Independent Warehouses, Inc. et al. v. Scheele, Recorder of the Township of Saddle River, et al. (331 U.S. 70)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 14, 1947 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 331 U.S. 70 · 67 S. Ct. 1062
- Docket
- No. 83
- Argued
- December 16, 1946
- Decided
- April 14, 1947
- Term
- October Term 1946
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Rutledge
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Burton, Justice Douglas, Justice Frankfurter (wrote a concurrence), Justice Reed, Justice Black, Justice Rutledge (wrote), Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
MR. Justice Rutledge delivered the opinion of the Court. An ordinance of Saddle River Township, New Jersey, forbids carrying on the business of storing goods for hire except upon the payment of an annual license tax. Independent Warehouses, Inc., and Thompson, an agent of that company, have been convicted and fined for conducting such a business without procuring the license or paying the tax. The convictions have been sustained by New Jersey’s highest court. The appeal here seeks to have that judgment reversed on the basis that the business done was exclusively interstate and consequently the application made of the ordinance contravenes the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution, Art. I, § 8. Fourteenth Amendment objections also are raised. The main thrust of the argument has been toward the commerce clause phase of the case. In this the controversy is of the familiar “interruption” or “cessation” type. The issue accordingly requires only a determination of the proper application to be mad® of well-established legal principles to the particular circumstances. It is whether the cessation taking place in the movement of goods interstate, as shown by the record, is of a nature which permits the state or a municipality to tax the goods or services, here the business of storing them, rendered in connection with their handling. The governing principles were stated in…
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