Truman Hawley v. City of Malden

Decision Date05 January 1914
Docket NumberNo. 18,18
Citation58 L.Ed. 477,232 U.S. 1,34 S.Ct. 201
PartiesTRUMAN R. HAWLEY, Plff. in Err., v. CITY OF MALDEN
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Messrs. Courtenay Crocker and Nathan Matthews for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 2-6 intentionally omitted] Mr. H. L. Boutwell for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 6-8 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

The plaintiff in error, a resident of the city of Malden, brought this action to recover the amount of certain taxes which he had paid under protest. The taxes were assessed upon shares which he held in foreign corporations most of which did no business and had no property within the state of Massachusetts. It was alleged that the levy and collection were in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. Demurrer to the declaration was sustained by the superior court, and the case was reported to the supreme judicial court of the commonwealth, which directed judgment for the defendant. 204 Mass. 138, 90 N. E. 415.

It is conceded that the objection that the statute authorizing the tax (Rev. Laws [Mass.] chap. 12. §§ 2, 4, 23) denies to the plaintiff in error the equal protection of the laws is not well taken; but it is contended that the shares were not within the jurisdiction of the state, and hence that the enforcement of the tax constitutes an unconstitutional deprivation of property.

The power thus challenged, as the state court points out, has been continuously exercised by the state of Massachusetts for more than three quarters of a century. Substantially the same statutory provision, derived from an earlier enactment, is found in Rev. Stat. (Mass.) chap. 7, § 4, and its constitutionality has been sustained by repeated state decisions. Great Barrington v. Berkshire County, 16 Pick. 572; Dwight v. Boston, 12 Allen, 316, 90 Am. Dec. 149; Frothingham v. Shaw, 175 Mass. 59, 61, 78 Am. St. Rep. 475, 55 N. E. 623. And other states through a long period of years have asserted a similar authority. Union Bank v. State, 9 Yerg. 490; McKeen v. Northampton County, 49 Pa. 519, 88 Am. Dec. 515; Whitesell v. Northampton County, 49 Pa. 526; State, Fish, Prosecutor, v. Branin, 23 N. J. L. 484; State, Vail, Prosecutor, v. Bentley, 23 N. J. L. 532; Worthington v. Sebastian, 25 Ohio St. 1; Bradley v. Bauder, 36 Ohio St. 28, 38 Am. Rep. 547; Dyer v. Osborne, 11 R. I. 321, 23 Am. Rep. 460; Seward v. Rising Sun, 79 Ind. 351; Ogden v. St. Joseph, 90 Mo. 522, 3 S. W. 25; Worth v. Ashe County, 90 N. C. 409; Jennings v. Com. 98 Va. 80, 34 S. E. 981; Appeal Tax Ct. v. Gill, 50 Md. 377; State v. Nelson, 107 Minn. 319, 119 N. W. 1058; Bacon v. State Tax Comrs. 126 Mich. 22, 60 L.R.A. 321, 86 Am. St. Rep. 524, 85 N. W. 307; State v. Kidd, 125 Ala. 413, 28 So. 480; Com. v. Lovell, 125 Ky. 491, 101 S. W. 970; Stanford v. San Francisco, 131 Cal. 34, 63 Pac. 145; Judy v. Beckwith, 137 Iowa, 24, 15 L.R.A.(N.S.) 142, 114 N. W. 565, 15 Ann. Cas. 890; Greenleaf v. Morgan County, 184 Ill. 226, 75 Am. St. Rep. 168, 56 N. E. 295. It is well settled that the property of the shareholders in their respective shares is distinct from the corporate property, franchises and capital stock, and may be separately taxed (Van Allen v. Assessors [Churchill v. Utica] 3 Wall. 573, 584, 18 L. ed. 229, 234; Farrington v. Tennessee, 95 U. S. 679, 687, 24 L. ed. 558, 560; Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U. S. 129, 136, 137, 29 L. ed. 830, 832, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 645; New Orleans v. Houston, 119 U. S. 265, 277, 30 L. ed. 411, 415, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 198); and the rulings in the state cases which we have cited proceed upon the view that shares are personal property, and, having no situs elsewhere, are taxable by the state of the owner's domicil whether the corporations be foreign or do mestic.

It is said that the question of the constitutional validity of such taxation has not hitherto been raised definitely in this court and has not been directly passed upon. There is no doubt, however, that the existence of the state authority has invariably been assumed. In Sturges v. Carter, 114 U. S. 511, 29 L. ed. 240, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1014, the action was brought to recover taxes imposed under the law of Ohio upon shares of stock owned by a resident of Ohio in the Western Union Telegraph Company, a New York corporation. The right of the state to tax the shares was not questioned, and as it was found that a statutory exemption which was relied upon in defense did not apply, the recovery of the tax was sustained. Again, in Kidd v. Alabama, 188 U. S. 730, 47 L. ed. 669, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 401, it was not disputed that the state was entitled to tax shares owned by its citizens in foreign corporations. The argument was that the statute in that case created an unconstitutional discrimination, and this point being found to be without merit, the tax was upheld. In Wright v. Louisville & N. R. Co. 195 U. S. 219, 49 L. ed. 167, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 16, the question was whether shares of stock in a railroad corporation of another state, which were owned by a Georgia corporation, were taxable under the Constitution and laws of Georgia. The state's power to tax the shares was not denied, so far as the Constitution of the United States was concerned, but it was contended that this power had not been exercised. The Constitution of Georgia provided that all taxation should 'be uniform upon the same class of subjects, and ad valorem on all property subject to be taxed within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax,' and should be levied and collected under general laws. The general tax act had authorized a tax on all of the taxable property of the state. It was clear that the state had directed shares in foreign corporations to be taxed, provided these could be considered to be 'property subject to be taxed within the territorial limits' of the taxing authority. And such shares, when held by a resident, being deemed to fall within this description, it was decided that the state officer was entitled to collect the tax. 'Putting the case at the lowest,' said the court, 'the above-cited section of the Constitution was adopted in the interest of the state as a tax collector, and authorizes, if it does not require, a tax on the stock.' So, also, in Darnell v. Indiana, 226 U. S. 390, 57 L. ed. 267, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 120, the authority of the state to tax the shares of its citizens in foreign corporations was recognized, the tax being sustained against objections urged under the commerce clause, art. I., § 8, and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

To support the contention that this familiar state action, hitherto assumed to be valid, is fundamentally violative of the Federal Constitution, the plaintiff in error invokes the doctrine that a state has no right to tax the property of its citizens when it is permanently located in another jurisdiction. Louisville & J. Ferry Co. v. Kentucky, 188 U. S. 385. 47 L. ed. 513, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 463; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 198 U. S. 341, 49 L. ed. 1077, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 669; Union Refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U. S. 194, 50 L. ed. 150, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 36, 4 Ann. Cas. 493. But these decisions did not involve the question of the taxation of intangible personal property (Union refrigerator Transit Co. v. Kentucky, supra, p. 211);...

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