United Air Lines, Inc. v. Mahin

• Decision Date: 01 April 1971
• Docket Number: No. 42042,42042
• Parties: UNITED AIR LINES, INC., Appellant, v. George E. MAHIN et al., Appellees.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 585

273 N.E.2d 585

49 Ill.2d 45

UNITED AIR LINES, INC., Appellant, v. George E. MAHIN et al., Appellees.

No. 42042.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

April 1, 1971.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Oct. 4, 1971.

Robert L. Stern, Mark H. Berens, William Bruce Hoff, Jr., and William E. Doyle, Chicago (Mayer, Brown & Platt, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Springfield (Francis T. Crowe and Calvin C. Campbell, Asst. Attys. Gen., of counsel), for appellees.

Gardner, Carton, Douglas, Chilgren & Waud, Chicago (James A. Velde, Joseph P. Carr and Gordon Lang, Jr., Chicago, of counsel), for amici curiae American Airlines, Inc., Braniff Airways, Incorporated, and Northwest Airlines, Inc.

PER CURIAM:

United Air Lines, Inc., brought this action in the circuit court of Cook County to enjoin the Department of Revenue from assessing and collecting Illinois use tax on aviation fuel loaded at Chicago airports on planes of United which are about to embark upon, or to continue upon, interstate and foreign flights. Named as defendants were appropriate State officials and United's supplier, the latter having the burden of collecting the tax. Judgment was for defendants and United has appealed, being joined by American Airlines, Braniff Airways and Northwest Airlines, to whom we have granted leave to file briefs as Amici curiae.

The Use Tax Act, which went into effect in August, 1955, (Laws of 1955, p. 2027,) imposes a tax on the privilege of using in this State tangible personal property that was purchased elsewhere, and was designed to complement the Retailers' Occupation Tax Act, (Laws of 1933, p. 924,) under which a tax is imposed upon persons engaged in the business of selling tangible personal property to purchasers for use and consumption. It has been found to be constitutional (Turner v. Wright, 11 Ill.2d 161, 142 N.E.2d 84), and it is settled that the Use Tax Act was enacted for the valid purposes of preventing evasion of retailers' occupation tax by persons making out-of-state purchases of tangible personal property for use in Illinois, and of protecting Illinois merchants against diversion of business. At issue here, a matter of first impression, is the construction and application of that portion of section 3 of the Act which, from its inception in 1955, has provided for an exemption from the tax in these terms: 'To prevent actual or likely multistate taxation, the tax herein imposed shall not apply to the use of tangible personal property in this State under the following circumstances: * * * (d) the temporary storage, in this State, of tangible personal property which is acquired outside this State and which, subsequent to being brought into this State and stored here temporarily, is used solely outside this State * * *.' Ill.Rev.Stat.1955, ch. 120, par. 439.3.

Conforming to a practice which has been essentially the same since May, 1953, United purchases and takes delivery of the aviation fuel in question from Shell Oil Company at facilities of the latter located in Hammond and East Chicago, Indiana. Thereafter, United transports it by common carrier pipeline and trucks to its underground storage facilities at O'Hare and Midway airports in Illinois. Fuel transported by pipeline is first placed in storage tanks at Des Plaines, Illinois, and from there, as needed, is piped to the underground facilities. It remains in the latter only so long as necessary for certain purification processes, and from there is pumped into the tanks of United's aircraft, almost always immediately prior to departure time. United pays the tax on fuel used in intrastate flights, training flights and the like, and the dispute here relates only to fuel loaded on planes departing on interstate or foreign flights, United having 234 such flights each day. All of the aircraft involved must fly over specific routes prescribed by Federal aviation authorities, and thus the amounts of fuel consumed from the time the engines of the planes are started at the Illinois airports until they pass over Illinois borders can be determined with great accuracy.

From the record it appears that there were, and are, numerous common carriers, such as railroads, airlines and trucklines, which, like United, engaged in the practice of purchasing their fuel outside Illinois and storing it here prior to their use of it to propel equipment setting forth on interstate journeys. Immediately after the enactment of the Use Tax Act in 1955, the Department of Revenue uniformly and consistently interpreted and applied the Act to these carriers in such a manner that the incidence and measure of the tax was taken to be only that portion of the fuel consumed in or over Illinois. This construction has been commonly referred to as the 'burn off' rule and, during the period of its application, provoked no amendatory legislation. Eight years later, on June 3, 1963, the Department abruptly changed its interpretation and issued a bulletin which announced:

'The Department's position is that temporary storage ends and a taxable use occurs when the fuel is taken out of storage and placed into the tanks of the airplane, railroad engine or truck. At this point the fuel is converted into its ultimate use, and, therefore, a taxable use occurs in Illinois.

