Mugler v. Kansas

MUGLER v. KANSAS. SAME v. SAME.

Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas.

Argued April 11, 1887 — Decided December 5, 1887.

KANSAS v. ZIEBOLD. Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Kansas.

Argued October 11, 1887 — Decided December 5, 1887.

Opinion of the Court by Mr. Justice Harlan. Mr. Justice Field delivered a separate opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Mr. George G. Vest for plaintiff in error [Mugler]. Mr. S. B. Bradford, Attorney General of the State of Kansas, Mr. George R. Peck, Mr. J. B. Johnson, and Mr. George J. Barker for defendant in error, submitted on their brief.

In Kansas v. Ziebold: Mr. S. B. Bradford, Attorney General of the State of Kansas, Mr. Edwin A. Austin, Assistant Attorney General of that State, and Mr. J. W. Watts, Assistant Attorney General for Atchison County, Kansas, for appellant, submitted on their brief. Mr. Joseph H. Choate for appellee. Mr. Robert M. Eaton and Mr. John C. Tomlinson were with him on his brief. Mr. George G. Vest also argued for appellees.

The report occupies pages 623 through 679 of volume 123 of the United States Reports. The opinion of the Court is printed at pages 653 through 675, and the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Field at pages 675 through 679.

[123 U.S. 623] “State legislation which prohibits the manufacture of spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors within the limits of the State, to be there sold or bartered for general use as a beverage, does not necessarily infringe any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States, or by the Amendments thereto.”

[123 U.S. 623] “The prohibition by the State of Kansas, in its Constitution and laws, of the manufacture or sale within the limits of the State of intoxicating liquors for general use there as a beverage, is fairly adapted to the end of protecting the community against the evils which result from excessive use of ardent spirits; and is not subject to the objection that, under the guise of police regulations, the State is aiming to deprive the citizen of his constitutional rights.”

[123 U.S. 623] “Lawful state legislation, in the exercise of the police powers of the State, to prohibit the manufacture and sale within the State of spirituous, malt, vinous, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors, to be used as a beverage, may be enforced against persons who, at the time, happen to own property whose chief value consists in its fitness for such manufacturing purposes, without compensating them for the diminution in its value resulting from such prohibitory enactments.”

[123 U.S. 623] “A prohibition upon the use of property for purposes that are declared by valid legislation to be injurious to the health, morals or safety of the community, is not an appropriation of property for the public benefit, in the sense in which a taking of property by the exercise of the State's power of eminent domain is such a taking or appropriation.”

[123 U.S. 623] “The destruction, in the exercise of the police power of the State of property used, in violation of law, in maintaining a public nuisance, is not a taking of property for public use, and does not deprive the owner of it without due process of law.”

[123 U.S. 623] “A State has constitutional power to declare that any place kept and maintained for the illegal manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be deemed a common nuisance, and be abated; and at the same time to provide for the indictment and trial of the offender.”

[123 U.S. 624] “There is nothing in the provisions of § 13 of the statute of the State of Kansas of March 7, 1885, amendatory of the act of February 19, 1881, so far as they apply to the proceedings reviewed in these cases, which is inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees of liberty and property; and the equity power conferred by it to abate a public nuisance without a trial by jury is in harmony with settled principles of equity jurisprudence.”

[123 U.S. 661] “It does not at all follow that every statute enacted ostensibly for the promotion of these ends, is to be accepted as a legitimate exertion of the police powers of the State. There are, of necessity, limits beyond which legislation cannot rightfully go. . . . The courts are not bound by mere forms, nor are they to be misled by mere pretences. They are at liberty — indeed, are under a solemn duty — to look at the substance of things, whenever they enter upon the inquiry whether the legislature has transcended the limits of its authority. If, therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby give effect to the Constitution.”

[123 U.S. 664] “This interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is inadmissible. It cannot be supposed that the States intended, by adopting that Amendment, to impose restraints upon the exercise of their powers for the protection of the safety, health, or morals of the community.”

[123 U.S. 668] “As already stated, the present case must be governed by principles that do not involve the power of eminent domain, in the exercise of which property may not be taken for public use without compensation. A prohibition simply upon the use of property for purposes that are declared, by valid legislation, to be injurious to the health, morals, or safety of the community, cannot, in any just sense, be deemed a taking or [123 U.S. 669] an appropriation of property for the public benefit.”

[123 U.S. 669] “Such legislation does not disturb the owner in the control or use of his property for lawful purposes, nor restrict his right to dispose of it, but is only a declaration by the State that its use by any one, for certain forbidden purposes, is prejudicial to the public interests. . . . The power which the States have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not — and, consistently with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be — burdened with the condition that the State must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community.”

[123 U.S. 669] “The exercise of the police power by the destruction of property which is itself a public nuisance, or the prohibition of its use in a particular way, whereby its value becomes depreciated, is very different from taking property for public use, or from depriving a person of his property without due process of law. In the one case, a nuisance only is abated; in the other, unoffending property is taken away from an innocent owner.”

[123 U.S. 671] “We are unable to perceive anything in these regulations inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees of liberty and property. The State having authority to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors for other than medical, scientific, and mechanical purposes, we do not doubt her power to declare that any place, kept and maintained for the illegal manufacture and sale of such liquors, shall be deemed a common nuisance, and be abated, and, at the same time, to provide for the indictment and trial of the offender.”

