Red \C\ Oil Manufacturing Co. v. Board of Agriculture

Citations

• 222 U.S. 380
• 32 S. Ct. 152
• 56 L. Ed. 240
• 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2189

Syllabus

<p>This court will not lightly attribute improper motives to the lawmaking power, and will not, on a mere charge, regard a statute imposing inspection fees as an act to raise revenue. Ellis v. United States, 206 U. S. 246.</p> <p>Prima facie, the charge for inspection in an act otherwise constitutional is reasonable. Western Union Tel. Co. v. New Hope, 187 U. S. 417.</p> <p>The fact that oil inspection laws have been passed in a majority of the States shows that oil is a proper subject for police regulation. In this case this court cannot conclude that the charge for inspecting oil, provided by the North Carolina oil inspection law of 1909, is so seriously in excess of what is necessary for the object designed to be. effected as to justify the imputatiqn of bad faith and the conclusion that the law is one for revenue and not merely for inspection. Patapsco Guano Co. v. South Carolina, 171 U. S. 354.</p> <p>This court, cannot determine what the actual operation of a statute will be after its enactment by going outside the record and taking judicial knowledge of what has happened since the filing of the transcript here.</p> <p>If the inspection fees exacted under a state statute average largely more than enough to pay expenses, the presumption is that the' State will reduce them to conform to the constitutional authority to impose fees solely to reimburse for expense of inspection.</p> <p>What relief shall be accorded to one who may sustain injury by the failure of a State to protect his rights under the Constitution, cannot be determined before there has been sttch failure.</p> <p>A requirement by the legislature that illuminating oils must be safe, pure, and afford a satisfactory light, establishes a sufficient primary standard, and remitting to the proper state board the establish-</p> <p>■ ment of rules and regulations to determine what oils measure up to those standards does not amount to a delegation of legislative power..</p> <p>Where one complains that regulat