281 N.W. 753 | Minn. | 1938
Lead Opinion
L. 1937, c. 420, § 2, amending 1 Mason Minn. St. 1927, § 6248-3, is the basis of this prosecution. It prohibits discrimination between different sections of the state or between different persons in the same section by any person engaged in the business of purchasing enumerated farm products (including poultry and eggs) for manufacture or sale. The payment of a higher price in one locality than in another or the payment of a higher price to one person than to another in the same locality "after making due allowance for the difference, if any, in the actual cost of transportation from the locality of purchase to the locality of manufacture or sale" for goods of the same kind and quality is declared to be unfair discrimination. The statute also declares that purchasers of the aforementioned class "who shall fail to deduct full transportation costs from the purchase price paid; or who shall fail to deduct the actual costs of hauling when such products are gathered by wagon or truck" shall be deemed guilty of unfair discrimination.
A number of questions are raised, but only one will be discussed since its answer disposes of the case. Defendant asserts that the clause last quoted, "or who shall fail to deduct the actual costs of hauling when such products are gathered by wagon or truck," is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain as to deny due process of law.
"Laws which create crimes, ought to be so explicit in themselves, or by reference to some other standard, that all men, subject to their penalties, may know what acts it is their duty to avoid." United States v. Sharp, Fed. Cas. No. 16264, Peters C. C. 118, 122. Exigencies of life compel men to act in some fashion, and their action in response to necessity ought not to be penalized unless it fails of compliance with cognizable rules. The legislature is vested with a large measure of discretion, bounded by constitutional restraints, in declaring and defining rules of conduct. But penalties *440
for their infraction will be inflicted only if a guide is established by which those subject to their force may with reasonable certainty assess the consequences of contemplated conduct. United States v. Reese,
Absolute certainty is not required; mathematical precision in the statement of the conduct demanded or disapproved is unnecessary. State v. Schaeffer,
The uncertainty hit at is not the difficulty of ascertaining whether close cases fall within or without the prohibition of a statute, but whether the standard established by the statute is so uncertain that it cannot be determined with reasonable definiteness that any particular act is disapproved. Nash v. United States,
Due process requires that penal legislation expressed in general and flexible terms furnish a test based on knowable criteria which men of common intelligence who come in contact with the statute may use with reasonable safety in determining its command. Collins v. Kentucky,
Terms too vague in themselves may of course be clarified by statutory definition so as to have reasonable certainty of meaning. Compare Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Comm.
This statute requires that the "actual cost of transportation by truck or wagon" be deducted from the purchase price. Exhibited is a clear legislative intent to prevent the destruction of local produce dealers through unfair discrimination by competitors more amply buttressed with capital. Monopolies gained through the misuse of an economic advantage to the direct injury of small merchants and the ultimate injury of producing and consuming classes are to be forestalled. That the police power of the state may be exerted to this end is not to be doubted. State v. Fairmont Creamery Co.
The phrase "actual cost of transportation" has been a part of statutes prohibiting discrimination in this state for many years. Mason Minn. St. 1927, §§ 3907, 3908; 10482, 10483, 10474; L. 1937, *443
c. 116, part 1, § 2. It is in use in statutes of like import in at least 26 other states. It has also been accepted, although not passed upon by the courts, as stating a reasonably certain standard. Fairmont Creamery Co. v. Minnesota,
"Actual cost" has no common-law significance, and it is without any well understood trade or technical meaning. "It is a general or descriptive term which may have varying meanings according to the circumstances in which it is used." Boston Molasses Co. v. Molasses Distributors Corp.
The court expresses no opinion concerning the instances in which shipment is made from the point of purchase to the point of manufacture *444 or sale by a common carrier having a known schedule of rates, or by a contract carrier making a specific charge for each trip. But as to the particular case alleged we are compelled to hold that the terms used to define this class of acts constituting unlawful discrimination are so vague, indefinite, and uncertain as to deny due process of law. Since the answer to this question disposes of the case, the other questions certified will not be considered.
Dissenting Opinion
I cannot agree that its terms "full transportation costs" and "actual costs of hauling" are so uncertain or so incapable of application by and to evidence as to call for the denunciation as unconstitutional of L. 1937, c. 420. My own view is that a proper application of the principles of cost accounting will not be so difficult as my brethren of the majority anticipate. A given case under the statute may present difficulties and disagreement between experienced truckers or wagoners and their cost accountants. But mere laboriousness of application is not properly assignable as cause for which to denounce a statute as unconstitutional. In Boston Molasses Co. v. Molasses Distributors Corp.
The argument is fanciful rather than realistic that one trucker may use up-to-date and costly equipment, paying his chauffeurs and other employes reasonable wages, and that another uses "an old Ford truck" chauffeured by his minor son "gratuitously or below a prevailing wage scale." The answer, according to my notion, is this. The transportation of goods by automobile is no longer new. *445 Competent accountants, experienced in that field, certainly may reduce cost of transportation by truck to something equivalent to the ton-mile or passenger-mile basis so familiar in railroad accounting. The legislature in the enactment of laws must be presumed to speak in terms of reason and not to have considered that a produce dealer was entitled to discriminate against a disfavored patron because, forsooth, his equipment was so old as to be incapable of further depreciation or on account of the fortuitous circumstance that some or all of his employes might be working at the time for little or nothing in the way of wages. What the legislature had in mind was the reasonable cost of transportation and not an unreasonably low expense thereof attributable to such exceptional circumstances as are supposed in argument for appellant.
That is not uncertain or vague which by the orderly processes of litigation can be rendered sufficiently definite and certain for purposes of judicial decision. Hence my submission is that the statute here involved is constitutional because its criteria of legal action are susceptible of reasonably certain and just application to facts presentable by evidence.
Dissenting Opinion
I concur in the dissent.
