69 F. 908 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of South Carolina | 1895
This is an action brought under the seventh section of the act of congress approved July 2,1890, entitled “An act to protect Bade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies” (26 Stat. 209, c. 647). The section is in these words:
“Any person who shall be injured in his property or business by any other person or corpora lion by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in ¡he district in which the defendant resides or is found, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover tliree-fold (he damages by him sustained and the costs of the suit, including a reasonable counsel fee.”
The act declares:
“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations is hereby declared illegal.”
Tlie cause of action set out in (.he complaint is on this statute of 1890, and seeks the special remedy provided in tlie statute. The relief is sought, not because the rights of the plaintiff were violated, but because they were violated in order to enforce and perpetuate a monopoly declared illegal by this statute. The defendants interpose a demurrer ou two grounds: First, that on the face of the complaint (ids court has no jurisdiction of the matters and things forming the subject of this action; second, that from the face of the complaint it does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action cognizable in this court.
The first ground of demurrer was sustained in argument, because this is an action against the state, and the state is a necessary party thereto. The act of 1890 strikes at contracts, combinations, and conspiracies in restraint of or to monopolize trade and commerce among the several states or with foreign nations. U. S. v. E. C. Knight Co., 156 U. S. 17, 15 Sup. Ct. 249. The complaint charges that the defendants Evans, Tompkins, and Norton, styling themselves a “State Board of Control,” and Mixson, styling himself “State Commissioner,” together with divers other persons to the plaintiff unknown, under the pretended authority of an act of the legislature of South Carolina, “giving the title of the act,” combined to monopolize a certain part of the trade and commerce among the states and foreign nations, to wit, the trade in alcoholic liquids and liquors with citizens of other states and foreign nations, to prevent their importation into this state, and to discriminate against the products and citizens of other states in favor of the products and citizens of the state of South Carolina. This act of the legislature of South Carolina, the complaint avers, is void as in contravention of the act of 1890.
Does this act of the legislature of South Carolina authorize contracts or combinations in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations? Does it create a monopoly, and in whom? The answer to this question must be found in the act. It is entitled “An act to further declare the law in reference to and further regulate the use, sale, consumption, transportation and disposition of alcoholic liquids or liquors within the state of South Carolina and to police the same,” approved January 2, 1895. It is impossible after examining this act to avoid the conclusion that it declares in the state the monopoly in the purchase and sale of alcoholic liquors. Not only so, but it protects this monopoly in the state in every way possible and by the most drastic methods. Every attempt to interfere with this monopoly by the receiving, keeping, vending, giving away, or mercantile use of alcoholic liquors, is made an offense against the state, punishable by criminal proceedings in her name in her courts. The governor, secretary of state, and comptroller general are officially charged with the direction and enforcement of this monopoly. The monopoly is not given to them. They have no pecuniary interest whatever in it. All the profits of the monopoly go to the state, to be used and applied for public purposes,—increase of her revenue. The close analysis made of the act by the counsel for the plaintiff shows that this was their conviction. They find that its manifest object is to raise revenue, and not to prevent the consumption of liquor, except that owned and furnished by the state; that $50,000 was appropriated from the public treasury for the purpose of purchasing liquors and to enable the state to go into the business of buying and selling intoxicating liquors; that liquors are not contraband, except when not purchased from a dispenser,—that is, one who holds and sells for the state; that the act creates a monopoly. So, also, Chief Justice Mclver, speaking for the majority of the supreme court
“Tlie manliest object of tlie act is that the state shall monopolize the entire traffic in intoxicating liquors, to the entire exclusion of all persons whomsoever, and this, too, for the purpose of profit to the state and its governmental agency. * * * Wo think it safe to say that it is an act forbidding the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage within the limits of this state by any private individual, and vesting the right to manufacture and sell such liquors in the state exclusively, through certain designated officers and agents.”
This act of the legislature of South Carolina evidently does not create in nor give to any individuals the monopoly. It gives it wholly and entirely to the state.
Now, the question to be decided is not as to the constitutionality of this act, nor whether it be in the lawful exercise of the police power, but whether, in declaring and asserting this monopoly in herself, and in assuming and controlling its enforcement, the state comes ■within the provisions of the act of congress of 1890. That act, as has been seen, declares illegal every contract, combination in the form of a trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations. But by this act the state makes no contract, enters into no combination or conspiracy. She declares and asserts in herself the monopoly in the purchase and sale of liquors. The section of the act of 1890, sued upon, gives a right of action for any injury by any other person or corporation. The state is not a corporation. A corporation is a creature of the sovereign power, deriving its life from its creator. The state is a sovereign having no derivative powers, exercising its sovereignty by divine right. The state gets none of its powers from the general government. It has bound itself by compact with the other sovereign states not to exercise certain of its sovereign rights, and has conceded these to the Union, but in every other respect it retains all its sovereignty which existed anterior to and independent of the Union. Nor can it be said that the state is a person in the sense of this act. Even were this the case, as the monopoly now complained of is that of the state, no relief cap be had without making the state a party, and this destroys the jurisdiction of this court. No opinion whatever is expressed as to the right of the plaintiff for violation of his common-law rights. In this proceeding and under the act of 1890, he must seek his remedy against the holder of the monopoly; and, as in the present case the monopoly is in the state, this court has no jurisdiction. The demurrer is sustained, and the complaint is dismissed.
As this case has gone oil on the demurrer, a copy of the complaint is filed as an exhibit to the opinion.