A law of a state penalizing those who operate motor trucks on
highways without having obtained license based on examination of
competency and payment of a fee cannot constitutionally apply to an
employee of the Post Office Department while engaged in driving a
government motor truck over a post road in the performance of his
official duty. P.
254 U. S.
55.
Reversed.
This was a prosecution based on § 143 of Art. 56 of the Code of
Public General Laws of Maryland, as amended by c. 85, Acts of 1918.
The opinion states the case.
Page 254 U. S. 55
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error was an employee of the Post Office
Department of the United States, and while driving a government
motor truck in the transportation of mail over a post road from Mt.
Airy, Maryland, to Washington, was arrested in Maryland, and was
tried, convicted, and fined for so driving without having obtained
a license from the state. He saved his constitutional rights by
motion to quash, by special pleas which were overruled upon
demurrer, and by motion in arrest of judgment. The facts were
admitted, and the naked question is whether the state has power to
require such an employee to obtain a license by submitting to an
examination concerning his competence and paying three dollars,
before performing his official duty in obedience to superior
command.
The cases upon the regulation of interstate commerce cannot be
relied upon as furnishing an answer. They deal with the conduct of
private persons in matters in which the states as well as the
general government have an interest, and which would be wholly
under the control of the states but for the supervening destination
and the ultimate purpose of the acts. Here, the question is whether
the state can interrupt the acts of the general government itself.
With regard to taxation, no matter how reasonable, or how universal
and undiscriminating, the state's inability to interfere has been
regarded as established since
McCulloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316. The decision in that case
was not put upon any consideration of degree, but upon the entire
absence of power on the part of the
Page 254 U. S. 56
states to touch, in that way at least, the instrumentalities of
the United States; 4 Wheat.
17 U. S.
429-430, and that is the law today.
Farmers' &
Mechanics' Savings Bank v. Minnesota, 232 U.
S. 516,
232 U. S.
525-526. A little later, the scope of the proposition as
then understood was indicated in
Osborn v.
Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738,
22 U. S.
867:
"Can a contractor for supplying a military post with provisions
be restrained from making purchases within any state, or from
transporting the provisions to the place at which the troops were
stationed? or could he be fined or taxed for doing so? We have not
yet heard these questions answered in the affirmative."
In more recent days, the principle was applied when the governor
of a soldier's home was convicted for disregard of a state law
concerning the use of oleomargarine, while furnishing it to the
inmates of the home as part of their rations. It was said that the
federal officer was not "subject to the jurisdiction of the state
in regard to those very matters of administration which are thus
approved by Federal authority."
Ohio v. Thomas,
173 U. S. 276,
173 U. S. 283.
It seems to us that the foregoing decisions establish the law
governing this case.
Of course, an employee of the United States does not secure a
general immunity from state law while acting in the course of his
employment. That was decided long ago by Mr. Justice Washington in
United States v. Hart, Pet. C.C. 390; 5 Ops.Attys.Gen.
554. It very well may be that, when the United States has not
spoken, the subjection to local law would extend to general rules
that might affect incidentally the mode of carrying out the
employment -- as, for instance, a statute or ordinance regulating
the mode of turning at the corners of streets.
Commonwealth v.
Closson, 229 Mass. 329. This might stand on much the same
footing as liability under the common law of a state to a person
injured by the driver's negligence. But even the most
unquestionable and most universally applicable of state laws, such
as those concerning
Page 254 U. S. 57
murder, will not be allowed to control the conduct of a marshal
of the United States acting under and in pursuance of the laws of
the United States.
Ex parte Neagle, 135 U. S.
1.
It seems to us that the immunity of the instruments of the
United States from state control in the performance of their duties
extends to a requirements that they desist from performance until
they satisfy a state officer upon examination that they are
competent for a necessary part of them and pay a fee for permission
to go on. Such a requirement does not merely touch the government
servants remotely by a general rule of conduct; it lays hold of
them in their specific attempt to obey orders, and requires
qualifications in addition to those that the government has
pronounced sufficient. It is the duty of the Department to employ
persons competent for their work, and that duty it must be presumed
has been performed.
Keim v. United States, 177 U.
S. 290,
177 U. S.
293.
Judgment reversed.
MR. JUSTICE PITNEY and MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS dissent.