United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Rhodes v. Iowa, 170 U.S. 412 (1898)

Rhodes v. Iowa

No. 21

Argued February 23, 1898

Decided May 9, 1898

170 U.S. 412

Syllabus

Section 1553 of the Code of Iowa, which provides that

"if any express company, railway company, or any agent or person in the employ of any express company, or of any common carrier, or any person in the employ of any common carrier, or if any other person shall transport or convey between points, or from one place to another within this state, for any other person or persons or corporation, any intoxicating liquors, without having first been furnished with a certificate from and under the seal of the county auditor of the county to which said liquor is to be transported or is consigned for transportation, or within which it is to be conveyed from place to place, certifying that the consignee or person to whom said liquor is to be transported, conveyed or delivered is authorized to sell such intoxicating liquors in such county, such company, corporation or person so offending, and each of them, and any agent of said company, corporation or person so offending, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one hundred dollars for each offense and pay costs of prosecution, and the costs shall include a reasonable attorney fee to be assessed by the court, which shall be paid into the county fund, and stand committed to the county jail until such fine and costs of prosecution are paid,"

cannot be held to apply to a box of spirituous liquors, shipped by rail from a point in Illinois to a citizen of Iowa at his residence in that state while in transit from its point of shipment to its delivery to the consignee, without causing the Iowa Law to be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

Moving such goods in the station from the platform on which they are put on arrival to the freight warehouse is a part of the interstate commerce transportation.

The case is stated in the opinion.