Crenshaw v. Arkansas, ante, p.
227 U. S. 389,
followed to effect that the license tax required by the Arkansas
act of April 1, 1909, regulating the sale of certain specified
articles, is unconstitutional under the commerce clause as applied
to persons soliciting orders for articles to be shipped from
without the state.
144 S.W. 211 reversed.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality under the
commerce clause of the federal Constitution of a law
Page 227 U. S. 402
of the State of Arkansas imposing a license on persons making
sales within the state as applied to articles delivered from
without the state, are stated in the opinion.
Page 227 U. S. 408
MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiffs in error were convicted of peddling buggies in
Greene County, Arkansas, without having paid the license or
privilege tax required by an act of the Arkansas legislature
approved April 1, 1909, regulating the sale of lightning rods,
steel stove ranges, clocks, pumps, and vehicles in the counties of
that state. (The provisions of such statute are set out in the case
just decided,
Crenshaw v. Arkansas). The Supreme Court of
Arkansas affirmed the judgments upon the authority of
Crenshaw
v. State, 95 Ark. 464, and the cases are here upon writ of
error.
The cases were submitted upon an agreed statement of facts, the
gist of which is that the Spaulding Manufacturing Company, a
partnership, with its principal place of business and factory at
Grinnell, Iowa, manufactures buggies and automobiles which are sold
directly to the consumers throughout the United States. It has no
permanent place of business in Arkansas, but sends a force of
salesmen or canvassers, in charge of a superintendent, into Greene
and other counties of Arkansas, who travel about exhibiting their
sample buggies and taking orders for future delivery. Where orders
are taken, a memorandum is signed by the purchaser stipulating for
the delivery of the vehicle within a certain time, and a note for
the purchase price is secured. The orders are turned over to the
superintendent, who, if he finds the financial responsibility of
the customers satisfactory, transmits the orders to an agent of the
company at Memphis, Tennessee, where vehicles of the company of
various grades and kinds are stored. Vehicles to fill the orders
are selected, tagged with the name of the purchaser, and shipped in
carload lots to a place near where they are to be delivered,
consigned to the company. An employee of the company, usually
Page 227 U. S. 409
a different person from the salesman, called a delivery man,
receives the vehicles and delivers them to the respective
purchasers, no storage house being maintained at that point. It was
further agreed that no vehicles, save the samples, which are never
sold, are brought into or stored in Arkansas, except for the
purpose of delivery upon orders previously taken, and no vehicles
are sold other than upon orders taken before they are brought into
the state. The plaintiffs in error were salesmen, and transacted
the business above described.
The manner in which the business of soliciting orders for and
delivering vehicles was done by the Spaulding Manufacturing Company
differs in no practical or material particular from that employed
by the Wrought Iron Range Company in the case just decided
(
Crenshaw v. Arkansas). In fact, the only difference is
that the ranges were shipped to the company, bearing no marks to
identify the purchasers, and were delivered to the purchasers by
the delivery men without distinction, while the vehicles were
tagged at Memphis, and, upon arrival in Arkansas, were delivered by
the delivery men to the purchasers whose names appeared upon the
tags attached to the vehicles. This is merely a matter of detail in
the manner in which the business is conducted, and does not affect
its character. The decision in
Crenshaw v. Arkansas,
supra, has dealt with precisely the same statute and
substantially the same facts, and controls the present cases.
The judgments of the Supreme Court of Arkansas must therefore be
reversed, and the cases remanded to that court for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed.