Board of Trade of Kansas City v. Milligan

90 F.2d 855, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3972
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJune 24, 1937
Docket10780
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 90 F.2d 855 (Board of Trade of Kansas City v. Milligan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Trade of Kansas City v. Milligan, 90 F.2d 855, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3972 (8th Cir. 1937).

Opinion

GARDNER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a final judgment, dismissing for want of equity a bill of complaint filed by appellants as plaintiffs below after the plaintiffs had declined to plead further. The bill of complaint challenges the constitutional validity of the various provisions of the act of Congress known as the Commodity Exchange Act (7 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.). For conven *857 ience, the parties will be referred to as they were designated below.

Plaintiffs comprise the Board of Trade of Kansas City, Mo., its officers and directors, individual members of the Board of Trade, and firms represented by members and entitled by reason of such representation to membership privileges. The individual members and firms are engaged in handling grain and grain futures transactions as commission merchants or floor brokers or both. They filed this suit on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, naming as defendants the United States District Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, the supervisor in charge of the Commodity Exchange Administration of the Department of Agriculture at Kansas City, Mo., the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, and the United States Attorney General, the last three mentioned constituting the Commodity Exchange Commission under the challenged act. The purpose of the suit was to enjoin the enforcement of the various provisions of the act, and to secure a declaratory judgment upon the controversy said to be existing between the parties. The Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Attorney General entered special appearance in the lower court and moved to quash the subpoenas and the return of service for want of jurisdiction over their persons. The court sustained this motion and quashed the service. The bill contains proper jurisdictional averments.

The bill of complaint attacks the act as a whole on the ground that it does not come within the commerce power of Congress, and it also attacks various specific provisions which were added by the act of June 15, 1936.

On this appeal, plaintiffs present the issues under eleven headings. Of the eleven headings presented, five are of a general nature and are directed against the act as a whole, on the ground that Congress was without power under the commerce clause of the Constitution to regulate dealings in futures on grain exchanges. The others go to specific provisions of the act.

The argument in support of the contention that Congress was without power to regulate dealings in futures on grain exchanges finds conclusive answer in the decision of the Supreme Court in Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 43 S.Ct. 470, 477, 67 L.Ed. 839, Bartlett Frazier Co. v. Hyde (C.C.A.7) 65 F.(2d) 350, and Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Wallace (C.C.A.7) 67 F.(2d) 402.

In Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen, supra, the general features, purpose, and effect of the act are reviewed and considered. The present act, which is amendatory of the Grain Futures Act (7 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.), is of the .same general character as that directed to the same general purpose; to wit, to remove burdens on interstate commerce caused by manipulation and market control. A discussion of this question would now seem to be an act of supererogation, and plaintiffs’ contention in this regard cannot be sustained.

In considering the question of the constitutional validity of the particular provisions assailed, it is to be borne in mind that much depends upon their relation to interstate commerce, and, in turn, such relationship is to some extent at least dependent upon factual situations, so that, in the absence of some factual foundation in the record to the contrary, the presumption of constitutionality must prevail. O’Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 282 U.S. 251, 51 S.Ct. 130, 132, 75 L.Ed. 324, 72 A.L.R. 1163; Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U.S. 580, 55 S.Ct. 538, 79 L.Ed. 1070.

Among the provisions challenged are sections 4b and 4c (7 U.S.C.A. §§ 6b, 6c). Section 4b makes it “unlawful for any member of a contract market, or for any correspondent, agent, or employee of any member, in or in connection with any order to make, or the making of (1) any contract of sale of any commodity in interstate commerce, or (2) any contract of sale of any commodity for -future delivery made, or to be made, on or subject to the rules of any contract market for or on behalf of any person if such contract for future delivery is or may be used for (a) hedging any transaction in interstate commerce in such commodity or the products or byproducts thereof, or (b) determining the price basis of any transaction in interstate commerce in such commodity, or (c) delivering any such commodity sold, shipped, or received in interstate commerce for the fulfillment thereof — •

“(A) to cheat or defraud or attempt to cheat or defraud such person;

*858 “(B) willfully to make or cause to be made to such person any false report or statement thereof, or willfully to enter or cause to be entered for such person any false record thereof;

“(C) willfully to deceive or attempt to deceive such person by any means whatsoever in regard to any such order or contract Or the disposition or execution of any such order or contract, or in regard to any act of agency perforrhed with respect to such order or contract for such person; or

“(D) to bucket such order, or to fill such order by offset against the order or orders of any other person, or willfully and knowingly and without the prior consent of such person to become the buyer in respect to any selling order of such person, or become the seller in respect to any buying order of such person.”

Section 4c provides that it shall be “unlawful for any person to offer to enter into, enter into, or confirm the execution of, any transaction involving any commodity, which is or may be used for (1) hedging any transaction in interstate commerce in such commodity or the .products or byproducts thereof, or (2) determining the price basis of any such transaction in interstate commerce in such commodity, or (3) delivering any such commodity sold, shipped, or received in interstate commerce for the fulfillment thereof—

“(A) if such transaction is, is of the character of, or is commonly known to the trade as, a ‘wash sale,’ ‘cross trade,’ or ‘accommodation trade,’ or is a fictitious sale;

“(B) if such transaction is, is of the character of, or is commonly known to the trade as, a ‘privilege,’ ‘indemnity,’ ‘bid,’ ‘offer,’ ‘put,’ ‘call,’ ‘advance guaranty,’ or ‘decline guaranty,’ or

“(C) if such transaction is used to cause any price to.be reported, registered, or recorded which is not a true and bona fide price.”

Plaintiffs concede that dishonest and unfair practices are to be condemned, but deny power in the federal government to protect against or prohibit such practices because, it is argued, the transactions are intrastate in character.

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Bluebook (online)
90 F.2d 855, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3972, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-trade-of-kansas-city-v-milligan-ca8-1937.