The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Part 178

Trading Stamps.--A prohibitive license fee upon the use of trading stamps is not unconst.i.tutional.[314]

Banking

The Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to forbid a business simply because it was permitted at common law; and therefore, where public interests so demand, a State may place the banking business under legislative control and prohibit it except under prescribed conditions. Accordingly, a statute subjecting State banks to a.s.sessments for a depositors' guaranty fund is within the police power of the States and does not deprive the banks of property without due process of law.[315] Also, a law requiring savings banks to turn over to the State deposits inactive for thirty years (when the depositor cannot be found), with provision for payment to the depositor or his heirs on establishment of the right, does not effect an invalid taking of the property of said banks; nor does a Kentucky statute requiring banks to turn over to the protective custody of that State deposits that have been inactive ten or twenty-five years (depending on the nature of the deposit).[316]

The const.i.tutional rights of creditors in an insolvent bank in the hands of liquidators are not violated by a later statute permitting reopening under a reorganization plan approved by the Court, the liquidating officer, and by three-fourths of the creditors.[317] Similarly, a Federal Reserve bank is not unlawfully deprived of business rights of liberty of contract by a law which allows State banks to pay checks in exchange when presented by or through a Federal Reserve bank, post office, or express company and when not made payable otherwise by a maker.[318]

Loans, Interest, a.s.signments

In fixing maximum rates of interest on money loaned within its borders, a State is acting clearly within its police power; and the details are within legislative discretion if not unreasonably or arbitrarily exercised.[319] Equally valid as an exercise of a State's police power is a requirement that a.s.signments of future wages as security for debts of less than $200, to be valid, must be accepted in writing by the employer, consented to by the a.s.signors, and filed in a public office.

Such a requirement deprives neither the borrower nor the lender of his property without due process of law.[320]

Insurance

The relations generally of those engaged in the insurance business[321]

as well as the business itself have been peculiarly subject to supervision and control.[322] The State may fix insurance rates and regulate the compensation of insurance agents.[323] It may impose a fine on "any person 'who shall act in any manner in the negotiation or transaction of unlawful insurance * * * with a foreign insurance company not admitted to do business [within said State].'"[324] It may forbid life insurance companies and their agents to engage in the undertaking business and undertakers to serve as life insurance agents.[325] Nor does a Virginia law which forbids the making of contracts of casualty or surety insurance, by companies authorized to do business therein, except through registered agents, which requires that such contracts applicable to persons or property in the State be countersigned by a registered local agent, and which prohibits such agents from sharing more than 50% of a commission with a nonresident broker, deprive authorized foreign casualty and surety insurers of due process.[326] And just as all banks may be required to contribute to a depositors' guaranty fund, so may all automobile liability insurers be required to submit to the equitable apportionment among them of applicants who are in good faith ent.i.tled to, but are financially unable to, procure such insurance through ordinary methods.[327]

However, a statute which prohibits the a.s.sured from contracting directly with a marine insurance company outside the State for coverage of property within the State is invalid as a deprivation of liberty without due process of law.[328] For the same reason, a State may not prevent a citizen from concluding with a foreign life insurance company at its home office a policy loan agreement whereby the policy of his life is pledged as collateral security for a cash loan to become due upon default in payment of premiums, in which case the entire policy reserve might be applied to discharge the indebtedness. Authority to subject such an agreement to the conflicting provisions of domestic law is not deducible from the power of a State to license a foreign insurance company as a condition of its doing business therein.[329]

A stipulation that policies of hail insurance shall take effect and become binding twenty-four hours after the hour in which an application is taken and further requiring notice by telegram of rejection of an application is not invalid.[330] Nor is any arbitrary restraint upon their liberty of contract imposed upon surety companies by a statute providing that any bond executed after its enactment for the faithful performance of a building contract shall inure to the benefit of materialmen and laborers, notwithstanding any provision of the bond to the contrary.[331] Likewise const.i.tutional is a law requiring that a policy, indemnifying a motor vehicle owner against liability to persons injured through negligent operation, shall provide that bankruptcy of the insured shall not release the insurer from liability to an injured person.[332]

