Berryman v. Board of Trustees of Whitman College

• Decision Date: 09 January 1912
• Docket Number: No. 95,95
• Citation: 32 S.Ct. 147,222 U.S. 334,56 L.Ed. 225
• Parties: R. J. BERRYMAN, Assessor; P. B. Hawley, Treasurer; W. J. Honeycutt, Auditor, et al., Appts., v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WHITMAN COLLEGE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

222 U.S. 334

32 S.Ct. 147

56 L.Ed. 225

R. J. BERRYMAN, Assessor; P. B. Hawley, Treasurer; W. J. Honeycutt, Auditor, et al., Appts.,

v BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WHITMAN COLLEGE.

No. 95.

Argued December 13, 1911.

Decided January 9, 1912.

Messrs. Everett J. Smith and Lester S. Wilson for appellants.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 335-338 intentionally omitted] Messrs. W. T. Dovell, Thomas Burke, and George Turner for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 338-342 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

On December 20, 1859, the legislature of Washington enacted a private law creating Whitman Seminary in Walla Walla county. By the act eight persons were incorporated under the name of the 'President and Trustees of Whitman Seminary.' The corporation was given perpetual existence and the incorporators authority to govern its affairs and to name their successors. The right to acquire and hold real estate was conferred, with the duty of devoting all the revenue to the support of an institution of learning, for the education of both sexes, which it was the purpose of the act to have established. The capital stock of the corporation was limited by the 6th section to $150,000. The act was accepted by the incorporators, and the institution for which it provided, the Whitman Seminary, was established in Walla Walla county. After a lapse of twenty-three years, the Seminary, in November, 1883, owned considerable personal and real property, devoted to the purposes of the corporation. In that year and month a special act was passed by the territorial legislature, entitled, 'An Act to Amend . . .' the act previously referred to. By this act, in the form of an amendment, the original incorporators were incorporated under the name of 'The Board of Trustees of Whitman College.' The act, section by section, amended the prior act. It gave the trustees power to perpetuate themselves and govern the new corporation, which was endowed with perpetual existence. The act, in many respects, enlarged the powers of the old corporation, struck out the 6th section, which contained the limitation of $150,000 of capital stock, and substituted for it the following: 'That the property of said Board of Trustees of Whitman College, including all income and proceeds, shall be used exclusively for the purpose of education, and in consideration of said use the said property, income, and proceeds shall not be subject to taxation.' The organic law of the territory, the act of Congress of March, 1867 (14 Stat. at L. 426, chap. 150), when this last act was passed, contained the following, now embodied in Rev. Stat. § 1889:

'That the legislative assemblies of the several territories of the United States shall not, after the passage of this act, grant private charters or especial privileges, but they may, by general incorporation acts, permit persons to associate themselves together as bodies corporate, for mining, manufacturing, and other industrial pursuits, or the construction or operation of railroads, wagon roads, irrigating ditches, and the colonization and improvement of lands in connection therewith, or for colleges, seminaries, churches, libraries, or any benevolent, charitable, or scientific association.'

Whitman College took over the property and effects of the Seminary. It increased its holdings of real and personal property, the avails of which were all devoted to the purposes of the institution. It was in existence when the territorial government passed out of being and the state of Washington was incorporated into the Union, and it is conceded by both sides in argument that no question which requires to be decided on this record calls for a consideration of any of the events or legislation which were a part of the transition from the territorial form of government to statehood. Up to 1905 it is inferable that no attempt was made to tax the property of Whitman College. In 1905, however, the assessing officers of the county of Walla Walla, who are the appellants upon this record, acting under the authority of the state taxing law, and upon the assumption that the property of the corporation was taxable, assessed its real property in the county of Walla Walla not actually and physically used for the purposes of the institution, and taxes were levied on such assessment, amounting to $946.32. The corporation thereupon filed in the circuit court of the United States the bill which is now before us. The bill contained no averment of diversity of citizenship, and exclusively invoked the authority of the court below upon the ground of the existence of a perpetual contract right of exemption from taxation created by the 6th section of the act of 1883, and the impairment of such contract by the assessment and levy of the taxes in question.

The bill, as amended by stipulation, averred the existence of the contract, the compliance by the corporation with all its obligations, the acquisition of large amounts of property through contributions and otherwise dedicated to the purposes of the corporation, the detriment and loss which would be occasioned as the result of levying taxes upon the property of the corporation by the county of Walla Walla or otherwise by state authority, the destruction of the right of perpetual exemption, not only as to the present, but as to all future acquired property of the corporation, which would result, and a consequent loss or damage vastly in excess of $2,000. In substance, the prayer was for a decree recognizing and enforcing the contract of perpetual exemption from taxation as to all the property of the corporation, present or prospective, and for an injunction adequate to secure these results.

The defendants by demurrers challenged the jurisdiction of the court and the equity of the bill. After hearing, the court held that it had jurisdiction, that the contract declared on had been established, and was protected from impairment by the contract clause of the Constitution, and therefore the assessment and levy of the taxes complained of were void. As defendants elected not to further plead, a final decree was entered, granting the relief prayed in the bill. The appeal now before us was then taken.

The taxing officers of the county of Walla Walla, the defendants below and appellants here, insist that we may not review the merits, because the court below had no jurisdiction over the cause, and therefore we must reverse and remand, with directions to dismiss the bill. This rests upon the proposition that, as the tax was below the jurisdictional amount, it afforded no basis for jurisdiction. The sum of the levied tax, it is urged, could not be increased by considering the power of taxation which might be exerted in other taxing districts, or by adding taxes which, if the right to tax existed, might be assessed and levied in future years. This, it is insisted, is not only sustained by reason, but is sanctioned by prior decisions of this court.

Both assumptions are wrong. The first, because it misconceives the character of the relief prayed, which was the enforcement of a contract exemption during the perpetual life of the corporation, and as broad as its power to acquire and hold property.

Considering the averments of the bill, the amount and value of the property of the corporation, and the nature and character of the contract of exemption asserted, it cannot be doubted that the value of the thing in issue, the contract right, exceeded in value the jurisdictional amount. Granting that the uncertainties of the future and the shifting ownership of property forbids, in a contest merely over the validity of a tax, adding the sum of future taxes which might be levied to the amount of taxes actually levied for the purpose of jurisdiction, that principle can have no application to a case where the issue presented is not only the right to collect, but also to levy all future taxes. The admission that the right to tax may be abridged by contract, and that such contract may not be impaired without violating the Constitution, carries with it of necessity the power and the duty to protect the contract right, and in the nature of things causes jurisdiction for such purpose to be measured by the value of the right to be protected, and not by the value of some mere isolated element of that right. And the doctrine just cited has been applied in two cases so obviously in principle like this as practically to foreclose the question. The first is New Orleans v. Citizens' Bank, 167 U. S. 371, 42 L. ed. 202, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 905. In that case a corporation of the state of Louisiana filed its bill in the circuit court to enjoin the collection of all taxes of a particular character against it, on the ground of a contract of exemption protected from impairment by the contract clause of the Constitution. As a means of establishing the existence of the contract exemption relied upon, certain judgments recognizing the existence of the contract exemption and enjoining particular taxes were pleaded as conclusively, by the principle of the thing adjudged, establishing the existence of the alleged contract. It was contended, among other things, that as the controversies in the cases in which judgments had been rendered concerned taxes for only particular years, the thing adjudged arising from the judgments was necessarily restricted to the taxes of the years in controversy, and did not extend to future taxes, as they were not and could not have been embraced in the litigation. Deciding that...