Lawton v. Steele/Dissent Fuller

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

152 U.S. 133

Lawton  v.  Steele

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER, (with whom concurred Mr. Justice FIELD and Mr. Justice BREWER,) dissenting.

In my opinion the legislation in question, so far as it authorizes the summary destruction of fishing nets and prohibits any action for damages on account of such destruction, is unconstitutional.

Fishing nets are in themselves articles of property entitled to the protection of the law, and I am unwilling to concede to the legislature of a state the power to declare them public nuisances, even when put to use in a manner forbidden by statute, and on that ground to justify their abatement by seizure and destruction without process, notice, or the observance of any judicial form.

The police power rests upon necessity and the right of self-protection, but private property cannot be arbitrarily invaded under the mere guise of police regulation, nor forfeited for the alleged violation of law by its owner, nor destroyed by way of penalty inflicted upon him, without opportunity to be heard.

It is not doubted that the abatement of a nuisance must be limited to the necessity of the occasion, and, as the illegal use of fishing nets would be terminated by their withdrawal from the water and the public be fully protected by their detention, the lack of necessity for the arbitrary proceedings prescribed seems to me too obvious to be ignored. Nor do I perceive that the difficulty which may attend their removal, the liability to injury in the process, and their comparatively small value ordinarily, affect the principle, or tend to show their summary destruction to be reasonably essential to the suppression of the illegal use. Indeed, I think that that argument is to be deprecated as weakening the importance of the preservation, without impairment in ever so slight a degree, of constitutional guaranties.

I am, therefore, constrained to withhold my assent to the judgment just announced, and am authorized to say that Mr. Justice FIELD and Mr. Justice BREWER concur in this dissent.