[123 U.S. 675] “For the reasons stated, we are of opinion that the judgments of the Supreme Court of Kansas have not denied to Mugler, the plaintiff in error, any right, privilege, or immunity secured to him by the Constitution of the United States, and its judgment, in each case, is, accordingly, affirmed. We are, also, of opinion that the Circuit Court of the United States erred in dismissing the bill of the State against Ziebold & Hagelin. The decree in that case is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter a decree granting to the State such relief as the act of March 7, 1885, authorizes.”

Editorial note. Mr. Justice Field agreed that Kansas might prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors within the State subject to proper regulations, but was not prepared to hold that the State could forbid manufacture intended for exportation, or forbid sales of imports authorised by Congress or by treaty. Since the Kansas statute reached both such manufacture and such sale, he would have sustained the demurrer in the Ziebold case.

Editorial note. Drawing on Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166, and Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, the separate opinion urged that the destruction of the beneficial use of property is in substance the taking of it, and that the statute in its full sweep crossed “the line which separates regulation from confiscation.”

Editorial note. This record is a research edition, not a substitute for the official reporter. It reproduces the Reporter of Decisions apparatus in a full syllabus extract and reproduces the Court's own text in extended verbatim passages anchored to the printed pages of United States Reports on which they appear. Passages set without quotation marks are Society prose describing the Court's reasoning; every quotation mark encloses the Court's or the Reporter's words.

Editorial note. The Court-authored sections of this record are SELECTED EXCERPTS. They present the passages in which the Court articulated the rule of the case (the limits of the police power, the noxious-use doctrine, the statutory abatement power, and the disposition), together with the words in which the Court disposed of the two Mugler indictments and the Ziebold appeal. The intermediate historical and precedential discussion at pages 655 through 663, the extended treatment of the Kansas enforcement scheme at pages 672 through 674, and the closing observations on interstate manufacture at pages 674 through 675 are summarised in the editorial apparatus rather than quoted in full.

Editorial note. Three limitations are declared. First, the numbered footnotes of both opinions are not reproduced. Second, the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Field is described in editorial summary and not reproduced. Third, obvious typographic and optical-recognition defects in the digitised bound volume (for example the broken renderings of the Justice's name, of counsel names, and of the words “manufacture” and “prejudicial” in the scanned text) have been silently corrected against the surrounding text; no substantive word has been altered, modernised, or paraphrased inside a quotation.

Editorial note. For any purpose requiring the complete official text, including the footnotes, the arguments of counsel at pages 628 through 652, and the full separate opinion of Mr. Justice Field, consult the bound volume through the canonical source recorded with this authority.

Editorial note. The Constitution of Kansas, article 15 § 10, adopted November 2, 1880, forbade the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in the State except for medical, scientific, and mechanical purposes. The legislature carried the prohibition into effect by the act of February 19, 1881, and amended it by the act of March 7, 1885, whose thirteenth section declared any place kept for such manufacture or sale a common nuisance and authorised its abatement in equity. Mugler, the proprietor of a brewery in Saline County, was indicted and convicted in two prosecutions, one for manufacture and one for sale, without a permit; Ziebold & Hagelin, brewers in Atchison County, were made defendants in a bill in equity seeking abatement of their brewery as a nuisance. The Supreme Court of Kansas affirmed Mugler's convictions; the Circuit Court of the United States dismissed the bill against Ziebold & Hagelin.

Editorial note. Mugler brought writs of error in this Court from the judgments of the Supreme Court of Kansas; the State of Kansas appealed from the decree of the Circuit Court of the United States dismissing its bill against Ziebold & Hagelin. The three cases were consolidated for argument. The Court affirmed the Mugler judgments and reversed the decree in the Ziebold case, remanding for entry of a decree granting the State the relief the act of March 7, 1885, authorised.

Editorial note. Prohibition legislation adopted in the exercise of the police power to protect the health, morals, or safety of the community is not repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment, and does not require the State to compensate owners whose property is depreciated because it can no longer be devoted to the forbidden use. A place kept in violation of the statute may be declared a common nuisance and abated in equity without a jury.

Editorial note. Mr. Justice Harlan grounded the decision on the settled authority of the States to control their internal affairs and to protect the health, morals, and safety of their people. The power to determine what uses of property are injurious to the community lies primarily with the legislature, subject to judicial review for real and substantial relation to those ends. A prohibition of a noxious use is not an exercise of eminent domain because it neither transfers the property to public use nor requires the owner to devote it to public benefit; it merely declares that the use itself is prejudicial to the public interests. Because the police power cannot be bargained away, no vested right arises against its future exercise, even where the property was acquired at a time when the forbidden use was lawful.

Editorial note. Applied to the abatement provisions, the opinion held that the statutory equity power over places kept for the illegal manufacture and sale of liquors is a proceeding against the property put to a forbidden use, distinct from the criminal prosecution of the offender; the Circuit Court had erred in dismissing the State's bill on the pleadings.

Editorial note. Mugler is the foundational statement of the American police-power tradition on land: the doctrine that a legislative prohibition of a use found injurious to health, morals, or safety does not effect a taking, and that judicial review inquires whether the enactment bears a real and substantial relation to those objects. It fixes the analytic distinction between eminent domain and the police power that later cases in the takings line — from Hadacheck to Pennsylvania Coal to Lucas — refine, qualify, or resist.

Editorial note. Repeatedly followed. Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394 (1915), applied the Mugler principle to a pre-existing brickyard rendered noxious by the growth of the city. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922), qualified the broadest reading of Mugler by holding that a regulation may go so far as to be a taking. Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), confined the harm-prevention justification for uncompensated regulation to restrictions rooted in the background principles of the State's property and nuisance law.

Editorial note. Read with U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 (due process and the police power); Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922); Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992).