Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877), argued 14, 18 Jan. 1876, decided 1 Mar. 1877 by vote of 7 to 2; Waite for the Court, Field, joined by Strong, in dissent. Munn v. Illinois forms with the related Granger Cases a historic ruling that tests the constitutionality of state police power, through legislation, to regulate private business. Coming in the industrial upheaval of the late nineteenth century, the case gave vitality to the recently enacted Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1875, the Illinois legislature, dominated by representatives sympathetic to the Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange), enacted legislation setting the rates that Illinois grain elevator operators could charge their grain‐producing customers—provided the operators did business in any Illinois city larger than 100,000 in population. The law therefore applied to only one Illinois city: Chicago, where farmers were agitated that elevator operators were fixing rates and gouging farmers. The operators argued that the Illinois statute was an unconstitutional infringement on the commerce power of the Congress and that it was violative of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, intended to bar any state from depriving persons of property without due process of law.

For the majority, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite vindicated the Granger forces. He upheld the Illinois law, arguing that such a statute was clearly within the limits of the police power of the state of Illinois. Waite eloquently traced the regulatory principle from its origins in English common law, observing that “[W]hen private property is affected with a public interest,” it ceased to be exclusively private (p. 126). He went on to ground his ruling in nineteenth‐century American case law regarding bridges, ferries, railroads, and navigable waterways. Waite observed that when one devotes “property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good, to the extent of the interest he has created” (p. 126).

Waite next asked if the facts of the case justified the legislature's statutory action—a question he answered affirmatively: “For our purposes we must assume that if a state of facts could exist that would justify such legislation, it actually did exist when the statute under consideration was passed” (p. 132). Moreover, it was the proper function of the judiciary to determine if the legislative power exercised here was a legitimate constitutional power (see Judicial Review). If so, its exercise was a political question: “For protection against abuses by legislatures, the people must resort to the polls, not to the courts” (p. 134)—Waite's classic statement of nineteenth‐century judicial restraint. Finally, Waite noted that the effect of the Illinois statute on interstate commerce was incidental, a local regulation that would stand in the absence of congressional involvement.

Justice Stephen J. Field entered a vigorous dissent in which Justice William Strong concurred. Field found the Illinois statute constitutionally impermissible and argued for a position that would come to be called substantive due process. Field drew a distinction between private rights and public power, basing his dissent in part on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Field dismissed the argument that by using their private property to engage in the business of grain storage the private owners had granted the public an interest in that use. “If this be sound law,” Field admonished in a celebrated passage, “all property and all business in the state are held at the mercy of the Legislature” (p. 140), a right to property so fragile as to be clearly unacceptable within the property guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Property Rights).

In arguing for a substantive conception of the Due Process Clause—that a hierarchy of rights was embodied in the Constitution that representative bodies could not abridge—Field in dissent announced a position that, over time, a Supreme Court majority would embrace. While Field did not condemn all governmental regulation of business activity, especially in the matter of regulating large corporations, he sought to limit the use of the state police power as an instrument for business regulation. His argument, in addition, foresaw a more activist and interventionist role for the federal judiciary in the economic life of the states—a harbinger of the modern role of federal courts in a broad array of policy questions.

Augustus M. Burns III

MUNN V. ILLINOIS

MUNN V. ILLINOIS, 94 U.S. 113 (1876), upheld state regulation of grain elevator prices. Chief Justice Morrison Waite's majority opinion rejected a commerce clause claim on the grounds that the grain elevators were wholly intrastate and Congress has taken no action to regulate any interstate commerce effects. The Court rejected a Fourteenth Amendment claim on the theory that the state could regulate private property devoted to public use and in the nature of a virtual monopoly. It suggested, however, that in other situations the prices of private contracts might be judicially reviewable under a reasonableness standard. Justice Stephen Field, joined by Justice William Strong, dissented, viewing the statute as "subversive of the rights of private property" as guaranteed by the Constitution. In the 1930s supporters of the New Deal would use Munn as an example of proper judicial restraint and appropriate deference to the judgments of legislative bodies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nowark, John E., and Ronald D. Rotunda. Constitutional Law. St. Paul, Minn: West, 2000.

Richard L.Aynes

See alsoGovernment Regulation of Business .

MUNN V. ILLINOIS (1877)

In Munn v. Illinois (1877) the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Illinois law which regulated the owners of grain elevators, declaring that government interference was constitutional in areas "affected with a public interest" (Munn vs. Illinois 94 US 113). The Court created a confusing void, however, with a later decision in Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois (1886). It declared state laws regulating interstate railroads were unconstitutional because they violated the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress exclusive regulatory power "with foreign nations, the several states, and with the Indian tribes" (Article I, Sec. 8). This decision eventually led to the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887.

Long before the creation of the federal regulatory body, the business practices of the railroads had given rise to a movement led by the National Grange. The Grange was a powerful association of farmers who protested railroad rate structures, citing them as discriminatory and unfair. They pressured state lawmakers into taking action. Midwestern legislatures yielded to the outcry, passing laws that established regulatory commissions to monitor the practices of the railroads. In Illinois and Minnesota these commissions prohibited discrimination in rates and services, fixed maximum freight rates, and established standards of service. The bodies were also given the authority to enforce their standards.

When Munn vs. Illinois came before the Supreme Court in 1877, the issue of state regulation was raised. The Supreme Court upheld the power of the state to impose standards on businesses "clothed with a public interest." This decision was often later cited in support of other Granger laws that were passed, primarily in Midwestern states, to curb unfair business practices of the railroads. Ultimately the states found it difficult to enforce their laws on carriers that moved between states. The creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887 resolved these problems, placing responsibility for the regulation of interstate business transportation firmly in the hands of the federal government.

See also: Interstate Commerce Act, Interstate Commerce: Regulation and Deregulation, National Grange, Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company vs. Illinois

Munn v. Illinois case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1876. Munn, a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm, had been found guilty by an Illinois court of violating the state laws providing for the fixing of maximum charges for storage of grain (see Granger movement ). He appealed, contending that the fixing of maximum rates constituted a taking of property without due process of law. The Supreme Court upheld the Granger laws, establishing as constitutional the principle of public regulation of private businesses involved in serving the public interest.