New York, Philadelphia Norfolk Telegraph Co v. Dolan

• Citation: 68 L.Ed. 916,265 U.S. 96,44 S.Ct. 450
• Decision Date: 12 May 1924
• Docket Number: No. 275,275
• Parties: NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA & NORFOLK TELEGRAPH CO. v. DOLAN, Collector of Taxes
• Court: United States Supreme Court

265 U.S. 96

44 S.Ct. 450

68 L.Ed. 916

NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA & NORFOLK TELEGRAPH CO.

v DOLAN, Collector of Taxes.

No. 275.

Argued May 2, 1924.

Decided May 12, 1924.

Messrs. Overton Harris, of New York City, and H. G. Eastburn, of Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Caleb S. Layton and Reuben Satterthwaite, Jr., both of Wilmington, Del., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit brought by the collector of taxes, the defendant in error, to recover taxes due to the City of Wilmington for the years 1913 to and through 1918. The defendant Telegraph Company, the plaintiff in error, demurred to the declaration on the ground that the statute imposing the taxes deprived it of its property without due process of law and denied to it the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The demurrer was overruled and judgment was rendered for the plaintiff by the Superior Court and the judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. 121 Atl. 18.

The statute in question is an Act of April 7, 1913 (27 Del. Laws, c. 205, § 1) amending section 80 of the charter of the City of Wilmington. It authorizes an assessment of telegraph lines in the city at not less than six thousand and six hundred dollars and not more than seven thousand three hundred dollars for each mile of the streets used. The rate of taxation on these sums is the same as that for other taxes and neither that nor the modes of determining the amount between the limits fixed is complained of. But it is argued that this is a property tax upon the company's poles and lines, and that it fixes an arbitrary valuation upon them without giving the Company a chance to be heard at any time before the tax is levied. It is argued further that the Company is denied the equal protection of the laws when it and a few others are singled out and other Delaware property is valued on the actual facts.

The State Court met this argument by holding that the tax was a license or privilege tax and therefore not open to the objections urged. The Company answers that this is characterization of the statute not construction, and that upon the issue of constitutionality this Court must determine the nature of the tax for itself and is not bound by the name given to it below. St. Louis Cotton Compress Co. v. Arkansas, 260 U. S. 346, 348, 43 Sup. Ct. 125, 67 L. Ed. 297. The proposition is true, but when the State Court after a candid discussion that manifests no disposition to escape constitutional...