Heath & Milligan Manufacturing Co. v. Worst

207 U.S. 338, 28 S. Ct. 114, 52 L. Ed. 236, 1907 U.S. LEXIS 1228

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: December 9, 1907
• Docket: 41
• Status: Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice McKenna,

after making the foregoing statement of the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

It appears from the evidence that the statute which is assailed by appellants was one, among others, passed to prevent the adulteration of articles or to provide for the publication of their composition. ’ That both purposes are within the com-. petency of the State can hardly be denied. A discrimination is, however, asserted to have been made in the exercise of the power, with the following results: (1) The imposition of the burden- of analyzing and labelling the ingredients of mixed paints, from which burden the manufacturers of paste paint and manufacturers of mixed paints containing only the ingredient specified in the act are to be free. (2) Holding up to the prejudice of dealers in and users of mixed paints containing ingredients other than those specified, branding them as suspicious or adulterated, and rendering them unsalable or less salable than mixed paints containing 'the statutory ingredients, though more efficient than the latter for certain purposes. We can see that expense will be cast on the manufacturers of mixed paint not containing ingredients enumerated in the statute, but that such paint will be branded as adulterated is not easy to accept, and seems to be opposed by other allegations in the bill. It is averred that the complainants have a yearly increasing trade in the State of North Dakota which has attained to many thousands of dollars per- annum, and that by the high quality of their goods and by advertising they have attained an enviable reputation for them. How the firmness and profit of that trade, how the excellence and degree of that reputation, can be affected by revealing the composition' of the goods, is not by us discernible. Manufacturers who use inferior materials because they are so or from a mistaken opinion of their quality, though they have statutory sanction, would be more affected than complainants. Consumers of paint, we may assume, like the consumers of other kinds of goods, seek excellence in them, and where excellence is demonstrated by use will care little of what pigments it is composed. This, however, is anticipating somewhat, and we will pass to the statute, consider its purpose and see whether its classification is justified by that purpose.

. We will omit from citation the cases in which this court has passed upon the power of the States to classify objects for the purpose of government. A review of them is not necessary in this case. Counsel have collected and analyzed them, applied or rejected them as they have thought they supported or opposed their respective contentions. We have declared many times, and illustrated the declaration, that classification must have relation to the purpose of the legislature. But logical appropriateness of the inclusion or exclusion of objects or persons is not required. A classification may not be merely arbitrary, but necessarily there must be great freedom of discretion, even though it result in “ill-advised, unequal and oppressive legislation.”. Mobile Co. v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691. And this necessarily on account of the complex problems which are presented to government. Evils must be met as they arise and according to the manner in which they arise. The right remedy may not always be apparent. Any interference/indeed, may be asserted'to, be evil, may result in evil. At any rate, exact wisdom and nice adaptation of remedies are not required by the Fourteenth. Amendment/ 'nor the crudeness nor- the impolicy nor even the injustice of state laws redressed by it.

. Keeping the.se principles in mind, let us examine the North Dakota statute.- Its purpose, as expressed.-in the title, is “to prevent thte adulteration of and deception in the sale of white lead and mixed paints.” It attempts to accomplish this'purpose'by the following requirements: (T) All white lead and compounds intended for use as a substitute therefor must be labelled to clearly show the per. cent of each mineral therein. (2) All mixed paints .must show their true composition, unless made of pure linseed oil, carbonate of lead or oxide of zinc, turpentine, Japan dryer and pure colors. (3)- All substitutes for linseed oil in the preparation of paints must be clearly shown on the label. .

( The second and third divisions-we are concerned with in this case, and it is insisted their-requirements work a discrimination between mixed paints which contain and those which, do not contain any ingredients other than thosé specified. It will be observed that the manufacture for sale and the selling of the first kind is made a -misdemeanor unless the paint be labelled as required by the statute. The manufacture or sale of the other kind is free from such consequence or condition. It is also charged that the statute discriminates between mixed paints and paste paints’, it being assérted that the latter, -no matter what their ingredients, heed not be labelled. To- this charge we may .immediately answer that it is open to contest whether the act exempts paste paint from its requirements, and the( executive officers of the State have construed it as not exempting, them. But be this -as it may, there -is a distinction ' between the.- paints, and the evils to which the 'statute .was addressed may not exist or be as flagrant in one as in the other.' There, indeed, may be a degree of competition between them, but other circumstances and conditions may have directed the legislative discretion. This record certainly does not present any data to make- it certain that -the discretion was arbitrarily exercised. Legislation- which regulates business may well make distinctions depend upon the degrees of evil without being arbitrary or unreasonable. Ozan Lumber Co. v. Union County National Bank et al., ante, page 251.

