United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Dozier v. Alabama, 218 U.S. 124 (1910)

Dozier v. Alabama

No. 105

Submitted January 25, 1910

Decided May 31, 1910

218 U.S. 124

Syllabus

The protection of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution extends beyond the strict lines of contract, and inseparable incidents of a transaction of interstate commerce based on contract are also interstate commerce.

Where, under the contract to purchase a picture, the purchaser has the option to take at a specified price the frame in which the picture shall be delivered, and both picture and frame are manufactured in and delivered from another state and remain the property of the vendor until paid for, the sale of the frame is a part of the original transaction and protected by the commerce clause of the Constitution.

The imposition of a license tax for soliciting orders for enlargements of photographs and frames on persons not having a permanent place of business in the state and keeping such articles as stock in trade is a regulation of commerce between the states and void under the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, both as to the orders for the picture itself and as to an optional right to take at a price specified in the contract, the frame in which the picture is delivered, and so held as to the license tax imposed under § 17 of the statute of March 7, 1907, of Alabama.

154 Ala. 83 reversed.

The facts are stated in the opinion.

Page 218 U. S. 126