Dean Milk Company v. City of Madison (1951)

Dean Milk Company v. City of Madison (1951)

340 U.S. 349

A Madison, Wisconsin, ordinance prohibited the sale of milk in the city unless it came from a farm less than twenty-five miles from or was pasteurized and bottled at approved plants within five miles of the center of the city. Dean Milk was denied a license to sell milk because it pasteurized its milk at its plant in Illinois, beyond the five-mile limit. Both a county court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the ordinance, and the company appealed to the Supreme Court.

Opinion of the Court: Clark, Vinson, Reed, Frankfurter, Jackson, Burton.

Dissenting opinion: Black, Douglas, Minton.

JUSTICE CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.

. . . [W]e agree with appellant that the ordinance imposes an undue burden on interstate commerce.

This is not an instance in which an enactment falls because of federal legislation which, as a proper exercise of paramount national power over commerce, excludes measures which might otherwise be within the police power of the states. . . . There is no pertinent national regulation by the Congress, and statutes enacted for the District of Columbia indicate that Congress has recognized the appropriateness of local regulation of the sale of fluid milk. . . .

Nor can there be objection to the avowed purpose of this enactment. We assume that difficulties in sanitary regulation of milk and milk products originating in remote areas may present a situation in which “upon a consideration of all the relevant facts and circumstances it appears that the matter is one which may appropriately be regulated in the interest of the safety, health and wellbeing of local communities. . . .” . . . We also assume that since Congress has not spoken to the contrary, the subject matter of the ordinance lies within the sphere of state regulation even though interstate commerce may be affected. . . .

But this regulation . . . in practical effect excludes from distribution in Madison wholesome milk produced and pasteurized in Illinois. . . . In thus erecting an economic barrier protecting a major local industry against competition from without the State, Madison plainly discriminates against interstate commerce. This it cannot do, even in the exercise of its unquestioned power to protect the health and safety of its people, if reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives, adequate to conserve legitimate local interests, are available. . . . A different view, that the ordinance is valid simply because it professes to be a health measure, would mean that the Commerce Clause of itself imposes no limitations on state action other than those laid down by the Due Process Clause, save for the rare instance where a state artlessly discloses an avowed purpose to discriminate against interstate goods. . . . Our issue then is whether the discrimination inherent in the Madison ordinance can be justified in view of the character of the local interests and the available methods of protecting them. . . .

It appears that reasonable and adequate alternatives are available. If the City of Madison prefers to rely upon its own officials for inspection of distant milk sources, such inspection is readily open to it without hardship for it could charge the actual and reasonable cost of such inspection to the importing producers and processors. . . . Moreover, appellee Health Commissioner of Madison testified that as proponent of the local milk ordinance he had submitted the provisions here in controversy and an alternative proposal based on §11 of the Model Milk Ordinance recommended by the United States Public Health Service. The model provision imposes no geographical limitation on location of milk sources and processing plants but excludes from the municipality milk not produced and pasteurized conformably to standards as high as those enforced by the receiving city. In implementing such an ordinance, the importing city obtains milk ratings based on uniform standards and established by health authorities in the jurisdiction where production and processing occur. The receiving city may determine the extent of enforcement of sanitary standards in the exporting area by verifying the accuracy of safety ratings of specific plants or of the milkshed in the distant jurisdiction through the United States Public Health Service, which routinely and on request spot checks the local ratings. The Commissioner testified that Madison consumers “would be safeguarded adequately” under either proposal and that he had expressed no preference. . . .

To permit Madison to adopt a regulation not essential for the protection of local health interests and placing a discriminatory burden on inter­ state commerce would invite a multiplication of preferential trade areas destructive of the very purpose of the Commerce Clause. Under the circumstances here presented, the regulation must yield to the principle that “one state in its dealings with another may not place itself in a position of economic isolation.” . . . Baldwin v. Seelig, Inc. [1935].

For these reasons we conclude that the judgment below sustaining the five-mile provision as to pasteurization must be reversed.

JUSTICE BLACK, with whom JUSTICE DOUGLAS and JUSTICE MINTON concur, dissenting.

