INTERSTATE COMMERCE - CONSTITUTIONALITY OF WEIGHT AND SIZE LIMITATIONS OF MOTOR CARRIERS - COMMERCE CLAUSE AND DUE PROCESS CLAUSE

Authors

Donald H. Larmee, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina had recently before it a well-presented case, Barnwell Bros. Inc. v. South Carolina State Highway Dept., involving the authority of the state to regulate the size and weight of motor vehicles operating on South Carolina's highways. The South Carolina statute in question limited the width of motor trucks (including semitrailers) to ninety inches, and their gross weight 4 to 20,000 pounds. The validity of this statute was challenged upon three distinct grounds: (1) that it was a denial of due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) that the right of the states to regulate size and weight of the motor vehicles used in interstate commerce has been superseded by the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935; and (3) that the statute as applied to vehicles used by interstate motor carriers placed an unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce. The three-judge court declared the statute valid in so far as the first two grounds of attack were concerned, but as to the third held that the statute placed an unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce, and therefore was unconstitutional as to interstate carriers.

Recommended Citation

Donald H. Larmee, INTERSTATE COMMERCE - CONSTITUTIONALITY OF WEIGHT AND SIZE LIMITATIONS OF MOTOR CARRIERS - COMMERCE CLAUSE AND DUE PROCESS CLAUSE, 36 Mich. L. Rev. 443 (1938).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol36/iss3/6