Roger Turunen v. Department of Natural Resources

First published in 1905, Pigs is Pigs, by Ellis Parker Butler, tells the story of a railroad agent who insisted on charging the “livestock” rate for a shipment of two guinea pigs, rather than the lower rate applicable to domestic pets. Butler, Pigs Is Pigs (Colver Publishing House, 1905), pp 5-6. “Rules is rules,” the agent announced, and “[t]h’ nationality of the pig creates no differentiality in the rate . .. !” Id. at 4, 7. The man who had ordered the guinea pigs refused to be bullied by the bureaucratic agent. Rather than pay a rate he viewed as exorbitant (30 cents a guinea pig), the…