American Express Co. v. Beer

65 So. 575, 107 Miss. 528
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 15, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 65 So. 575 (American Express Co. v. Beer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Express Co. v. Beer, 65 So. 575, 107 Miss. 528 (Mich. 1914).

Opinion

Smith, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

(After stating the facts as above). "While the constitutionality of practically all of the sections of the May-Mott-Lewis Act is called in question by counsel for ap-pellee, we will take into consideration only the objections raised to sections 2, 5, 7, and paragraph 2 of section 11, and will leave the residue of the act altogether out of [536]*536view, for the reason that, if these sections are valid, whether the remaining sections are valid or not does not concern the parties hereto. It is always the court’s duty in passing upon the constitutionality of a statute to separate the valid from the invalid parts thereof, if this can he done, and to permit the valid parts to stand unless the different parts of the statute are so intimately connected with and dependent upon each other as to warrant a belief that the legislature intended them as a whole and that if all could not be carried into effect it would not have enacted the residue independently. Adams v. Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky, 97 Miss. 879, 53 So. 692. We are relieved in the case at bar from any doubt as to whether the legislature would have enacted the sections of the statute here in question independently of the residue thereof, for the reason that it is expressly provided by section 18 of the act that:

“If, for any reason, any section or part of this act shall be held to be unconstitutional or invalid, then that fact shall not invalidate any other part of this act, but the same shall be enforced without reference to the part so held to be invalid.”

The objections of counsel for appellant to the sections •of the May-Mott-Lewis Act, to which we have indicated that we will address our attention, may be reduced in •substance to three: First, the requirements and prohibitions therein contained impose a direct burden on interstate commerce; second, that the federal statute known as the Webb-Kenyon Act has no application for the reason that it appears that the liquor was not to be sold or used in violation of any law of the state; third, the Webb-Kenyon Act is void under the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. Const, art. 1, sec. 8, subd. 3.

The first objection in so far as sections 2, 7, and 11 are concerned is well taken, for there can be no question but “that the prohibitions and requirements contained - in these three sections impose a direct burden on interstate [537]*537commerce in intoxicating liquors, and consequently are-void unless within the provisions of the Webb-Kenyon Act. This act and its title are as follows:

“An act divesting intoxicating liquors of their interstate-character in certain cases.
“Be it enacted, etc., that the shipment or transportation, in any manner or by any means whatsoever,” of any “intoxicating liquor of any kind, from one state . . . into any other state, . . . which said . . . intoxicating liquor is intended, by any person interested therein, to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner-used, either in the original package, or otherwise, in violation of any laws of such state, ... is hereby prohibited.”

Section No. 2 of the May-Mott-Lewis Act, following-closely the provisions of the Webb-Kenyon Act, which the draftsman of these sections evidently had before him at the time they were drawn, provides:

That it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation, or any officer, agent or employee thereof, to ship or transport in any manner, or by any means whatever, any intoxicating liquor of any kind from a point within any other state, territory or district of the United States, or place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, to any person, firm or corporation, or any agent, officer or employee thereof, in this state, which said intoxicating liq-our is intended by any person interested therein to be received, possessed, sold or in any manner used, either in the original package or otherwise, in violation of any law of this state now in force or hereafter to be enacted. ’r

By paragraph 2 of section 11 of this act it is made-lawful for—

“any person to order and have shipped and delivered to him, from without the state, for his-own use or for social use in his home or for the use of the members of his family residing with him, such intoxicating liquors, in quantities not exceeding one gallon, or malt liquor not exceeding’ one keg’ or cask of beer.”

[538]*538The result of these two sections of the act is that it is unlawful for any person to order and have shipped and delivered to him, or for him to receive, from without the state, intoxicating liquors in quantities in excess of one gallon. He has no right under the statute to receive intoxicating liquors shipped to him from a point without the state in quantities in excess of one gallon and should he do so such liquor would be received by him in violation of the laws of the state. Such a shipment of liquor therefore is clearly within the terms of the Webb-Kenyon Act as a mere inspection thereof will demonstrate, for it expressly devests intoxicating liquor of its interstate character when it is intended by any person interested therein to be received in violation’ 'of the laws of the state into which it is being transported.

But it is said, in substance, by counsel for appellee— and they are supported in so doing by the cases of Adams Express Co. v. Commonwealth, 154 Ky. 462, 157 S. W. 908, 48 L. R. A. (N. S.) 342, and Palmer v. Southern Express Co .(Tenn.), 165 S. W. 236—that the Webb-Kenyon Act has no reference to the quantity of liquor which a person interested therein may receive, or to the manner in which he may receive it, or with what he must do in order to be entitled to receive it; that the act applies only to intoxicating liquor intended by some person interested therein to be possessed, sold, or used in violation of law; that, quoting from their brief:

“It is enough for the disposition of this case to say, that it does not appear that the liquors shipped were intended to be sold or used in violation of any law of the state, and, therefore, the Webb-Kenyon Act does not apply to this controversy. From the facts stated and confessed by the demurrer, the liquors purchased were for personal use of W. J. Fletcher and his family; this was a lawful use, and indeed permitted by the statute in question.”

The language of this act is plain and unambiguous, and it is therefore unnecessary to invoke any rules of con-[539]*539straction in order to ascertain its meaning. We will, however, examine it in the light of some of the leading cases decided by the supreme court of the United States in dealing with the right of a state to regulate commerce in intoxicating’ liquor shipped into the state from without.

This matter seems first to have been squarely presented to the court in 1847 in the License Cases, 5 How. 505, 12 L. Ed. 256.

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Bluebook (online)
65 So. 575, 107 Miss. 528, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-express-co-v-beer-miss-1914.