Today’s holding invalidates §7.21 of the Madison, Wisconsin, ordinance on the following reasoning: (1) the section excludes wholesome milk coming from Illinois; (2) this imposes a discriminatory burden on interstate commerce; (3) such a burden cannot be imposed where, as here, there are reasonable, nondiscriminatory and adequate alternatives available. I disagree with the Court’s premises, reasoning, and judgment.

1. This ordinance does not exclude wholesome milk coming from Illinois or anywhere else. It does require that all milk sold in Madison must be pasteurized within five miles of the center of the city. But there was no finding in the state courts, nor evidence to justify a finding there or here, that appellant, Dean Milk Company, is unable to have its milk pasteurized within the defined geographical area. As a practical matter, so far as the record shows, Dean can easily comply with the ordinance whenever it wants to. Therefore, Dean’s personal preference to pasteurize in Illinois, not the ordinance, keeps Dean’s milk out of Madison.

2. Characterization of §7.21 as a “discriminatory burden” on interstate commerce is merely a statement of the Court’s result, which I think incorrect. The section does prohibit the sale of milk in Madison by interstate and intrastate producers who prefer to pasteurize over five miles distant from the city. But both state courts below found that §7.21 represents a good-faith attempt to safeguard public health by making adequate sanitation inspections possible. While we are not bound by these findings, I do not understand the Court to overturn them. Therefore, the fact that §7.21, like all health regulations, imposes some burden on trade, does not mean that it “discriminates” against interstate commerce.

3. This health regulation should not be invalidated merely because the Court believes that alternative milk-inspection methods might insure the cleanliness and healthfulness of Dean’s Illinois milk. I find it difficult to explain why the Court uses the “reasonable alternative” concept to protect trade when today it refuses to apply the same principle to protect freedom of speech. . . .

If, however, the principle announced today is to be followed, the Court should not strike down local health regulations unless satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the substitutes it proposes would not lower health standards. I do not think that the Court can so satisfy itself on the basis of its judicial knowledge. And the evidence in the record leads me to the conclusion that the substitute health measures suggested by the Court do not insure milk as safe as the Madison ordinance requires.

One of the Court’s proposals is that Madison require milk processors to pay reasonable inspection fees at the milk supply “sources.” Experience shows, however, that the fee method gives rise to prolonged litigation over the calculation and collection of the charges. . . . To throw local milk regulation into such a quagmire of uncertainty jeopardizes the admirable milk-inspection systems in force in many municipalities. . . .

The Court’s second proposal is that Madison adopt §11 of the “Model Milk Ordinance.” . . . The evidence indicates to me that enforcement of the Madison law would assure a more healthful quality of milk than that which is entitled to use the label of “Grade A” under the Model Ordinance. Indeed, the United States Board of Public Health, which drafted the Model Ordinance, suggests that the provisions are “minimum” standards only. The Model Ordinance does not provide for continuous investigation of all pasteurization plants as does §7.21 of the Madison ordinance. Under §11, moreover, Madison would be required to depend on the Chicago inspection system since Dean’s plants, and the farms supplying them with raw milk, are located in the Chicago milkshed. But there is direct and positive evidence in the record that milk produced under Chicago standards did not meet the Madison requirements.

Furthermore, the Model Ordinance would force the Madison health authorities to rely on “spot checks” by the United States Public Health Service to determine whether Chicago enforced its milk regulations. The evidence shows that these “spot checks” are based on random inspection of farms and pasteurization plants: the United States Public Health Service rates the ten thousand or more dairy farms in the Chicago milkshed by a sampling of no more than two hundred farms. The same sampling technique is employed to inspect pasteurization plants. There was evidence that neither the farms supplying Dean with milk nor Dean’s pasteurization plants were necessarily inspected in the last “spot check” of the Chicago milkshed made two years before the present case was tried.

From what this record shows, and from what it fails to show, I do not think that either of the alternatives suggested by the Court would assure the people of Madison as pure a supply of milk as they receive under their own ordinance. On this record I would uphold the Madison law. . . .