Smith v. Payne

Full title: SMITH v . PAYNE

Court: U.S.

Date published: Apr 11, 1904

194 U.S. 104 (1904)

Opinion

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

No. 481.

Argued March 10, 1904. Decided April 11, 1904.

What are periodicals and second class matter decided on authority of Houghton v. Payne, ante, p. 88.

THIS was also a bill, filed by the firm of Street Smith, to enjoin the Postmaster General from cancelling certain certificates of entry admitting the publications of complainant firm to the mail as second class mail matter. This case took the same course as the preceding one.

Mr. Tracy L. Jeffords, with whom Mr. Charles F. Moody and Mr. E. Van Buren Getty were on the brief, for appellants. Mr. John G. Johnson and Mr. Henry H. Glassie, special assistants to the Attorney General, for appellee.¹

1 For abstracts of arguments, see p. 88, ante

MR. JUSTICE BROWN delivered the opinion of the court.

Plaintiffs are the publishers of several different series of novels under the names of The Columbia Library, The Bertha Clay Library, The Magnet Detective Library, The Medal Library, The Undine Library, The Eden Series, The Arrow Library, and some others. The books of these series are apparently of an inferior class of literature, and are numbered consecutively; but the only thing to indicate that they are issued periodically is a notice upon the outside of the back cover in small type that they are weekly or semi-monthly publications.

The considerations moving us to affirm the decree of the Court of Appeals in the case of Houghton v. Payne, just decided, apply with much greater persuasiveness to this case, and the decree dismissing the bill is, therefore

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and The CHIEF JUSTICE dissent in this case for the reasons stated in their dissenting opinions in Houghton v. Payne, ante, p. 88, and Bates Guild Co. v. Payne, post, p. 106.