Mayflower Farms, Inc. v. Ten Eyck

New York (defendant) passed a statute setting minimum milk prices that let off-brand milk sell for one cent less per quart than name-brand milk, but only for off-brand dealers already in business as of April 10, 1933, the statute's enactment date. In the two years before the statute, market forces (largely name-brand advertising) had already produced roughly that same one-cent price gap. Mayflower Farms (plaintiff) entered the off-brand milk business after April 10, 1933, and, because it was excluded from the lower price minimum available to earlier entrants, sued claiming the statute denied it equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.