Armour Packing Company v. Lacy
| Decision Date | 08 January 1906 |
| Docket Number | No. 53,53 |
| Citation | 50 L.Ed. 451,26 S.Ct. 232,200 U.S. 226 |
| Parties | ARMOUR PACKING COMPANY, Plff. in Err. , v. B. R. LACY, Treasurer of the State of North Carolina |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Statement by Mr. Chief Justice Fuller:
This was 'a controversy without action,' submitted in accordance with the laws of North Carolina in that behalf, in the superior court of Buncombe county, that state, in which B. R. Lacey, treasurer of North Carolina, was plaintiff, and Armour Packing Company was defendant.
By the revenue law of North Carolina of March 9, 1903 (N. C. Public Laws, p. 323, chap. 247), it is provided in schedule B:
Section 107 of chapter 251 of Public Laws of 1903 (p. 407) reads:
Sec. 107. State treasurer to sue for taxes. Upon failure to pay to the state treasurer within thirty days after the same shall have become due, any tax which by law is made payable direct to the state treasurer, it shall be his duty to institute an action to enforce the same in the county of Wake, or in the county in which the property taxed is located.'
The 3d section of article 5 of the Constitution of North carolina provides:
'Laws shall be passed taxing, by a uniform rule, all moneys, credits, investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise; . . . The general assembly may also tax trades, professions, franchises, and incomes.'
It appeared from the facts agreed, as in substance stated by the supreme court of North Carolina, that the Armour Packing Company was incorporated in New Jersey, but has its principal office and place of business in Kansas, that business being 'a meat-packing house business,' and that it has property in North Carolina; that 'a meat-packing house is a place where the business of slaughtering animals, and dressing and preparing the products of their carcasses for food and other purposes, is carried on; the products thus prepared consist of fresh and cured meats, such as hams, dry salt sides, bacon, lard, beef extracts, glue, blood, tankage, etc.' That the Armour Packing Company 'does not, anywhere within the state of North Carolina, slaughter, dress, cure, pack, or manufacture any products hereinbefore set forth, of any animal, for food, or for commercial use, or for other purposes;' but that after the animals are slaughtered, dressed, and prepared for food or other commercial purposes in Kansas, such product is shipped in bulk to Wilmington, Greensboro, Asheville, Charlotte, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the company has cold storage plants and warehouses, and sold from such storage plants, some of such product to parties in North Carolina and some to parties outside of that state; that part of said products shipped to the cold storage warehouse in Asheville, Buncombe county, remain there until disposed of in due course of trade on orders taken and received after said products have been stored or placed in said warehouse or cold storage plants. At each of said five points in North Carolina, where the company maintains a warehouse and cold storage plants, it has one or more employees, i. e., bookkeepers, stenographers, shipping clerks, salesmen, drivers, laborers who box said meats and who wrap and crate goods for delivery as they are sold. There are, in Wilmington and other cities of said state, commission merchants, brokers, and butchers who sell by wholesale and retail in competition with the Armour Packing Company, who are not engaged in a meat-packing house business in North Carolina or elsewhere, fresh, cured, and salt meats and other products that have been manufactured from the carcasses of slaughtered animals for food and commercial purposes, and, under the laws of North Carolina, said commission merchants, brokers, and butchers are not amenable to the tax levied under § 56 of said revenue act of 1903. At all points in North Carolina where the Armour Packing Company is engaged in business, and at various other places in said state, there are engaged in business, as the Armour Packing Company is engaged, packing houses which pack articles of food other than meat, and offer them for sale in said state, such as peas, beans, tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, fruit, fish, oysters, etc. The products of said packing houses are articles of food and commerce, and are sold in the state of North Carolina through agents, brokers, wholesale and retail merchants, just as the products packed by the Armour Packing Company are sold.
The ruling of the court was invoked on certain points stated, all of which were adjudged adversely to defendant, and judgment was rendered against it for the tax and costs, which was affirmed by the supreme court of North Carolina. 134 N. C. 567, 47 S. E. 53.
Mr. Thomas B. Felder, Jr., for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 229-231 intentionally omitted] Mr. Robert D. Gilmer for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 231-233 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court:
The supreme court of North Carolina stated the contentions of the Armour Packing Company thus:
'1. That it is not engaged in doing a packing-house business in this state; . . . (2) that the tax is an interference with interstate commerce; (3) that the tax contravenes § 3 of article 5 of the Constitution of North Carolina, which requires taxation 'by uniform rule;' (4) that the tax is forbidden by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; (5) that singling out 'meat-packing houses' for taxation is arbitrary or class legislation, and prohibited by both state and Federal Constitutions.'
The court said:
'If the business of the defendant was solely that of shipping food products into this state, consigned directly to purchasers, on orders previously obtained, it is clear that this would be interstate commerce, and a tax laid by the state upon such business would be illegal. But the defendant does a large business within the state,—the selling of products already stored here on orders received after these products are thus stored. The tax is laid upon every meat-packing house 'doing busines in this state.' The evident meaning of the legislature is to tax the agency 'doing business' within this state, and not to lay any tax upon the interstate commerce of shipping products into the state, to be directly or indirectly delivered to purchasers whose orders were obtained before the goods were shipped.'
And, after recapitulating from the agreed statement the particulars of the business transacted in North Carolina, the court applied the rule that the legislature could prescribe such conditions as it saw fit on the transaction of business by a foreign corporation within the state, and held that the license tax was the condition upon which defendant was permitted to do the business so described; and cited Osborne v. Florida, 164 U. S. 650, 41 L. ed. 586, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 214, as decisive on the question that the license tax applied only to business within the state, and not to that which was interstate in its character; and added: 'The defendant doing business in this state, and the license tax being exacted only by virtue of its intrastate business, the first two grounds of objection are overruled.'
As was said in Osborne v. Florida, this construction of a state statute by its highest court is not open to review; and, accepting it, the case plainly comes within Kehrer v. Stewart...
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