Munn v Illinois (1876)

For the Indian law student, the famous part of Munn v Illinois is not the majority's decision at all. It is a single passage in Field J.'s dissent: that "life" in a due process clause means "something more ... than mere animal existence". The Supreme Court of India drew on that observation — including in Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation, where it was relied on to show the nexus between life and the means of livelihood. When you write on the right to livelihood under Article 21, this is where the phrase comes from.

The majority's own holding is also worth knowing. It laid down the American doctrine that private property "affected with a public interest" may be regulated by the State, including by fixing maximum charges. That is the constitutional basis for regulating businesses that serve the public — the background against which labour and economic regulation developed.

Munn & Scott ran the "Northwestern Elevator", a grain warehouse in Chicago built with their own capital in 1862, where grain of different owners was stored in bulk and mixed together. The Illinois Constitution of 1870 declared such elevators to be public warehouses, and an Illinois Act of 25 April 1871 required their operators to take a licence, give a bond, and charge no more than the maximum rates fixed in the Act.

Munn & Scott took no licence, gave no bond, and charged the rates agreed each year among the Chicago elevators, which were higher than the statutory maximum. They were prosecuted, found guilty and fined $100. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed. They took the case to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the statute was unconstitutional.

The Court accepted as true the statement in their own counsel's brief that Chicago was the greatest grain market in the world, and noted that although there were fourteen warehouses in 1874, nine business firms controlled them and fixed their rates together.

1. Can a State legislature, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, fix by law the maximum charges for storing grain in private warehouses?
2. Does the statute deny equal protection because it applies only to places of a certain size?
3. Does it unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, or give a preference to the ports of one State over another?

The judgment was affirmed. The statute was not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.

Presumption of constitutionality

"Every statute is presumed to be constitutional. The courts ought not to declare one to be unconstitutional unless it is clearly so. If there is doubt, the expressed will of the legislature should be sustained."

The police power

Drawing on the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, the Court said the police power allows the State to regulate how each citizen uses his property so as not to injure others. Historically, in England and in America, legislatures had regulated ferries, common carriers, hackmen, bakers, millers, wharfingers and innkeepers, and fixed their maximum charges. So "it was not supposed that statutes regulating the use, or even the price of the use, of private property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due process of law."

Property affected with a public interest

Relying on Lord Hale, the Court held: "Property does become clothed with a public interest when used in a manner to make it of public consequence and affect the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his 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 thus created." The owner "may withdraw his grant by discontinuing the use, but, so long as he maintains the use, he must submit to the control."

The Chicago elevators stood "in the very "gateway of commerce," and take toll from all who pass"; they might be a "virtual" monopoly. "Certainly, if any business can be clothed "with a public interest, and cease to be juris privati only," this has been."

The legislature fixes the maximum

It did not matter that the warehouses were built before the regulation. On the argument that what is a reasonable charge is a judicial question, the Court held that where the power to regulate exists, "the right to establish the maximum of charge, as one of the means of regulation, is implied." And: "We know that this is a power which may be abused, but that is no argument against its existence. For protection against abuses by legislatures, the people must resort to the polls, not to the courts."

The other objections

The equal protection argument failed for the same reasons. On commerce, the warehouses were situated and carried on business wholly within Illinois; "Their regulation is a thing of domestic concern", and until Congress acted the State could regulate them even if this indirectly affected commerce beyond the State. Article 1, s. 9 limits only Congress, not the States.

Field J. called the majority's principle "subversive of the rights of private property". A guarantee that protected only title and possession, but allowed the State to take away the use of property and its fruits, would be worthless: "All that is beneficial in property arises from its use and the fruits of that use, and whatever deprives a person of them deprives him of all that is desirable or valuable in the title and possession."

To make this point he gave the due process clause a wide reading throughout, and this is the passage Indian courts have used:

"By the term "life," as here used, something more is meant than mere animal existence. The inhibition against its deprivation extends to all those limbs and faculties by which life is enjoyed."

On liberty, he said it means "something more is meant than mere freedom from physical restraint or the bounds of a prison", including the freedom "to pursue such callings and avocations as may be most suitable to develop his capacities and give to them their highest enjoyment."

He would have reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois.

When private property is devoted to a use in which the public has an interest, it becomes "affected with a public interest" and may be regulated by the State for the common good, including by legislation fixing the maximum charges for its use; such regulation does not deprive the owner of property without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The owner may escape the control only by discontinuing the public use.

(Field J.'s observation on "life" is from a dissent. It is not part of the ratio of Munn; its force in India comes from its adoption by the Supreme Court of India.)

• Article 21 answers: Explain how the Supreme Court has widened "life" in Article 21 to include the right to livelihood. Quote Field J.: "life" means "something more ... than mere animal existence", extending to "all those limbs and faculties by which life is enjoyed". Say plainly that this is an American dissent, adopted in India — in Olga Tellis, among others.
• Short note: Munn v Illinois. Cover the "affected with a public interest" doctrine, the presumption of constitutionality, and Field J.'s dissent.
• Right to work and livelihood (Unit 1): use Field J.'s account of liberty — freedom to pursue "callings and avocations" — alongside his account of life, to show the roots of the livelihood argument.
• Watch the trap: do not call Field J.'s passage the holding of Munn. The majority upheld State regulation; the famous words on life come from the minority.