Weaver v. Palmer Bros. Co.

270 U.S. 402 (1926)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Appellee is a Connecticut corporation that manufactures comfortables in that state. Pennsylvania regulates the manufacture, sterilization, and sale of bedding. The act prohibits any material known as 'shoddy,' or any fabric or material from which 'shoddy' is constructed or any second-hand material, unless, since last used, such second-hand material has been thoroughly sterilized and disinfected by a reasonable process approved by the commissioner of labor. For many years prior to the passage of the Act, comfortables made in appellee's factories had been sold in Pennsylvania. In 1923, its business in that state exceeded $558,000, of which more than $188,000 was for comfortables filled with shoddy. About 5,000 dozen of these were filled with shoddily made of new materials, and about 3,000 dozen with second-hand shoddy. Appellee makes approximately 3,000,000 comfortables annually, and about 750,000 of these are filled with materials defined by the Act as shoddy. Appellant is charged with its enforcement, and threatened to proceed against the appellee and its customers. Appellee brought this suit to enjoin the enforcement of the Act on the grounds, among others, that, as applied to the business of appellee, it is repugnant to the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court said: 'It is conceded by all parties that shoddy may be rendered perfectly harmless by sterilization.' The district court found that the statute infringes appellee's constitutional rights insofar as it absolutely prohibits the use of shoddy in the manufacture of comfortables, and, to that extent, the decree restrains its enforcement.