If fire insurance companies, in case of total loss, are compelled to pay the amount for which the property was insured, less depreciation between the time of issuing the policy and the time of the loss, such insurers are not deprived of their property without due process of law.[333]

Moreover, even though it has its attorney-in-fact located in Illinois, signs all its contracts there, and forwards therefrom all checks in payment of losses, a reciprocal insurance a.s.sociation, if it covers real property located in New York, may be compelled to comply with New York regulations which require maintenance of an office in that State and the countersigning of policies by an agent resident therein.[334] Also, to discourage monopolies and to encourage compet.i.tion in the matter of rates, a State const.i.tutionally may impose on all fire insurance companies connected with a tariff a.s.sociation fixing rates a liability or penalty to be collected by the insured of 25% in excess of actual loss or damage, stipulations in the insurance contract to the contrary notwithstanding.[335]

A State statute by which a life insurance company, if it fails to pay upon demand the amount due under a policy after death of the insured, is made liable in addition for fixed damages, reasonable in amount, and for a reasonable attorney's fee is not unconst.i.tutional even though payment is resisted in good faith and upon reasonable grounds.[336] It is also proper by law to cut off a defense by a life insurance company based on false and fraudulent statements in the application, unless the matter misrepresented actually contributed to the death of the insured.[337] A provision that suicide, unless contemplated when the application for a policy was made, shall be no defense is equally valid.[338] When a cooperative life insurance a.s.sociation is reorganized so as to permit it to do a life insurance business of every kind, policyholders are not deprived of their property without due process of law.[339] Similarly, when the method of liquidation provided by a plan of rehabilitation of a mutual life insurance company is as favorable to dissenting policyholders as would have been the sale of a.s.sets and pro rata distribution to all creditors, the dissenters are unable to show any taking without due process. Dissenters have no const.i.tutional right to a particular form of remedy.[340]

Professions, Trades, Occupations

Employment Agencies.--An act imposing license fees for operating such agencies and prohibiting them from sending applicants to an employer who has not applied for labor does not deny due process of law.[341]

Pharmacies.--A Pennsylvania law forbidding a corporation to own therein any drug store, excepting those owned and operated at the time of the enactment, unless all its stockholders are licensed pharmacists, violates the due process clause as applied to a foreign corporation, all of whose stockholders are not pharmacists, which sought to extend its business in Pennsylvania by acquiring and operating therein two additional stores.[342]

Miscellaneous Business, Professions, Trades, and Occupations.--The practice of medicine, using this word in its most general sense, has long been the subject of regulation;[343] and in pursuance of its power a State may exclude osteopathic physicians from hospitals maintained by it or its munic.i.p.alities;[344] and may regulate the practice of dentistry by prescribing qualifications that are reasonably necessary, requiring licenses, establis.h.i.+ng a supervisory administrative board, and by prohibiting certain advertising regardless of its truthfulness.[345] But while statutes requiring pilots to be licensed[346] and railroad engineers to pa.s.s color blindness tests[347]

have been sustained, an act making it a misdemeanor for a person to act as a railway pa.s.senger conductor without having had two years'

experience as a freight conductor or brakeman is invalid.[348]

Legislation has been upheld which regulated or required licenses for admissions to places of amus.e.m.e.nt,[349] grain elevators,[350] detective agencies,[351] sale of cigarettes,[352] or cosmetics,[353] and the resale of theatre tickets;[354] or which absolutely forbade the advertising of cigarettes,[355] or the use of a representation of the United States flag on an advertising medium,[356] the solicitation by a layman of business of collecting and adjusting claims,[357] the keeping of private markets within six squares of a public market,[358] the keeping of billiard halls except in hotels,[359] or the purchase by junk dealers of wire, copper, etc., without ascertaining the sellers' right to sell.[360]

PROTECTION OF RESOURCES OF THE STATE

Oil and Gas

To prevent waste production may be prorated; the prohibition of wasteful conduct, whether primarily in behalf of the owners of gas in a common reservoir or because of the public interests involved is consistent with the Const.i.tution.[361] Thus a statute which defines waste as including, in addition to its ordinary meaning, economic waste, surface waste, and waste incident to production in excess of transportation or marketing facilities or reasonable market demands, and which provides that whenever full production from a common source of supply can be obtained only under conditions const.i.tuting waste, a producer may take only such proportion of all that may be produced from such common source without waste, as the production of his wells bears to the total production of such common source, is not repugnant to the due process clause.[362] But whether a system of proration based on hourly potential is as fair as one based upon estimated recoverable reserves or some other combination of factors is a question for administrative and not judicial judgment.

