Hauge v. Chicago
Headline: Chicago weighing rule upheld: trucked coal from outside must be unloaded and reweighed by public weighmasters, making direct deliveries subject to local consumer-protection weighing requirements.
Holding: The challenged judgment must be affirmed; a city may require coal trucked into the city to be reweighed by a public weighmaster despite prior weighing at the mine.
- Requires out-of-city coal truckers to unload and be reweighed by city weighmasters.
- Adds time and cost to direct coal deliveries into the city.
- Keeps a local method to protect buyers from false or manipulated weights.
Summary
Background
A trucker who lived in Morris, Illinois, owned and drove his truck to haul coal sixty-two miles from a mine to customers in Chicago. The coal had been weighed at the mine on State-tested scales, but Chicago's ordinance requires every load delivered within the city to be weighed by a public weighmaster and accompanied by a weighmaster’s certificate before any coal is removed from the vehicle. The trucker was convicted for delivering coal in Chicago without that certificate and challenged the rule as unfair under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Reasoning
The central question was whether applying the city weighing rule to this direct-delivery trucking business was unreasonable. The Court agreed with Illinois courts that the ordinance aims to protect buyers from short or false weights and that mine weighing alone did not let Chicago police or officials prevent later manipulation. The Court found no proof the city acted arbitrarily or discriminatorily when it required reweighing by an authorized official, so the conviction was affirmed and the city’s rule stands.
Real world impact
The decision means truckers bringing coal from outside the city must follow local weighing rules: their loads may need to be unloaded so a city weighmaster can weigh the empty vehicle and the load and issue a certificate. The rule imposes time and cost on these direct deliveries while the city keeps a local method to protect consumers.
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