Vicksburg, S. & P. Ry. Co. v. Nattin
| Decision Date | 25 May 1932 |
| Docket Number | No. 6465.,6465. |
| Citation | 58 F.2d 979 |
| Parties | VICKSBURG, S. & P. RY. CO. v. NATTIN, Tax Collector, et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
E. H. Randolph, A. B. Freyer, and Allen Rendall, all of Shreveport, La., and H. D. Minor, of Memphis, Tenn., for appellant.
Robt. F. Kennon, of Minden, La., for appellees.
See also 54 F. (2d) 712.
Before BRYAN, SIBLEY, and HUTCHESON, Circuit Judges.
Appellant, a railroad company owning property in a regularly constituted drainage district, brought its bill to enjoin the collection of taxes amounting to $406.80, levied and assessed by the district for the year 1930, to pay interest on and provide a sinking fund for interest bearing bonds of the district in the amount of $47,000 due twenty-five years from date, theretofore duly and regularly issued.
The bill did not attack the validity of either the district or the bond issue. It sought, by allegations that the property of the railroad was not at all benefited and that its property was in a discriminatory way assessed at a greatly higher rate than other property in the district, to bring itself within the principle of Kansas City So. R. Co. v. Road Imp. District, 256 U. S. 658, 41 S. Ct. 604, 65 L. Ed. 1151, and Thomas v. K. C. So. R. Co., 261 U. S. 481, 43 S. Ct. 440, 67 L. Ed. 758, in which assessments made by local improvement districts were held invalid.
To meet the jurisdictional requirement of amount, the bill alleged that, in order to pay the interest and retire the bonds, plaintiff would be each year assessed such an amount as that it would in the aggregate, through the twenty-five years, be compelled to pay on account of the bonds a sum in excess of $5,000. The District Judge, conceiving that the amount in controversy was only $406.80, dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction.
The District Judge was right. That a controversy concern an amount sufficient to give the federal court jurisdiction of a cause is a real, a substantial requirement. As regards suits to enjoin the collection of taxes levied to pay bonds, it is uniformly held that the amount in controversy is not the amount of the bonds, but the amount of the taxes which the litigant is being pressed to pay. Colvin v. Jacksonville, 158 U. S. 456, 15 S. Ct. 866, 39 L. Ed. 1053. So precise and exacting is this requirement that, where the same tax presses equally upon a number of individuals, the amounts due by each cannot be aggregated to make up the jurisdictional amount. Ogden City v. Armstrong, 168 U. S. 233, 18 S. Ct. 98, 42 L. Ed....
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May v. Supreme Court of State of Colo.
...failure to pay the fee. See also Hennefore v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 303 U.S. 17, 58 S.Ct. 415, 82 L.Ed. 619; Vicksburg, S. & P. Ry. Co. v. Nattin, 58 F.2d 979 (5th Cir.). Plaintiffs assert on appeal that in cases where an injunction is sought the amount in controversy is measured by the......
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Klempner v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co.
...threshold, the valuation Northwestern here asserts is too speculative to support federal jurisdiction. See Vicksburg, S & P Ry. Co. v. Nattin, 58 F.2d 979, 980 (5th Cir.1932) ("Jurisdiction is based on actuality, not prophecy. . . .") (quoted in Morrison, 228 F.3d at 1270).9 the same result......
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...and immeasurable" to be included in determining the amount in controversy. Ericsson, 120 F.3d at 221-22; cf. Vicksburg, S. & P. Ry. Co.v. Nattin, 58 F.2d 979, 980 (5th Cir. 1932) ("Jurisdiction is based on actuality, not prophecy, the pressure of a grievance immediately felt and presently m......
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Lutz v. Protective Life Ins. Co., 03-81181-CIV.
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