Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U.S. 251 (1932)
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U.S. Supreme Court STEPHENSON v. BINFORD, 287 U.S. 251 (1932)
[Page 287 U.S. 251, 275]
at pages 390, 391 of 286 U.S., 52 S.Ct. 581, 586, and authorities cited. The principle that Congress may regulate private contracts whenever reasonably necessary to effect any of the great purposes for which the national government was created, Highland v. Russell Car & Snow Plow Co., supra, at page 261 of 279 U.S., 49 S.Ct. 314, applies to a state under like circumstances.
An entirely different question was presented in the Frost Trucking Case, supra. There, as we pointed out (pages 591, 592, of 271 U.S., 46 S. Ct. 605), the California act, as construed by the highest court of the state, was in no real sense a regulation of the use of the public highways. Its purpose was to protect the business of those who were common carriers in fact by controlling competitive conditions. Protection or conservation of the highways was not involved. [Footnote 1] The condition which constrained the private contract carrier to become a common carrier, therefore, had no relation to the highways. In this view, the use of the highways furnished a purely unrelated occasion for imposing the unconstitutional condition, affording no firmer basis for that condition than would have been the case if the contract carrier were using a road in private ownership.
[Page 287 U.S. 251, 278]
regard, therefore, have no ground upon which to base a complaint.
Nor do we find merit in the further contention that the act arbitrarily discriminates against appellants because it does not apply to persons, commonly known as 'shipper-owners,' who are transporting their own commodities under substantially similar conditions. It is obvious that certain provisions of the statute, like that requiring the commission to fix minimum rates, can have no application to such owners. We are of opinion, from an examination of the act and the companion act which was upheld by this court in Sproles v. Binford, supra, that all provisions relating to contract carriers which are germane to shipper-owners are made applicable to them. In any event, it is not shown that the act thus far has been so administered as to result in any unlawful discrimination.
The decree of the court below is
AFFIRMED.
Mr. Justice BUTLER dissents. Footnotes
Footnote 1 The California Supreme Court expressly said that the act 'does not purport to be and is not in fact a regulation of the use of the highways.' Frost v. Railroad Commission, 197 Cal. 230, 244, 240 P. 26, 32.
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