Although the majority of the supreme court of Iowa doubted the correctness of a ruling previously made by that court, nevertheless it was adhered to under the rule of stare decisis, and was made the basis of the decision in this cause. In the previous case it was held by the supreme court of Iowa that, where merchandise was received by a carrier with a duty to collect the price on delivery to the consignee, the merchandise remained the property of the consignor, and was held by the carrier as his agent with authority to complete the sale. Upon this premise it was decided that intoxicating liquors shipped C. O. D. from another state were subject to be seized on their arrival in Iowa, in the hands of the express company. Sustaining, upon this principle, the seizure in this case, the supreme court of Iowa did not expressly consider the defense based on the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, because the court deemed that its ruling on the subject of the effect of the C. O. D. shipment was a wholly non-Federal ground, broad enough to sustain the conclusion reached. And this the court considered was sanctioned by O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 324, 36 L. ed. 450, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 693.
In accord with the opinion of the supreme court of Iowa it is insisted at bar that this writ of error should be dismissed for want of jurisdiction, because the decision below involved no Federal question, and the case of O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 324, 36 L. ed. 450, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 693, is relied upon. The contention is untenable. As pointed out in Norfolk & W. R. Co. v. Sims, 191 U.S. 446, 48 L. ed. 256, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 151, the view taken of the O'Neil Case is a mistaken one. True, in that case the supreme court of Vermont gave to a C. O. D. shipment the effect attributed to it by the supreme court of Iowa in this case. True, also, a writ of error was prosecuted from this court to the Vermont court upon the assumption that the commerce clause of the Constitution was involved, but this court dismissed the writ of error because it did not appear that the commerce clause of the Constitution was relied on in the state court, was in any way called to the attention of that court, or was passed upon by it. As on this record it appears that the protection of the commerce clause was directly invoked in the state court, it is apparent that the O'Neil Case is inapposite. And as, in order to decide the contention that the judgment below rests upon an adequate non-Federal ground, we must necessarily consider how far the C. O. D. shipment was protected by the commerce clause of the Constitution, which is the question on the merits, we pass from the motion to dismiss to the consideration of the rights asserted under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
We can best dispose of such asserted rights by a brief reference to some of the controlling adjudications of this court.
In Bowman v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co. 125 U.S. 465, 31 L. ed. 700, 1 Inters. Com. Rep. 823, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 689, 1062, it was held that the statutes of Iowa forbidding common carriers from bringing intoxicating liquors into the state of Iowa from another state or territory without obtaining a certificate required by the laws of Iowa was void, as being a regulation of commerce between the states, and, therefore, that those laws did not justify a common carrier in Illinois from refusing to receive and transport intoxicating liquors consigned to a point within the state of Iowa.