## Facts

- New York regulated milk sales under a Milk Control Act that set minimum prices for bottled fluid milk sold to stores in New York City.
- The 1933 statute allowed certain dealers selling milk “not having a well advertised trade name” to charge up to one cent per quart less than the minimum price applicable to milk sold under “a well advertised trade name.”
- The 1934 reenactment retained the one-cent differential but limited eligibility to non-trade-name dealers engaged continuously in the business since April 10, 1933.
- Mayflower Farms, Inc. entered the Brooklyn milk-dealer business in autumn 1933, obtained a license under the 1933 law, and applied for a license under the 1934 law.
- Because it began operating after April 10, 1933, Mayflower did not qualify for the statutory one-cent differential available to certain incumbent non-trade-name dealers.
- After a hearing, state officials denied Mayflower’s license application; New York courts affirmed the denial.
- Mayflower challenged the statute as applied, arguing the cutoff-date limitation created unconstitutional discrimination among similarly situated non-trade-name dealers.

## Issues

1. Whether limiting a statutory milk-price differential to non-trade-name dealers continuously in business since April 10, 1933 denies equal protection by favoring incumbents over later entrants who are otherwise similarly situated.
2. Whether the cutoff-date classification bears a reasonable relation to a legitimate public purpose in milk-price regulation, or instead is arbitrary economic favoritism.
3. If the cutoff-date limitation is unconstitutional, whether it is severable from the remaining price-differential provision.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment sustaining the license denial and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court held the cutoff-date limitation was arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Court concluded the record disclosed no public-interest justification for granting the differential only to dealers in business before the specified date.
- The Court declined to decide severability of the unconstitutional time limitation, leaving that question for state-court determination on remand.

## Legal Principles

- States may regulate prices in the public interest under the police power, but classifications within regulatory schemes must be reasonable and not arbitrary.
- A law that grants an economic advantage to a subset of businesses solely by reference to an arbitrary entry date, without a demonstrated relation to public protection, violates equal protection.
- Courts will not supply speculative justifications for a discriminatory economic classification when the statute and record disclose no basis tied to a legitimate public objective.
- Severability of an invalid statutory limitation is generally a matter of state law for state courts to decide unless resolved as part of the federal constitutional holding.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated New York’s cutoff-date restriction on a milk-price differential because it conferred a competitive advantage on incumbent non-trade-name dealers without any shown public-interest reason, thereby denying equal protection, and it remanded for state courts to address severability.


Mayflower Farms, Inc. v. Ten Eyck, 297 U.S. 266 (1936)