Corneli v. Moore

257 U.S. 491, 42 S. Ct. 176, 66 L. Ed. 332, 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2429
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedJanuary 30, 1922
DocketNos. 174, 175, 428, and 548
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 257 U.S. 491 (Corneli v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Corneli v. Moore, 257 U.S. 491, 42 S. Ct. 176, 66 L. Ed. 332, 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2429 (1922).

Opinions

Mr. Justice McKenna

delivered the opinion of the court.

These cases, though having different parties and coming from different courts, are dependent upon the same considerations. They differ in some details but they all involve the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and its assistant legislation, the National Prohibition Act.

The Amendment after its ratification prohibited for beverage purposes, among other ■ things, the transportation of-intoxicating liquor within the United . States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof.. And Congress and the States were given concurrent power to en-. force the prohibition by appropriate legislation.

Congress in pursuance of that power passed the National Prohibition (Volstead) Act, 41 Stat. 305. Are the cases at bar within the mandate and the prohibition, are the special questions involved in them.

First, as to the cases as displayed in the bills — there are some differences in their averments but their essential allegations identifying them in principle are as follows: The appellees were, respectively, Collectors of Internal Revenue for the First Internal Revenue District of the State of Missouri, the District of Maryland, atid the Sixth Internal Revenue District of the State of Missouri. It was the duty of each to collect and receive taxes on distilled spirits in government bonded warehouses, and upon payment of the taxes to issue revenue stamps showing the payment of the taxes. As such officers they had, respectively, the custody and control of. the spirits, and the right of ingress to and egress from the warehouses.

Each appellant became the purchaser of a barrel of whiskey, in one-of the warehouses (it is designated), [494]*494which was identified and which he was desirous of removing to his dwelling for use and disposition of the spirits according to law. The appellees refused to release or deliver the spirits, or to accept the payment of the taxes thereon which appellants either tendered or, on account of opposing declarations of appellees, ommitted to tender.

The refusal of appellees to release the spirits is asserted to be wrongful and illegal and a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that it deprives appellants of their property without due process of law and takes it for public use without just compensation.

The prayers of the bills were in effect (we disregard particulars) to require appellees to do what was necessary to release the spirits from the warehouses and to enable them to be transported to the respective dwellings of appellants.

The bills were dismissed upon motions of appellees.

Against the rulings upon the motions, and against the decrees dismissing the bills, appellants' adduce certain provisions of the National Prohibition Act and cite Street v. Lincoln Safe Deposit Co., 254 U. S. 88.

So much of the cited portions as is relevant we insert in the margin. We may observe, however, that while their provisions extend to the manufacture, sale and other disposition of intoxicating beverages, as well as to their transportation, we only insert the provisions concerning the latter.1

[495]*495Before considering the provisions here specially involved, we may say that the act has been sustained, and it has been decreed that the power of Congress can be as-, serted against the disposal for beverage purposes of all liquor manufactured before the Amendment became effective, as it can be. asserted against subsequent manufacture for those purposes. Either case is within the constitutional mandate and prohibition.

A consideration of the act becomes necessary. Section 3 is comprehensive in its prohibition, and it takes pains to provide that it shall have such liberality of construction as to achieve its declared purpose.

[496]*496It is, however, contended that there is modification of this apparent universality of prohibition, and that, by a permission of traffic in warehouse receipts, liquor in storage in bonded warehouses is not subject to the ban of the section.

Regarding the words of § 3 in connection with some of the provisions of §§ 25 and 33, they give some plausibility to the contention and some puzzle to construction, but we are repelled nevertheless from those of appellants. To accept them would defeat the purpose of the act and its achievement of the mandate of the Constitution. That mandate is, as will be seen by reference to § 1 of the Amendment, that the transportation of intoxicating liquors within . . . the United. States ... for beverage purposes ” shall be prohibited. And, as we have said, the act declares (§3) that all of its provisions shall be liberally construed “ to the end ” to quote its words, that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented.” The method of appellants, we think, tended to the opposite effect; tended to the use of liquor as a beverage — not its prevention.

We are unable to see in § 33 which takes illegality from the “ liquors in one’s private dwelling while the same is occupied and used by him as his dwelling only ” and the rights that may attach to liquors in such situation an intention to extend such rights to liquors not so situated or, to put it more pointedly, an intention to make all bonded warehouses of the country outbuildings of its dwellings.

There is nothing favorable to appellants’ contention in § 37.1 It permits transportation to bonded warehouses [497]*497but not from them as inferred by appellants. Transportation from them is confined to transportation to a wholesale druggist for sale to him for purposes not prohibited. A permit is necessary even for this.

In connection with § 37; § 6, Title III of the act is pertinent. It permits distilled spirits produced and fit for beverage purposes remaining in bonded warehouses to be withdrawn for denaturing “ or for deposit in a bonded warehouse established under this Act.”

Counsel urge Street v. Lincoln Safe Deposit Co., supra, against this conclusion, and as sustaining their contention. In that case, by motion to dismiss, it was admitted that Street was the lessee of a room in the Deposit Company’s warehouse, in which he had stored liquors, acquired prior to the effective date of the National Prohibition Act, which liquors were “in his exclusive possession and control, and are intended, and will be used only for personal consumption by himself and the members of his family or his bona fide guests.” The storage room was obviously the use of a convenience very commonly employed and contributory to his dwelling, and therefore, for the reasons stated in that opinion, it was concluded that the National Prohibition Act did. not render unlawful the storage of liquors there involved or their transportation, under proper permit/to the dwelling of the owner for lawful uses. And this difference in the facts in the case from those in the cases at bar removes it as a precedent. There is no analogy in Street’s relation to the room in the Deposit Company’s warehouse and appellants’- relation to bondetl warehouses. They had neither control, access to nor possession of the spirits they purchased. Mere ownership was not the equivalent.

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Corneli v. Moore
257 U.S. 491 (Supreme Court, 1922)

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Bluebook (online)
257 U.S. 491, 42 S. Ct. 176, 66 L. Ed. 332, 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/corneli-v-moore-scotus-1922.