In a domain of knowledge still s.h.i.+fting and growing, and in a field where judgment is necessarily beset by the necessity of inferences bordering on the conjecture even for those learned in the art, it has been held to be presumptuous for courts, on the basis of conflicting expert testimony, to nullify an oil proration order, promulgated by an administrative commission in execution of a regulatory scheme intended to conserve a State's oil resources, as violative of due process.[363]

On the other hand, where the evidence showed that an order, purporting to limit daily total production of a gas field and to prorate the allowed production among several wells, had for its real purpose, not the prevention of waste nor the undue drainage from the reserves of other well owners, but rather the compelling of pipe line owners to furnish a market to those who had no pipe line connections, the order was held void as a taking of private property for private benefit.[364]

As authorized by statute the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, finding that existing low field prices for gas were resulting in economic and physical waste, issued orders fixing a minimum price for natural gas and requiring the Cities Service Company to take gas ratably from another producer in the same field at the dictated price. The orders were sustained by the Court as conservation measures.[365]

Even though carbon black is more valuable than the gas from which it is extracted, and notwithstanding a resulting loss of investment in a plant for the manufacture of carbon black, a State, in the exercise of its police power, may forbid the use of natural gas for products, such as carbon black, in the production of which such gas is burned without fully utilizing for other manufacturing or domestic purposes the heat therein contained.[366] Likewise, for the purpose of regulating and adjusting coexisting rights of surface owners to underlying oil and gas, it is within the power of a State to prohibit the operators of wells from allowing natural gas, not conveniently necessary for other purposes, to come to the surface without its lifting power having been utilized to produce the greatest quant.i.ty of oil in proportion.[367]

Protection of Property Damaged by Mining or Drilling of Wells

An ordinance conditioning the right to drill for oil and gas within the city limits upon the filing of a bond in the sum of $200,000 for each well, to secure payment of damages from injuries to any persons or property resulting from the drilling operation, or maintenance of any well or structures appurtenant thereto, is consistent with due process of law, and is not rendered unreasonable by the requirement that the bond be executed, not by personal sureties, but by a bonding company authorized to do business in the State.[368] On the other hand, a Pennsylvania statute, which forbade the mining of coal under private dwellings or streets or cities by a grantor that had reserved the right to mine, was viewed as restricting the use of private property too much, and hence as a "taking" without due process of law.[369]

Water

A statute making it unlawful for a riparian owner to divert water into another State does not deprive him of property without due process of law. "The const.i.tutional power of the State to insist that its natural advantages shall remain unimpaired by its citizens is not dependent upon any nice estimate of the extent of present use or speculation as to future needs. * * * What it has it may keep and give no one a reason for its will."[370]

Apple and Citrus Fruit Industries

A statute requiring the destruction of cedar trees to avoid the infecting with cedar rust of apple orchards within the vicinity of two miles is not unreasonable, notwithstanding the absence of provision for compensation for the trees thus removed or the decrease in the market value of realty caused by their destruction. Apple growing being one of the princ.i.p.al agricultural pursuits in Virginia and the value of cedar trees throughout that State being small as compared with that of apple orchards, the State was const.i.tutionally competent to decide upon the destruction of one cla.s.s of property in order to save another which, in the judgment of its legislature, is of greater value to the public.[371]

With a similar object in view; namely, to protect the reputation of one of its major industries, Florida was held to possess const.i.tutional authority to penalize the delivery for s.h.i.+pment in interstate commerce of citrus fruits so immature as to be unfit for consumption.[372]

