CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-EQUAL PROTECTION-TRAFFIC REGULATION FORBIDDING ADVERTISING ON MOVING VEHICLES

Authors

W. M. Myers S.Ed., University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

A traffic regulation of the City of New York provides that "[n]o person shall operate, or cause to be operated, in or upon any street an advertising vehicle; provided that nothing herein contained shall prevent the putting of business notices upon business delivery vehicles, so long as such vehicles are engaged in the usual business or regular work of the owner and not used merely or mainly for advertising.'' Railway Express Agency, Inc., which owns and operates about 1,900 trucks in New York City, sold the space on the exteriors of these trucks for advertising unconnected with its own business. It was convicted in a magistrate's court of violating the above quoted traffic regulation. The conviction, sustained by a divided court in the New York Court of Appeals, was brought to the United States Supreme Court, appellant Express Agency contending in part that the regulation violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Held, affirmed. Exemption of vehicles having upon them advertisements of products sold by the ·owner does not render the regulation a denial of equal protection of the laws. Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 69 S.Ct. 463 (1949).

Recommended Citation

W. M. Myers S.Ed., CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-EQUAL PROTECTION-TRAFFIC REGULATION FORBIDDING ADVERTISING ON MOVING VEHICLES, 48 Mich. L. Rev. 121 (1949).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol48/iss1/14