People v. Stewart

132 N.W. 1071, 167 Mich. 417, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 649
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 3, 1911
DocketDocket No. 2
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 132 N.W. 1071 (People v. Stewart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Stewart, 132 N.W. 1071, 167 Mich. 417, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 649 (Mich. 1911).

Opinion

Stone, J.

This case is before this court upon exceptions after conviction and before sentence. The case originated in justice’s court. The charge against the respondent, dated the 8th day of November, 1909, was that theretofore, to wit, on the 1st day of August, 1909, at the county of Berrien, and for ten days preceding that date, one David J. Stewart did travel from place to place within the county of Berrien, State of Michigan, for the purpose of taking orders for the purchase of goods, wares, and merchandise, by sample lists and catalogues, without having then and there obtained a license as a hawker and peddler, as required and provided by chapter 136 of the Compiled Laws of Michigan of 1897, as amended. The respondent stood mute when arraigned in justice’s court, and upon conviction there he appealed to the circuit court, where the conviction here complained of occurred.

[419]*419The statute ( section 5324, 2 Comp. Laws ) under which the respondent was arrested is as follows:

“Noperson shall be authorized to travel from place to place within this State, for the purpose of carrying to sell or exposing to sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or to take orders for the purchase of goods, wares, or merchandise, by sample lists or catalogues, unless he shall have obtained a license as a hawker and peddler in the manner hereinafter directed.”

By the terms of section 5329, 2 Comp. Laws, a violation of this statute is made a misdemeanor, and it is provided that upon conviction thereof before any court of competent jurisdiction the offender shall be punished by a fine of not more than $50 and costs of prosecution, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding three months, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court before which the conviction may be had.

Upon the trial in the circuit court, the evidence tended to show that the respondent had for many years lived in the city of Chicago, 111., and had been engaged in the running of a general store there, carrying a general stock of goods amounting to about $3,000 or $4,000. This store appears to have been in charge of respondent’s wife, brother, and son, while the respondent has spent most of his time for the past several years in Michigan, soliciting orders and selling goods, which were shipped into Michigan from his store. He has never obtained nor procured a license as required by the statutes above referred to. The course of business seems to have been that the respondent would ship these goods to St. Joseph in car load lots, and included therein were flour, sugar, coffee, tea, soaps, etc. The sugar was put up in packages of 25, 50, and 100 pound sizes, and the sugar was packed together. Teas, coffees, flour, and many other articles were put up in packages varying in size, and placed in the car. Each kind of goods was packed separately; that is, all coffee in [420]*420one bulk, and all tea in one bulk, etc. This car of goods would be consigned to the respondent himself, and there was no mark of any kind upon any of the goods to identify the goods with any particular order, or any particular person. When the car arrived, the respondent would fill therefrom orders, which he claimed to have previously solicited and taken. When an order of goods which had been taken was refused, or for any reason the order of goods was not delivered, the goods would be returned to the car, or placed in a warehouse or storehouse provided by respondent for that purpose. At the time respondent took orders, his practice was to make out a duplicate slip of each order, forwarding one to the Chicago house and retaining the other, and from the slip retained he would fill the various orders from the car. The retained slip seems to have been the only means that respondent had of determining the contents of the various orders, or to whom they belonged. The car would be allowed to remain upon the side track at St. Joseph for several days, from which place the delivery of goods would be made, and from which place respondent would sell goods at times. It appeared in the evidence that at the time of the trial in the circuit court respondent had a stock of goods amounting to about |100 stored in his warehouse or storehouse in the city of Benton Harbor, from which latter place he would make deliveries for either orders taken or goods sold.

We think the main questions in the case to be considered under the assignments of error were embraced in objections to all testimony made by respondent’s counsel upon the trial. These objections were:

(1) That the complaint and warrant set forth no crime known to the laws of the State of Michigan.

(2) That the complaint and warrant do not negative or show that the defendant was not selling his own work or production by sample; nor that he was not peddling meat or fish; nor that he was not a merchant, and was conducting a regularly established mercantile business in the county of Berrien for at least one year previous; nor that [421]*421he was not a wholesale merchant selling by sample to dealers.

(3) That the law of the State of Michigan mentioned in the complaint and warrant in this case, and upon which such complaint and warrant , are made, is unconstitutional for the following reasons: That such law is in violation of section 8, art. 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which vests in the Congress of the United States the power to regulate commerce between the States; and also in violation of section 2, art. 4, of such Constitution, which provides that citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States; and also that such law is in violation of article 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which provides that no State shall make or enforce any law which abridges the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, nor deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. Because such law discriminates against the citizens of different States, and is in restraint of interstate commerce in this: That such law expressly exempts from its operation any merchant who has been conducting a regularly established mercantile business in any county of the State for a period of at least one year previous; and also provides that any wholesale merchant shall not be prevented by anything therein contained from selling to dealers by sample without any license.

(4) Because no proceedings were had, as appears by the complaint and warrant in this case, and such complaint and warrant were not issued until after 60 days from the time in which the offense mentioned in such complaint and warrant were alleged to have been committed.

It is also urged in the assignments of error that the court erred in not confining the testimony to transactions occurring within the ten days limited in the complaint and warrant; and that the court erred in its charge to the jury.

1, 2. The first andsecond objections urged maybe considered together. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that they are not discussed by appellant’s counsel in his brief. We think, however, that, under the repeated decisions of this court [422]*422the complaint and warrant did state and charge an offense within the statute, and that the exceptions being in a separate section were not required to be negatived in the complaint and warrant.

3.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
132 N.W. 1071, 167 Mich. 417, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 649, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-stewart-mich-1911.