156 Mass. 211 | Mass. | 1892
This is an action for the price of intoxicating liquors. It is found that they were sold and delivered in Massachusetts by the plaintiffs to the defendant, a Maine hotel keeper, with a view to their being resold by the defendant in Maine, against the laws of that State. These are all the material facts reported; and these findings we must assume to have been warranted, as the evidence is not reported, so that no question of the power of Maine to prohibit the sales is open. The only question is whether the facts as stated show a bar to this action.
The question is to be decided on principles which we presume
The assertion of that right, however, no doubt was in the interest of English commerce, (Pellecat v. Angeli, 2 Cr., M. & R. 311, 313,) and has not escaped criticism, (Story, Confi. Laws, §§ 257, 254, note, 3 Kent Com. 265, 266, and Wharton, Confl. Laws, § 484,) although there may be a question how far the actual decisions go beyond what would have been held in the case of an English contract affecting only English laws. See Hodgson v. Temple, 5 Taunt. 181; Brown v. Duncan, 10 B. & C. 93, 98, 99; Harris v. Runnels, 12 How. 79, 83, 84.
Of course it would be possible for an independent state to enforce all contracts made and to be performed within its territory, without regard to how much they might contravene the policy of its neighbors’ laws. But in fact no state pursues such a course of barbarous isolation. As a general proposition, it is admitted that an agreement to break the laws of a foreign country would be invalid. Pollock, Con. (5th ed.) 308. The courts are agreed on the invalidity of a sale when the contract contemplates a design on the part of the purchaser to resell contrary to the laws of a neighboring state, and requires an act on the part of the seller in furtherance of the scheme. Waymell v. Reed, 5 T. R. 599. Gaylord v. Soragen, 32 Vt. 110. Fisher v. Lord, 63 N. H. 514. Hull v. Ruggles, 56 N. Y. 424,429.
On the other hand, plainly, it would not be enough to prevent a recovery of the price that the seller had reason to believe that the buyer intended to resell the goods in violation of law -, he must have known the intention in fact. Finch v. Mansfield, 97 Mass. 89, 92. Adams v. Coulliard, 102 Mass. 167, 173. As in the case
Between these two extremes a line is to be drawn. But as the point where it should fall is to be determined by the intimacy of the connection between the bargain and the breach of the law in the particular case, the bargain having no general and necessary tendency to induce such a breach, it is not surprising that courts should have drawn the line in slightly different places. It has been thought not enough to invalidate a sale, that the seller merely knows that the buyer intends to resell, in violation even of the domestic law. Tracy v. Talmage, 4 Kernan, 162. Hodgson v. Temple, 5 Taunt. 181. So, of the law of another State. M’Intyre v. Parks, 3 Met. 207. Sortwell v. Hughes, 1 Curt. C. C. 244. Green v. Collins, 3 Cliff. 494. Hill v. Spear, 50 N. H. 253. (Dater v. Earl, 3 Gray, 482, is a decision on New York law.)
But there are strong intimations in the later Massachusetts cases that the law on the last point is the other way. Finch v. Mansfield, 97 Mass. 89, 92. Suit v. Woodhall, 113 Mass. 391, 395. And the English decisions have gone great lengths in the case of knowledge of intent to break the domestic law. Pearce v. Brooks, L. R. 1 Ex. 213. Taylor v. Chester, L. R. 4 Q. B. 309, 311.
However this may be, it is decided that when a sale of intoxicating liquor in another State has just so much greater proximity to a breach of the Massachusetts law as is implied in the statement that it was made with a view to such a breach, it is void. Webster v. Munger, 8 Gray, 584. Orcutt v. Nelson, 1 Gray, 536, 541. Hubbell v. Flint, 13 Gray, 277, 279. Adams v. Coulliard, 102 Mass. 167, 172, 173. Even in Green v. Collins and Hill v. Spear, the decision in Webster v. Munger seems to be approved. See also Langton v. Hughes, 1 M. & S. 593. M’Kinnell v. Robinson, 3 M. & W. 434, 441. White v. Buss, 3 Cush. 448. If the sale would not have been made but for the seller’s desire to induce an unlawful sale in Maine, it would be an unlawful sale on the principles explained in Hayes v. Hyde Park, 153 Mass. 514, and Tasker v. Stanley, 153 Mass. 148. The overt act
The ground of the decision in Webster v. Munger is, that contracts like the present are void. If the contract had been valid, it would have been enforced. Dater v. Earl, 3 Gray, 482. M'Intyre v. Parks, 3 Met. 207. As we have said or implied, already, no distinction can be admitted based on the fact that., the law to be violated in that case was the lex fori. For if such a distinction is ever sound, and again if the same principles are not always to be applied, whether the law to be
Exceptions sustained.