Southwestern Oil Company v. State of Texas

• Decision Date: 04 April 1910
• Docket Number: No. 119,119
• Citation: 217 U.S. 114,54 L.Ed. 688,30 S.Ct. 496
• Parties: SOUTHWESTERN OIL COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF TEXAS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

217 U.S. 114

30 S.Ct. 496

54 L.Ed. 688

SOUTHWESTERN OIL COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v STATE OF TEXAS.

No. 119.

Argued March 2, 1910.

Decided April 4, 1910.

Messrs. George C. Greer, F. C. Proctor, D. E. Greer, and Greer, Minor, & Miller for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. James DuBose Walthall and Robert Vance Davidson for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:

This action was brought by the state of Texas in one of its own courts, against the Southwestern Oil Company, a corporation of that state, to recover the amount of certain taxes alleged to be due under what is known as the Kennedy act (chapter 148, General Laws of Texas, 1905, p. 358), providing for the levy and collection of a tax upon individuals, firms, associations, or other persons, owning, managing, operating, or controlling for profit within the state certain specified kinds of business, including wholesale dealers in coal oil, etc., and prescribing penalties for violations of the act. The state recovered judgment for a part of that amount. Upon appeal to the court of civil appeals the judgment was affirmed, and the action of the latter court was afterwards affirmed by the supreme court of Texas.

Upon this writ of error the Southwestern Oil Company contends here, as it contended in the state courts, that the statute under which the state proceeded was in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

The statute in question (§ 9) provides: 'Each and every person, association of persons, or corporation created by the laws of this or any other state or nation, which shall engage in their own name, or in the name of others, or in the name of their representatives or agents in this state, in the wholesale business of coal oil, naphtha, benzin, or any other mineral oils refined from petroleum, and any and all mineral oils, shall pay an annual tax of 2 per cent upon their gross receipts from any and all sales in this state of any said articles in § 9 of this act hereinabove mentioned, and an annual tax of 2 per cent of the cash market value of any and all of said articles that may be received or possessed or handled or disposed of in any manner other than by sale in this state; and it is hereby expressly provided that delivery to or possession by any person, association of persons, or corporation in this state, of any of the articles hereinabove mentioned in § 9 of this act, from whatever source the same may have been received, shall, for the purpose of this act, be held and considered such a sale and such ownership and possession of such articles and property (where no sale is made) as will and shall subject the same to the tax herein provided for. Said tax herein provided for shall be paid to the state treasurer quarterly, and every such person, agent, association, on per- sons, or corporation so owning, controlling, or managing such business, shall, on or before the 1st day of April, and quarterly thereafter, report to the comptroller, under oath of the president, treasurer, superintendent, or some other officer of said corporation or association, or some duly authorized agent thereof, the amount received by them from such business in this state. Should any person, association of persons, or corporation, or the officers or agents of any such corporation, person, or association of persons herein named, fail to make the report herein provided for, and pay said taxes, for thirty days after the termination of any quarter of the year, then he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined in any sum not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars. Each and every day after said thirty days have expired shall be deemed a separate offense. In addition thereto, in the event of the failure of the officers or agents of any such company or corporation to make the reports and pay said taxes, for thirty days after the termination of any quarter of the year, each and every such company or corporation, or their officers or agents so failing, shall forfeit and pay to the state the sum of $25 for each day said report and payment are delayed, which forfeiture and taxes shall be sued for by the attorney general in the name of the state. For the purpose of suits and prosecutions provided for in this article, venue and jurisdiction are hereby expressly conferred upon the courts of Travis county, and service may be had upon any officer or agent of such company or corporation in the state, and such service shall, in all respects, be held legal and valid. The tax herein levied shall be in addition to all other taxes levied by law.'

The defendant insists that the statute is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in the following particulars: That it arbitrarily selects and levies upon the wholesale business in coal oil, naphtha, benzin, or other mineral oils refined from petroleum, and any and all mineral oils, a tax of from fifty to one hundred times greater than is levied by the state upon wholesale business in other articles; that it denies to the defendant the equal protection of the laws, in that the failure of the wholesale dealer to pay the required tax for thirty days is made a misdemeanor, and subjects such dealer, upon conviction, to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars, each day after the expiration of the thirty day being deemed a separate offense; and, in addition, subjects him to a forfeiture of $25 for each day's delay in making the report required and paying the taxes imposed, while the only punishment prescribed against a wholesale dealer in other articles was a fine in any sum not less than the taxes due, and not more than double that sum and the cost of prosecution, the taxpayer in such case having the right to a dismissal of the prosecution on the payment of the tax and costs of prosecution and procuring the license to pursue or follow the occupation for the pursuing of which, without license, the prosecution was instituted; no prosecution to be commenced against any person after the procuring of said license, if the license procured covers the time actually followed in said occupation or calling. Penal Code, art. 112.

The transcript contains three principal assignments of error, one of which is that the state court should have held § 9 of the statute to be unconstitutional as laying a tax or burden on interstate commerce. It may be observed that no such defense was made by the company in its answer, and we need not stop to consider the question whether such a defense would have merit. Besides, the certificate made by the supreme court of Texas, at the request of the Oil Company, shows that the alleged invalidity of the statute was based entirely on the 14th Amendment. Again, no point under the commerce clause is urged in the brief of the company. In this court it contends only that § 9 of the statute contravenes the 14th Amendment. In our consideration of that proposition we assume, in conformity with the decision of the state court, that the statute is not in vio- lation of any provision of the Constitution or statute of Texas. That is a local question, with which this court is not concerned on this writ of error. We are only concerned to inquire whether the statute is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment, either as depriving the taxpayer of property without due process of law, or as denying the equal protection of the laws.

Looking at the clause of the Amendment prohibiting the deprivation of property without due process of law, it is to be remembered that the provision to that effect appeared in most of the state Constitutions long before the Amendment was adopted, and that principle was accepted everywhere as vital in the American systems of government. But the Amendment, although negative in its words, had the effect to incorporate into the fundamental law of each state a rule theretofore prescribed by the Constitution of the United States for the general government and its agencies. So that, prior to the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the states were controlled, in imposing and collecting taxes, entirely by their own fundamental law; and if they departed from due process of law in matters involving the deprivation of property, the taxpayer injuriously affected by its action could not, for that reason, prior to the Amendment, invoke for his or its protection any provision of the Constitution of the United States. But upon the adoption of the 14th Amendment,—whatever their own Constitutions may then, or have subsequently, declared,—the states became bound, as was the United States by the 5th Amendment, not to deprive any person of property without due process of law. Still it was never contemplated, when the Amendment was adopted, to restrain or cripple the taxing power of the states, whatever the methods they devised for the purposes of taxation, unless those methods, by their necessary operation, were inconsistent with the fundamental principles embraced by the requirements of due process of law and the equal protection of the laws in respect of rights of property.

Can it be predicated of the statute of Texas that its provisions for the imposition and collection of taxes are not conformable to due process of law? We think not. The tax in question is an occupation tax only. The statute has been so construed by the state court, and counsel for the Oil Company accept that construction as the law that should be applied in this case. The tax was imposed by the legislature, charged with the duty of providing the means necessary for the support of the state government. That branch of the state government alone could declare what taxes should be imposed and upon whom or upon what kinds of business imposed. If the state seeks, directly, by civil suit, or indirectly, by criminal prosecution in one of its courts, to enforce the provisions of the statute, the way is open for the taxpayer, in his defense, to...