The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, expressing the view that the local benefits provided to the Massachusetts dairy industry by the pricing order outweighed any incidental burden on interstate commerce, affirmed the Superior Court judgment.

The Court held that a nondiscriminatory tax had been coupled with a legitimate subsidy to create an effect that nonetheless violated the Commerce Clause.

The Court held that the order violated the negative Commerce Clause because, like a tariff, it benefitted in-state economic interests by burdening out-of-state competitors, such as the milk buyers.

He argued that (1) a self-executing negative commerce clause should be enforced against a state law that (a) facially discriminates against interstate commerce, or (b) is indistinguishable from a type of law previously held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; and (2) applying this approach, or at least the second part of it, the pricing order was invalid.

He stated that no decided case supported the court's conclusion that the negative commerce clause prohibits a state from using money that it has lawfully obtained through a neutral tax on milk dealers and distributing the money as a subsidy to dairy farmers.