186
OCTOBER TERM, 1993
Syllabus
certiorari to the supreme judicial court of massachusetts
No. 93-141. Argued March 2, 1994—Decided June 17, 1994
A Massachusetts pricing order subjects all fluid milk sold by dealers to
Massachusetts retailers to an assessment. Although most of that milk is produced out of State, the entire assessment is distributed to Massachusetts dairy farmers. Petitioners—licensed dealers who purchase milk produced by out-of-state farmers and sell it within Massachusetts—sued to enjoin enforcement of the order on the ground that it violated the Federal Commerce Clause, but the state court denied relief. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed, concluding that the order was not facially discriminatory, applied evenhandedly, and only incidentally burdened interstate commerce, and that such burden was outweighed by the "local benefits" to the dairy industry.
Held: The pricing order unconstitutionally discriminates against interstate commerce. Pp. 192-207. (a) The order is clearly unconstitutional under this Court's decisions invalidating state laws designed to benefit local producers of goods by creating tariff-like barriers that neutralized the competitive and economic advantages possessed by lower cost out-of-state producers. See, e. g., Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U. S. 263. The "premium payments" are effectively a tax making milk produced out of State more expensive. Although that tax also applies to milk produced in Massachusetts, its effect on Massachusetts producers is entirely (indeed more than) offset by the subsidy provided exclusively to Massachusetts dairy farmers, who are thereby empowered to sell at or below the price charged by lower cost out-of-state producers. Pp. 192-197. (b) Respondent's principal argument—that, because both the local-subsidy and nondiscriminatory-tax components of the order are valid, the combination of the two is equally valid—is rejected. Even granting respondent's assertion that both components of the pricing order would be constitutional standing alone, the order must still fall because it is funded principally from taxes on the sale of milk produced in other States and therefore burdens interstate commerce. More fundamentally, the argument is logically flawed in its assumption that the lawfulness of each of two acts establishes the legality of their combination.
Page: Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007