Fish and Game

Over fish found within its waters, and over wild game, the State has supreme control.[373] It may regulate or prohibit fis.h.i.+ng and hunting within its limits;[374] and for the effective enforcement of such restrictions, it may forbid the possession within its borders of special instruments of violations, such as nets, traps, and seines, regardless of the time of acquisition or the protestations of lawful intentions on the part of a particular possessor.[375] To conserve for food fish found within its waters, a State const.i.tutionally may provide that a reduction plant, processing fish for commercial purposes, may not accept more fish than can be used without deterioration, waste, or spoilage; and, as a s.h.i.+eld against the covert depletion of its local supply, may render such restriction applicable to fish brought into the State from the outside.[376] Likewise, it is within the power of a State to forbid the transportation outside the State of game killed therein;[377] and to make illegal possession during the closed season even of game imported from abroad.[378]

LIMITATIONS ON OWNERs.h.i.+P

Zoning, Building Lines, Etc.

By virtue of their possession of the police power, States and their munic.i.p.al subdivisions may declare that in particular circ.u.mstances and in particular localities specific businesses, which are not nuisances _per se_ are to be deemed nuisances in fact and in law.[379]

Consequently when, by an ordinance enacted in good faith, a munic.i.p.ality prohibited brickmaking in a designated area, the land of a brickmaker in said area was not taken without due process of law, although such land contained valuable clay deposits which could not profitably be removed for processing elsewhere, was far more valuable for brickmaking than for any other purpose, and had been acquired by him before it was annexed to the munic.i.p.ality, and had long been used as a brickyard.[380] On the same basis laws have been upheld which restricted the location of dairy or cow stables,[381] of livery stables,[382] of the grazing of sheep near habitations.[383] Also a State may declare the emission of dense smoke in cities or populous neighborhoods a nuisance and restrain it; and regulations to that effect are not invalid even though they affect the use of property or subject the owner to the expense of complying with their terms.[384]

Not only may the height of buildings be regulated;[385] but it also is permissible to create a residential district in a village and to exclude therefrom apartment houses, retail stores, and billboards. Before holding unconst.i.tutional an ordinance establis.h.i.+ng such a district, it must be shown to be clearly arbitrary and unreasonable and to have no substantial relation to the public health, safety, or general welfare.[386] On the other hand, erection of a home for the aged within a residential district cannot be made to depend upon the consent of owners of two-thirds of the property within 400 feet of the site thereof;[387] nor may the interests of nona.s.senting property owners be ignored by an ordinance which requires munic.i.p.al officers to establish building lines in a block on request of owners of two-thirds of the property therein.[388] But ordinances requiring lot owners, when constructing new buildings, to set them back a certain distance from the street lines is const.i.tutional unless clearly arbitrary or unreasonable.[389] However, colored persons cannot be forbidden to occupy houses in blocks where the greater number of houses are occupied by white persons, and vice versa. Such a prohibition, the practical effect of which is to prevent the sale of lots in such blocks to colored persons, violates the const.i.tutional prohibitions against interference with property rights except by due process of laws; and cannot be sustained on the ground that it will promote public peace by preventing race conflicts.[390]

Safety Regulations

As a legitimate exercise of the police power calculated to promote public safety and diminish fire hazards, munic.i.p.al ordinances have been sustained which prohibit the storage of gasoline within 300 feet of any dwelling,[391] or require that all tanks with a capacity of more than ten gallons, used for the storage of gasoline, be buried at least three feet under ground,[392] or which prohibit was.h.i.+ng and ironing in public laundries and wash houses, within defined territorial limits, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.[393] Equally sanctioned by the Fourteenth Amendment is the demolition and removal by cities of wooden buildings erected within defined fire limits contrary to regulations in force at the time.[394]

Nor does construction of property in full compliance with existing laws confer upon the owner an immunity against exercise of the police power.

Thus, a 1944 amendment to a Multiple Dwelling Law, requiring installation of automatic sprinklers in lodginghouses of nonfireproof construction erected prior to said enactment, does not, as applied to a lodginghouse constructed in 1940 in conformity with all laws then applicable, deprive the owner thereof of due process, even though compliance entails an expenditure of $7,500 on a property worth only $25,000.[395]

THE POLICE POWER

General