'If a common carrier does not have separate facilities for transferring the fuel out of the State of Illinois but always puts it into the tank of the airplane, railroad engine or truck for final consumption, then they no longer will be able to give a certificate to the vendor stating that the fuel is purchased within the temporary storage provisions of the Use Tax Act, but must pay the Use Tax to their supplier.' In short, under this construction all fuel loaded on United's planes at the two airports was deemed to measure the tax, and the exemption in question was construed as having application only if the temporarily stored fuel is transported out of the state for use elsewhere by some means other than placing it in equipment which would consume it.

The present action, which for reasons not apparent in the record has been slow to progress, was soon initiated by United to enjoin the collection of the tax. In substance, it was the position of United that the new construction was erroneous and unreasonable, that the application of the Act as proposed contravenes the Illinois and Federal constitutions, and that it has no use tax liability incident to the fuel in controversy, or, alternatively, that it is liable only for tax measured by the amount of fuel burned in and over Illinois. The trial court rejected these contentions and United has renewed them here.

To support its contention that the 'burn off' construction indulged in by the Department for 8 years should continue to prevail, United relies principally upon the rule of statutory construction that courts, in determining the proper construction of an ambiguous statute, will consider and give weight to the contemporaneous construction placed upon a statute by the governmental officers or departments charged with the duty of administering it, and will usually adopt such contemporaneous construction where it is a reasonably permissible construction, has the implied assent of the legislature, and has been consistent, uniform and long continued. (See: People ex rel. Spiegel v. Lyons, 1 Ill.2d 409, 115 N.E.2d 895; Illinois Bell Telephone Co. v. Illinois Commerce Comm., 414 Ill. 275, 111 N.E.2d 329; United States v. Leslie Salt Co., 350 U.S. 383, 76 S.Ct. 416, 100 L.Ed. 441; Cory Corp. v. Sauber, 363 U.S. 709, 80 S.Ct. 1331, 4 L.Ed.2d 1508.) For reasons later to appear, we do not believe the statute is ambiguous; but even if ambiguity be assumed, the rule of construction relied upon cannot be employed in this case. As the rule itself recognizes, executive or administrative construction is not binding on the courts if it is erroneous (P. H. Mallen Co. v. Department of Finance, 372 Ill. 598, 25 N.E.2d 43; Superior Coal Co. v. Department of Revenue, 4 Ill.2d 459, 123 N.E.2d 713), and in our opinion the 'burn off' construction is constitutionally impermissible.

That construction of the statute, to repeat, measured the tax by the amounts of fuel consumed by United's planes in and over Illinois as they proceeded on their interstate journeys. And while it is difficult to see how such a construction could be derived from statutory language which grants exemption to temporarily stored property that is used 'solely outside of this State,' it is sufficient to say that the construction runs afoul of the commerce clause of the United States constitution. Decisive and binding authority for this conclusion is found in Helson v. Kentucky (1929), 279 U.S. 245, 49 S.Ct. 279, 73 L.Ed. 683, determined under facts which, in effect at least, cannot be distinguished from those of the present case. Involved there was an Ohio river ferry operated exclusively in interstate commerce between Kentucky and Illinois. Gasoline used to power the ferry was purchased and delivered in Illinois, situs of the residence and business of the operator, and it was stipulated that '75 per cent. of this gasoline was actually consumed within the limits of Kentucky, But all of it in the making of interstate journeys.' (279 U.S. at 248, 49 S.Ct. at 280; emphasis added.) Issue arose when Kentucky sought to impose a tax on the gasoline consumed within its limits under a statute which, Inter alia, authorized a tax on gasoline purchased 'without the state' but used 'within the state.' Overruling Kentucky courts, the Supreme Court found under the circumstances that the gasoline was an instrumentality of interstate commerce, thus causing the tax to be 'exacted as the price of the privilege of using an instrumentality of interstate commerce,' (279 U.S. at 252, 49 S.Ct. at 281,) and struck it down as being an invasion of the exclusive power of Congress to regulate such commerce.

Our own statu...