U.S. Supreme Court JOSEPH S. FINCH & CO. v. MCKITTRICK, 305 U.S. 395 (1939)

[Page 305 U.S. 395, 397]

clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S.C.A.Const. art. 1, 8, cl. 3; Amend. 14.2 In four of the cases the bill alleges that the plaintiff is a citizen of a state other than Missouri; that it manufactures liquor in one of the states certified as 'discriminating'; that it holds a non-resident Missouri permit under which it imports and sells in Missouri a part of its products; and that it would be irreparably injured if the provision of the Missouri statutes were enforced. The fifth case differs only in that the bill alleges that the plaintiff is a citizen of Missouri engaged there in the rectifying and bottling business for which it imports liquor manufactured in a state certified as 'discriminating.' As both a temporary and a permanent injunction was sought in each case, each was assigned for hearing before a three-judge court. In each the defendants moved to dismiss the bill. Later, the cases were consolidated for hearing and review; and it was agreed that when the court heard the application for the temporary injunction it should finally determine the causes. The District Court denied the applications for a temporary and a permanent injunction and dismissed the bill in each case. 23 F.Supp. 244. But the temporary restraining orders issued upon the filing of the bills were continued until the final determination of the appeals to this Court.

The claim of unconstitutionality is rested, in this Court, substantially on the contention that the statute violates the commerce clause. [Footnote 3] It is urged that the Missouri law does not relate to protection of the health, safety and morality, or the promotion of their social wel

[Page 305 U.S. 395, 398]

fare, but is merely an economic weapon of retaliation; and that, hence, the Twenty-First Amendment, U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 21, should not be interpreted as granting power to enact it. Since that amendment, the right of a State to prohibit or regulate the importation of intoxicating liquor is not limited by the commerce clause. As was said in State Board of Equalization v. Young's Market Co., 299 U.S. 59, 62, 57 S.Ct. 77, 78, 'The words used are apt to confer upon the state the power to forbid all importations which do not comply with the conditions which it prescribes.' To limit the power of the states as urged 'would involve not a construction of the amendment, but a rewriting of it.' See also Mahoney v. Joseph Triner Corporation, , 58 S.Ct. 952; Indianapolis Brewing Co. v. Liquor Control Commission, 305 U.S. 391, 59 S. Ct. 254, decided this day.

Affirmed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Laws of Missouri 1937, pp. 536-543, Mo.St.Ann. 4525h-1 et seq., p. 4689.

Footnote 2 The bill also alleged that the provision violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the contract clause and the privileges and immunities clause.

Footnote 3 The arguments in appellant's brief are confined to the commerce clause. The statement of points to be relied upon includes all the contentions of the bill.