# Toomer v. Witsell

> Supreme Court of the United States · October 11, 1948 · 334 U.S. 385

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420178

## Case

- **Full name:** TOOMER Et Al. v. WITSELL Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** October 11, 1948
- **Citations:** 334 U.S. 385; 68 S. Ct. 1156; 92 L. Ed. 2d 1460; 1948 U.S. LEXIS 2082
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rutledge
- **Judges:** Vinson, Frankfurter, Rutledge, Black, Jackson
- **Cited by:** 556 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420178

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that South Carolina statutes effectively prohibiting nonresidents from fishing in South Carolina waters violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause because the state offered insufficient evidence of a “reasonable relationship between the danger represented by non-cit…
- holding that South Carolina law requiring boats to dock at a South Carolina port discriminated against interstate commerce even though it applied evenhandedly to boats with in-state and out-of-state owners, because it used the threat of fines “to divert to South Carolina emplo…
- holding that the Commerce Clause was violated where a state required that shrimp boats fishing off of its coast pack their shrimp and pay state taxes before transporting their catch interstate
- holding that the Privileges and Immunities clause "bars discrimination against citizens of other States where there is no substantial reason for the dis- crimination beyond the mere fact that they are citizens of other States."
- holding that Art. IV, § 2, “insure[s] to a citizen of State A who ventures into State B the same privileges which the citizens of State B enjoy”

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
concurring.
I agree with the result and the Court's opinion, subject to one interpretation or qualification of the opinion’s Fifth part.
The requirement that owners of boats fishing in the maritime belt dock at a South Carolina port, unload, pack, and stamp their catch (for tax purposes), before “shipping or transporting it to another state,” is not merely a regu *410 lation of commerce burdening it in the sense of materially increasing the shipper’s costs. Many valid regulations of commerce do this. The regulation in question goes farther. It is aimed in terms directly at interstate commerce alone, and thus would seem to be discriminatory in intent and effect upon that commerce. Moreover, in my opinion, it is of such a character that, if applied, for all practical purposes it would block the commerce.
Since it was exactly that sort of state regulation the commerce clause was designed to strike down, I agree that this one cannot stand. The same considerations I also think would be applicable to nullify the license fees levied against nonresidents, since upon the record their transportation of catches would seem to be exclusively in interstate commerce, or practically so.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9420178. Public record. Not legal advice.