, the whites of eggs, sugar, syrup and the vanilla bean. All of these different compounds are commonly sold as ice cream; and none of them is necessarily unwholesome.
Plaintiffs in error contend that as ice cream is shown to be a generic term embracing a large number and variety of products and the term as used does not necessarily imply the use of dairy cream in its composition, it is arbitrary and unreasonable to limit the ice cream of commerce to that containing a fixed minimum of butter-fat. But the legislature may well have found in these facts persuasive p. 159evidence that the public welfare required the prohibition enacted. The facts show that in the absence of legislative regulation the ordinary purchaser at retail does not and cannot know exactly what he is getting when he purchases ice cream. He presumably believes that cream or at least rich milk is among the important ingredients; and he may make his purchase with a knowledge that butter-fat is the principal food value in cream or milk. Laws designed to prevent persons from being misled in respect to the weight, measurement, quality or ingredients of an article of general consumption are a common exercise of the police power. The legislature defines the standard article or fixes some of its characteristics; and it may conclude that fraud or mistake can be effectively prevented only by prohibiting the sale of the article under the usual trade name, if it fails to meet the requirements of the standard set. Laws prohibiting the sale of milk or cream containing less than fixed percentages of butter-fat present a familiar instance of such legislation. Cases in the state courts upholding laws of this character are referred to in the margin.1 This court has repeatedly sustained the validity of similar prohibitions. Schmidinger v. Chicago, 226 U. S. 578; Armour & Co. v. North Dakota, 240 U. S. 510.
1
The requirements of the several States are set forth in U. S. Department of Agriculture (Bureau of Animal Industry) Circular 218, on Legal Standards for Dairy Products.
It is specially urged that the statutes are unconstitutional because they do not merely define the term ice cream; but arbitrarily prohibit the sale of a large variety of wholesome compounds theretofore included under the name ice cream. The acts appear to us merely to prohibit the sale of such compounds as ice cream. Such is the construction given to the act by the Supreme Court of Iowa.
1 Iowa v. Schlenker, 112 Iowa, 642; State v. Campbell, 64 N. H. 402; People v. Bowen, 182 N. Y. 1; State n . Crescent Creamery Co., 83 Minn. 284; Louisiana v. Stone, 46 La. Ann. 147; Deems v. Baltimore, 80 Md. 164; Commonwealth v. Wheeler, 205 Mass. 384; St. Louis v. Grafeman Dairy Co., 190 Mo. 507; State v. Smyth, 14 R. I. 100.
State v. Hutchinson Ice Cream Co., 168 Iowa, 1, 15, which is of course binding on us. We cannot assume, in the absence of a definite and authoritative ruling, that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would construe the law of that State otherwise. The conviction here under review was for selling the “compound” as ice cream, so that we are not called upon to determine whether the State may in the exercise of its police power prohibit the sale even of a wholesome product, if the public welfare appear to require such action—and if, as here, interstate commerce is not involved. See Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678, 685; Schollenberger v. Pennsylvania, 171 U. S. 1, 15.
In view of the conclusion stated above, it is unnecessary to consider whether the statutes are or are not sustainable as health measures; and upon this we express no opinion.
The judgment in each case is
Affirmed.