Postal Telegraph Cable Co v. State of Alabama

• Decision Date: 17 December 1894
• Docket Number: No. 702,702
• Citation: 155 U.S. 482,39 L.Ed. 231,15 S.Ct. 192
• Parties: POSTAL TELEGRAPH CABLE CO. v. STATE OF ALABAMA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

155 U.S. 482

15 S.Ct. 192

39 L.Ed. 231

POSTAL TELEGRAPH CABLE CO.

v STATE OF ALABAMA.

No. 702.

December 17, 1894.

This was an action brought November 4, 1892, in the circuit court of Montgomery county, in the state of Alabama, by the state of Alabama against the Postal Telegraph Cable Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the state of New York, to recover taxes and penalties claimed by the state of Alabama under its statute of February 28, 1889, No. 103.

By that statute, it is enacted that 'all express and telegraph and sleeping-car companies, doing business between points wholly within this state, and without reference to their interstate business, shall pay in advance on the first day of January, in each year, to the auditor of the state of Alabama, a privilege tax of five hundred dollars, together with one dollar for each mile of telegraph line, or of railroad tracks, on or along which the lines of said companies operate or extend: and no express or telegraph company, which has paid the privilege tax hereby required, shall be liable to pay any other privilege or other tax in this state, except licenses required by cities and towns, and except upon their real estate, fixtures and other property, which shall be taxed at the same rate as is now levied and collected upon other property in this state: provided, that all express or telegraph companies, which have heretofore paid their taxes to the state under existing laws, for the year 1889, are hereby exempt from the provisions of this clause for said year: And provided further, that all telegraph companies, whose lines on which business is done wholly within the state do not exceed 150 miles, shall pay, at the same time and in the same manner and for the same purpose, a privilege tax at the rate of one dollar a mile for each mile of railroad along or upon which they operate or do business, and no more: And provided further, that said company, or some agent thereof, shall, when making payment of the tax hereinbefore mentioned, report under oath the mileage of railroad operated by them respectively; and, in default of the payment of said tax, or the making of said report, for sixty days after maturity of said tax, a penalty of double the amount of the same shall be imposed on such defaulting companies.' Acts Ala. 1888-89, p. 89.

The complaint consisted of three counts, the first of which was as follows:

'The plaintiff, the state of Alabama, claims of the defendant, the Postal Telegraph Company, a foreign corporation the sum of fifteen hundred dollars; for that whereas heretofore, to wit, on the 1st day of January, 1890, and for more than sixty days thereafter, the defendant did engage in the business of a telegraph company between points wholly within the state of Alabama, and did run and operate its lines on or along two hundred and fifty miles of railroad track within the state of Alabama, whereby it became and was the duty of the defendant to pay in advance on the 1st day of January, 1890, to the auditor of the state of Alabama, a privilege tax of five hundred dollars, together with the further sum of one dollar for each mile of railroad track on or along which the lines of the defendant as such telegraph company did operate or extend, and at the same time to report under oath the mileage of railroad track operated by it within the state of Alabama; and the plaintiff avers that the defendant made default in the payment of said tax, and in the making of said report, for more than sixty days, whereby it became and was and is liable to pay to the plaintiff a penalty in double the amount of said tax,—that is to say, a penalty of fifteen hundred dollars, for which plaintiff here sues.'

The second and third counts were precisely like the first, except that the second substituted January 1, 1891, for January 1, 1890; and that the third substituted January 1, 1892, and alleged that the defendant operated its lines on or along 328 miles of railroad track, and became liable to pay to the plaintiff a penalty of $1,656.

In December, 1892, the case was removed into the circuit court of the United States for the middle district of Alabama, under the act of congress of March 3, 1887, c. 373 (24 Stat. 552), as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, c. 866 (25 Stat. 433), upon the petition of the defendant, alleging that it was a corporation organized under the laws of the state of New York in 1886 for the purpose of constructing, owning, using, and operating electric telegraph lines within that state, and extending beyond its limits into and across other states and territories, for the purpose of commercial and interstate communication by telegraph lines for general public use; that it had its principal executive, financial, and accounting offices in the city of New York; that it was 'engaged in the general telegraph business of receiving and sending telegrams over its lines for commercial purposes for the public between citizens within the state of New York and other states, and across the same to and from other places within other states, and also in sending messages by telegraph communication between the several departments of the government of the United...