Hartman v. Greenhow

• Decision Date: 01 October 1880
• Parties: HARTMAN v. GREENHOW
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

102 U.S. 672

102 U.S. 672

26 L.Ed. 271

HARTMAN v. GREENHOW.

October Term, 1880

ERROR to the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia.

The case is fully stated in the opinion of the court.

William L. Royall for the plaintiff in error.

Mr. James G. Field, Attorney-General of Virginia, contra.

MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff in error, who is the petitioner in the court below, is a citizen and resident of the city of Richmond, State of Virginia; and on the 5th of April, 1878, was indebted to the State for taxes to the amount of twenty-six dollars and fifty-three cents. On that day he tendered to the treasurer of Richmond—who is by law charged with the duty of collecting the taxes of the State in that city—certain interest coupons, which were overdue, amounting to twenty-four dollars, cut from bonds of the State, issued under the provisions of an act of the General Assembly, passed March 30, 1871, commonly known as the Funding Act, and two dollars and fifty-three cents in lawful money of the United States, in payment of the taxes; but the treasurer refused to receive the coupons in discharge of the taxes without first deducting therefrom the taxes upon the bonds to which they were originally attached. The petitioner holding the coupons was not at the time the owner of such bonds. Upon this refusal he applied to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia for a writ of mandamus to the treasurer to compel him to receive the coupons, with the money mentioned, in full discharge of the petitioner's taxes, without any deduction from the coupons for the taxes upon the bonds.

The court issued a rule or an alternative writ upon the treasurer, to which he answered, that the General Assembly of the State had, for many years, exercised the right to tax all bonds, choses in action, and other evidences of debt, including bonds of the State; that the taxes assessed upon the latter bonds were according to their market value, the amount being fixed at fifty cents on the one hundred dollars of such value; that the law required the taxes to be collected when the interest on the bonds was paid, and made it a high penal offence for any officer to receive coupons in payment of taxes without deducting from their face value the tax levied upon the bonds from which they were taken, and he referred to several acts of the legislature in support of this statement. He also answered, that at the time the coupons were tendered to him he proposed to deduct from them the amount of the taxes on the bonds to which they were originally attached, and demanded of the petitioner a like amount in money in addition to what was tendered; that he would not otherwise have been justified in giving a receipt in full for the taxes due; and that this additional amount the petitioner refused to pay. The respondent, therefore, denied that the petitioner was entitled to the writ, and prayed that his petition be dismissed.

The application was fully argued before the Supreme Court of Appeals by counsel for he petitioner, and by the attorney-general of the State for the treasurer. The judges of the court were equally divided in opinion upon it, and, as is usual in such cases, the application was denied, and judgment to that effect, with costs, was entered. To review this judgment the case is brought here on writ of error.

The principal question for determination, as thus seen, is the validity of the statute of the State requiring the tax levied upon its bonds to be deducted from the coupons for interest, originally attached to them, when the coupons are presented for payment, so far as it applies to coupons separated from the bonds and held by different owners.

To fully understand this question, it will be necessary to make a brief reference to the legislation of the State upon her indebtedness. But before doing this there is a question of jurisdiction to be considered. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals being entered upon an equal division of opinion among its judges, it is argued that there is no such final adjudication of the State court as can be reviewed by this court.

The Revised Statutes, which express the statute law of the United States in force Dec. 1, 1873, provide, in sect. 709, embodying substantially the provisions of the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789,—that a final judgment or decree, in any suit, of the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be re-examined by the Supreme Court of the United States in three classes of cases. In all of them there must be a final judgment or decree of the highest court of the State, and the decision expressed by that judgment must have involved a question under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, and have been adverse to some right, privilege, or immunity claimed under them. Here the Supreme Court of Appeals certifies that on the hearing of the case there was drawn in question the validity of the statute of the State authorizing the tax upon the bonds and requiring its deduction from the coupons, on the ground of its repugnancy to the provision of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting any legislation by the States impairing the obligation of contracts; and that the decision was in favor of the validity of the State statute and against the right claimed by the petitioner under the provision of the Constitution of the United States. That this certificate correctly states the question involved will more clearly appear from the legislation of the State, which we shall presently consider. The judgment denying the writ of mandamus was a final determination against the claim of the petitioner to have the coupons held by him received for taxes without a deduction from their face value of the amount of the tax levied on the bonds. A mandamus in cases of this kind is no longer regarded in this country as a mere prerogative writ. It is nothing more than an ordinary proceeding or action in which the performance of a specific duty, by which the rights of the petitioner are affected, is sought to be enforced. Says Mr. Chief Justice Taney: 'It undoubtedly came into use by virtue of prerogative power in the English crown, and was subject to regulations and rules which have long since been disused; but the right to the writ and the power to issue it have ceased to depend upon any prerogative power, and it is now regarded as an ordinary process in cases to which it is applicable. It was so held by this court in the cases of Kendall v. The United States, 12 Pet. 615, and Kendall v. Stokes et al., 3 How. 100.' Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 97. And such we understand to be the law of Virginia. The judgment, therefore, in the case, stands like the judgment in an ordinary action at law, subject to review under similar conditions. It is not the less expressive of the decision of the court upon the merits of the petitioner's claim in the case because it is rendered upon an equal division of opinion among the judges. The fact of division does not impair the conclusive force of the judgment, though it may prevent the decision from being authority in other cases upon the question involved. The judgment is that of the entire court, and is as binding in every respect as if rendered upon the concurrence of all the judges. Lessieur v. Price, 12 How. 59; Durant v. Essex County, 7 Wall. 107; s. c. 101 U. S. 555.

Nor does it matter that the judgment was rendered in an original proceeding in the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, and not in a case pending before that court on appeal. It is enough for our jurisdiction that the judgment is by the highest tribunal of the State in which a decision could be had in the suit. When such a judgment is brought before us for review, involving in its rendition a decision upon a Federal question, we do not look beyond the action of that court. It is enough that we have its final judgment in the case, whether it be one of original jurisdiction or heard by it in the exercise of its own appellate power over the inferior courts of the State.

We proceed, therefore, to consider the legislation of the State upon her indebtedness. A brief sketch of it will perhaps enable us better than in any other way to exhibit the question for our determination, and indicate the solution it should receive.

It appears from the statutes to which we are referred—and we know the fact as a matter of public history—that prior to the late civil war Virginia had become largely indebted for moneys borrowed to construct public works in the State. The moneys were obtained upon her bonds, which were issued to an amount exceeding $30,000,000. Being the obligations of a State of large wealth, which never allowed its fidelity to its promises to be questioned anywhere, the bonds found a ready sale in the markets of the country. Until the civil war, the interest on them was regularly and promptly paid. Afterwards the payments ceased, and until 1871, with the exception of a few small sums remitted in coin during the war to London for foreign bondholders, or paid in Virginia in Confederate money, and a small amount paid in 1866 and 1867, no part of the interest or principal was paid. During the war a portion of her territory was separated from her, and by its people a new State, named West Virginia, was formed, and by the Congress of the United States was admitted into the Union. Nearly one-third of her territory and people were thus taken from her jurisdiction. But as the whole State had created the indebtedness for which the bonds were issued, and participated in the benefits obtained by the moneys raised, it was but just that a portion of the indebtedness should be assumed by that part which was taken from her and made a new State. Writers on public law speak of the principle as well established, that where a State is divided into two or more States, in the adjustment of liabilities between each...