Board of Trade v. Milligan

16 F. Supp. 859, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1887
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Missouri
DecidedSeptember 11, 1936
DocketNo. 2857
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 16 F. Supp. 859 (Board of Trade v. Milligan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Trade v. Milligan, 16 F. Supp. 859, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1887 (W.D. Mo. 1936).

Opinion

REEVES, District Judge.

This is a suit brought by plaintiffs to enjoin the enforcement of the Commodity Exchange Act, 49 Stat. 1491, 7 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The act so designated was approved June IS, 1936. Such enactment is largely amendatory of the Grain Futures Act passed by the Congress, and approved in 1922, 42 Stat. 998, 7 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The amended act known as the Commodity Exchange Act broadens the scope of the original act so as to include with grain other commodities such as cotton, mill feed, butter, eggs, and Irish potatoes. Additional regulations are superimposed upon persons and corporations engaged in contract trading, etc.

The plaintiffs, according to the averments of 'their bill, are engaged in buying and selling on their own account and for the account of others grain in cars in Kansas City for immediate delivery. Such are generally referred to as cash trades. They also handle and sell for cash grain consigned from producers and grain dealers. It is again alleged that such grain is sold for immediate delivery. These are called cash transactions on commission. Also that plaintiffs buy grain on mail or telegraph orders to producers or grain dealers. Such transactions are commonly known as sales for deferred shipment or “contracts to arrive.” They also do business on warehouse receipts deliverable on future contracts. Also they make contracts either on their own account or on commission for the purchase and sale of grain for future delivery, and, in like manner, make what is technically known as “hedging contracts,” either on their own account or for others on commission. They also engage in the purchase and sale of contracts commonly known as bids and offers. Comprehensively, they carry on such business as is usually transacted by members of boards of trade.

The various activities of the plaintiffs have been defined and covered by the original Grain Futures Act, or by the present Commodity Exchange Act. By these several enactments it is sought by the Congress to bring persons engaged in such business and market agencies under the supervision, control, and regulation of the Secretary of Agriculture.

The plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the entire act. They assert that it is an effort on the part of the Congress to regulate commerce purely and wholly intrastate in character. This is predicated upon averments to the effect that all of such transactions are local.

It seems proper to discuss the question of the constitutionality of the act, and, if constitutional, the right of the Congress [860]*860to authorize the regulation of the business carried on by these plaintiffs.

1. The Grain Futures Act was declared to be a valid exercise of congressional power. In the case of Board of Trade of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 43 S.Ct. 470, 67 L.Ed. 839, practically identical questions were presented in the challenge there lodged to the constitutionality of that act. It is contended here, as was contended in the Olsen Case, that the case of Hill v. Wallace, 259 U.S. 44, 42 S.Ct. 453, 66 L.Ed. 822, properly declared the Future Trading Act invalid and that by the same reasoning the court should have.held the Grain Futures Act unconstitutional, and that now the Commodity Exchange Act should in like manner be declared invalid.

In the case of Hill v. Wallace, the court held the Future Trading Act unconstitutional because, as it clearly stated, the act was designed to regulate similar business under the guise of a tax. The act was so worded that, if the market agencies submitted to certain regulatory authority, they became exempt from the application of the tax. While the court declared such. a method of regulation unconstitutional, yet nevertheless it said, 259 U.S. 44, loc. cit. page 69, 42 S.Ct. 453, 458, 66 L.Ed. 822: “It follows that sales for future delivery on the Board of Trade are not in and of themselves interstate commerce. They cannot come within the regulatory power of Congress as such, unless they are regarded by Congress, from the evidence before it, as directly interfering with interstate commerce so as to be an obstruction or a burden thereon.”

In the Olsen Case, 262 U.S. 1, loc. cit. 32 and 33, 43 S.Ct. 470, 476, 67 L.Ed. 839, the court in referring to the case of Hill v. Wallace, specifically said: “Instead, therefore, of being an authority against the validity of the Grain Futures Act, it is an authority in its favor.”

The court, in the case of Hill v. Wallace, pointed out in what way Congress could exercise authority over market agencies such as those of the plaintiffs.

The principles laid down in the Olsen Case were developed from such cases as Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375, loc. cit. 398, 399, 25 S.Ct. 276, 280, 49 L.Ed. 518, where the court said: “When cattle are sent for sale from a place in one state, with the expectation that they will end their transit, after purchase, in another, and when in effect they do so, with only the interruption necessary to find a purchaser at the stock yards, and when this is a typical, constantly recurring course, the current thus existing is a current of commerce among the states, and the purchase of the cattle is a part and incident of such commerce.”

This reasoning was made specifically applicable to grain transactions in Lemke v. Grain Co., 258 U.S. 50, loc. cit. 54, 55, 59, 42 S.Ct. 244, 246, 247, 66 L.Ed. 458. The court said in substance that, notwithstanding the local nature of the transactions, the course of dealing constituted interstate commerce, even though the immediate transaction was a local one.

The principle was also stated in United States v. Ferger, 250 U.S. 199, 39 S.Ct. 445, 63 L.Ed. 936, where the court upheld the power of the Congress to provide punishment for introducing false and fraudulent bills of lading in interstate commerce.

The very recent case of Schechter Corporation v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570, 97 A.L.R. 947, quite clearly distinguishes between those cases of a local nature and usually classified as belonging to intrastate commerce, and those cases of a public nature and belonging to interstate commerce, and therefore within regulatory power of the Congress. The court uses such expressions as “current” and “flow” of interstate commerce and emphasizes how marketing of cattle and the marketing of livestock and of grain, such as in the instant case, affects interstate commerce in such way as to burden it or obstruct it and to justify the Congress in entering the field of regulation. Moreover, in the Schechter Case, 295 U.S. 495, loc. cit. 543, 55 S.Ct. 837, 849, 79 L.Ed. 1570, 97 A.L.R.

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Bluebook (online)
16 F. Supp. 859, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1887, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-trade-v-milligan-mowd-1936.