2. The argument which attacks the discrimination betwéen mixed paints is ah elaboration of paragraph 17 of the bill. It is able, circumstantial and variously illustrated. It has been given careful consideration, but it would extend this opinion too much to answer it in detail or review its specifications. It is ultimately grounded on the contention that the pigments enumerated in the statute, and hence denominated statutory pigments, are not more efficient—maybe not as efficient to the manufacture of paint, either in themselves or as depending upon ¿he particular use to .which paint may be put, the proportion óf ingredients varying with such use, or even with the fancy or taste of'the user, or the atmospheric conditions to which paint may bé exposed, as the pigments,mentioned in sub-paragraphs “A” and “B” of paragraph 17, and hence called class “A” and class “B” pigments. And, it is contended, that there is. “neither a standárd of ptirity nor a general or widely adcepted standard of purity,” and that the statute, by making a standard of some ingredients and excluding others “useful, efficient, harmless and in some cases most essential,” is an arbitrary discrimination and an improper exercise of the police power of. the State, not justified by the comparative newness of the excluded ingrediénts, or because they are not used by unprogressive manufacturers, or used by unscrupulous ones in excessive proportions to cheapen their products. And this, it is urged, is all that is established against such ingredients. Besides, it is further urged, the charge that they are used to cheapen paint is true of one of the statutory ingredients.

The claims for class “A” and “B” pigments are controverted, and if they arc sustained at all are sustained upon the balancing ’of and the judgment between the testimony of experts, certain publications and exhibits. But a problem of a different kind was presented to the legislature of North Dakota. It was not what scientific men might find out by chemical and laboratory tests, or jprogressive men might discover by practical experimente, but what the people of the State could find out or be justified in accepting as established. It was the experience of the people, not the acts of some progressive manufacturers, which directed the legislation, and it Avas to protect the people, when following the opinions formed from that experience, from deception, that the statute was enacted. It may be that the purpose could have been accomplished better in some other way. It may be that it would have been more entirely adequate, let us say, even more entirely just, to have' required that all paint should be labelled, the statute nevertheless cannot be brought .under the condemnation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Legislatures, as we have seen, have the constitutional power to make mrwise classifications. But we may be going too far in concession to the argument of appellants. The legislature of North Dakota may have met the evils which exist as best it could, and there' is a strong presumption that it did. At any rate, a fair question was presented,- whether to take as a standard the ingredients that years of use had demonstrated as excellent or make regulation universal. We think it would be limiting the power of the State too much to say that a judgment exercised under such circumstances must be condemned as denying the equal protection of the laws or that the liberty assured by the Constitution of the United States in the Fourteenth Amendment gives a right to either progressive or conservative tendencies in legislation. •

Appellants not only-- attack the standard adopted by the statute, but attack the use made of it. They assert-that the standard is of “purely negative character,” in that it fails to “require all allowable ingredients essential for efficiency to be used and its failure to prescribe maximum and minimum percentages,” and, therefore, it is insisted, “permits of the manufacture and sale under the special sanction of the law of that which is inefficient, useless and a fraud upon the purchaser.” It is besides asserted that the statute enumerates among the allowable ingredients a material Avhich cannot be used, to wit, pure carbonate of lead, and it is asked whether a statute having these effects can be a valid exercise of the. police power of the State. The answer is ready enough. The enumeration of “ pure carbonate of lead” may be corrected into commercial carbonate by a perfectly allowable exercise of construction; and as to the other charge, the inefficiency of the statutory ingredients on account of the failure to define the proportions in which they must be used, goes to the defect or incompleteness of the legis-. lation, riot to its legality. Were the proportions ever so exactly defined, the relation of mixed paints to the l’esultant product or its liberty of sale or power of competition would not be lessened.

There is a special and earnest criticism of . the provision of the statute requiring varnish when used as a thinning material to be specified, and a like criticism ,of the term “pure colors.” to designate one of the statutory ingredients. “The exclusion of varnish,” it is said, “from the list of allowable ingredients is indefensible and undefended.” The bill alleges, and it is not. denied, that there is very large demand for certain mixed •paints, which are enumerated, that are capable of producing'a high gloss for decorative purposes and have'high resisting power to moisture, and that varnish is the .“only thinning material now known which may appropriately be used as ari ingredient of mixed paint to produce said effects.” “Notwithstanding these admitted facts,” counsel’s comment is. “varnish is branded as an adulterant by the statute.”

The term “pure colors,” it is Alleged, is intended to refer to . coloring, material used by paint manufacturers in powdered form, and is known in the trade as “ dry -colors; ” that the term “pure colors” neither has a definite meaning nor is “it capable of an exact or even approximately exact definition;” that some dry colors are regarded- as “pure” ..and others “impure” by. individual manufacturers,' but there is “nothing approaching a. consensus of opinion,” and “no-rational classification on the subject has ever been attempted.” The standard “applied-to dry colors is not purity but efficiency.”

We regard these criticisms answered by our general discussion, and we have specially noticed them that it may not be thought we have overlooked them. They may emphasize what we have already said as to the possible imperfection of the classification of the statute. It must not be forgotten, however, that inaccuracies of definition may be removed in the administration of the law. And it must be borne in mind that the use of the non-enumerated ingredients is not forbidden nor the .advantages of the practical tests and scientific research made by appellants taken away from them. The sole prohibition of the statute is that those ingredients shall not be used without a specific declaration that they are used—a burden maybe, but irremediable by the courts—maybe, inevitable, in legislation directed against the adulteration of articles or to secure a true representation of their character or composition.

Decree affirmed.