American Mfg. Co. v. City of St. Louis

Decision Date01 December 1916
Docket NumberNo. 18185.,18185.
PartiesAMERICAN MFG. CO. v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS.
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Wilson A. Taylor, Judge.

Action by the American Manufacturing Company against the City of St. Louis. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Judgment reversed, and cause remanded, with direction to enter judgment for plaintiff.

Charles H. Daues and Truman P. Young, both of St. Louis, for appellant. Barclay & Wallace, of St. Louis, for respondent.

BROWN, C.

This is a suit by the plaintiff, a Massachusetts corporation engaged in the manufacture of bagging in the city of St Louis in which material called jute butts, imported from foreign countries, was used. By the laws of the state and ordinances of the city it was forbidden to prosecute such business without a license therefor, to obtain which it was required to pay an ad valorem tax upon the greatest amount of raw material on hand during the time between the first Monday of March and the first Monday of June of each year. Among the material on hand in 1911 were jute butts in the original packages in which they were imported, awaiting manufacture. The city imposed a tax on this material and made its payments a condition of the issuance of the license. Upon the refusal of the plaintiff to pay it, the license collector, charged by law with the duty of collecting this tax and issuing the license, refused to issue the license and threatened to prosecute plaintiff for misdemeanor, as provided by law and the ordinances of the city, for each day it should transact its business without the license. The plaintiff, under pressure of this threat, paid the tax demanded under protest and brought this suit to recover it back, recovering the judgment appealed from, amounting to $287.51, the amount of the tax so paid with interest at 6 per cent. from the date of payment to the rendition of the judgment.

It is admitted in the argument that the levy of the tax on this imported material was in violation of section 8 of article 1 of the Constitution of the United States vesting Congress with the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and therefore void. The only questions remaining in the case for our consideration are: (1) Whether this tax was paid under such circumstances of duress or compulsion as entitles the plaintiff to recover it back from the city; and (2) whether, if plaintiff is entitled to recover it, it should have interest on the amount before judgment.

The appellant says that, under the facts shown, the payment of the illegal tax was voluntarily made, and that the respondent is not therefore entitled to recover it back. It says that while the doctrine of duress, which formerly required an actual threat of immediate seizure of person or goods, has been broadened somewhat, it does not yet extend to the facts of this case. In that connection it cites Claflin v. McDonough, 33 Mo. 412, 84 Am. Dec. 54, an action against the collector of the city and county revenue of St. Louis county to recover money unlawfully exacted and paid as a tax for the purpose of obtaining a merchant's license. The petition alleged "that plaintiffs, refusing to pay such tax, would have been liable to and were threatened with prosecution by indictment therefor, entailing heavy expense and loss," and that therefore the plaintiff paid said tax under protest. Upon demurrer the trial court held that the facts so cited did not show such compulsion as to authorize its recovery on that ground. In sustaining the judgment, this court said (33 Mo. pp. 415, 416, 84 Am. Dec. 54):

"It is not averred that the defendant had any authority to seize the persons or goods of plaintiffs, or threatened or attempted to do either; but it is averred that they were threatened with an indictment, and they paid the amount to avoid the expense and annoyance of a prosecution. In our opinion, this does not make it a payment under duress. To constitute duress there must be a seizure of the property or arrest of the person, or a threat or attempt to do one or the other, or facts must be stated which tend to show or which warrant the conclusion that such an arrest or seizure could be avoided only by the payment of the tax demanded."

While the facts pleaded in that case fall far short of constituting such threatened injuries as are shown here, it is contended that, because immediate arrest or seizure of property are not among those injuries, the necessary duress did not exist.

It is true that the plaintiff was a corporation and there was no danger that its body would be seized and cast into prison, but its potential existence depended on its ability to transact the business for which it was incorporated. That this constituted property is evident. That its destruction would work an injury as substantial as the seizure of a bale or two of its manufactured product is also evident. The law under which the license collector was proceeding provided that it should "be his duty to prevent any persons carrying on any business, object or calling for which a license or license tax is required, without having a license or license receipt for that purpose," and that he should "report to the police court of such city all violations of law and ordinances relating to licenses and license taxes." R. S. 1909, § 9840. This of itself constituted a threat to put the respondent out of business should be refuse to make the payment which the license collector demanded as a final and absolute condition to the issue of the license. For the purpose of enabling him to perform this duty, penalties of a criminal nature were imposed providing for prosecutions from day to day while the manufacturer should attempt to prosecute its business without a license. The refusal to issue the license in itself constituted an assertion by the license collector that he would perform the duties enjoined by the statutes and ordinances to prevent the respondent from continuing his business, and to this was added the specific threat of daily prosecution. In relation to this same question presented in a very similar case, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Railway v. O'Connor, 223 U. S. 280, 286, 32 Sup. Ct. 216, 217 [56 L. Ed. 436, Ann. Cas. 1913C, 1050], said:

"But even if the state is driven to an action, if at the same time the citizen is put at a serious disadvantage in the assertion of his legal, in this case of his...

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