Camden Fire Ins. Ass'n v. Haston

• Decision Date: 22 June 1926
• Parties: CAMDEN FIRE INS. ASS'N ET AL. v. HASTON, SECRETARY OF STATE, ET AL.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

284 S.W. 905

153 Tenn. 675

CAMDEN FIRE INS. ASS'N ET AL. v. HASTON, SECRETARY OF STATE, ET AL.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 22, 1926

Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; John R. Aust Chancellor.

Suit by the Camden Fire Insurance Company and others against E. N Haston, Secretary of State, and others. From a decree dismissing the bill complainants appeal. Affirmed.

O. B Ryon, of Chicago, Ill., and Roberts & Roberts, of Nashville, for appellants.

Louis Leftwich and Frank M. Thompson, both of Nashville, for appellees.

MCKINNEY J.

Complainants, foreign fire insurance companies, instituted this suit to recover certain sums paid to the Secretary of State, under protest, in compliance with chapter 434, Acts of 1907, which is as follows:

"An act to require corporations to file certain information with the Secretary of State, and to provide for the payment of an annual fee therewith to the Secretary of State.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Tennessee, that each and every corporation heretofore or hereafter chartered by the state of Tennessee or organized under the laws, and each and every foreign corporation qualified to do and transact its business in the state of Tennessee in compliance with its laws requiring foreign corporations to file its charter with the Secretary of State shall, on or before the first day of July in each and every year, commencing with the year 1907, prepare and file in the office of the Secretary of State a written statement signed by its president or vice president and attested by its secretary and sworn to by either its secretary or president, which shall contain the following information--to wit: The name and style of the corporation and its principal office or place of business in the state of Tennessee, if it be a Tennessee corporation; and if it be a foreign corporation, its principal office and place of business in the state of its creation and also in the state of Tennessee; the amount of its capital stock authorized by its charter and the amount of capital stock issued and outstanding; the names of its principal officers--viz., its president, vice president or vice presidents, secretary, and treasurer, and a complete list of its board of directors; the nature and character of the business in which it is engaged. That every such corporation shall, at the time of filing said statement with the Secretary of State, pay to the said Secretary of State a sum of money as follows: Every corporation with a capital stock authorized by its charter of less than $100,000 and more than $50,000, $20; every corporation with a capital stock authorized by its charter of less than $50,000 and more than $25,000, $10; every corporation with a capital stock authorized by its charter of less than $25,000, $5; every corporation with a capital stock authorized by its charter of more than $100,000 and not more than $250,000, $30; every corporation with a capital stock authorized by its charter of not less than $250,000 and not more than $500,000, $50; every corporation having a capital stock authorized by its charter of not less than $500,000 or more than $1,000,000, $100; and every corporation having a capital stock authorized by its charter of $1,000,000 and over, $150. That every company or corporation failing or refusing to prepare and file said statement and pay said money as hereinbefore provided shall be subject to a penalty of $500, which may be recovered in a suit brought in the name of the state of Tennessee against said company; and that the Secretary of State shall, on or before the first day of September in each and every year, prepare a list of the corporations in default, and shall turn over the same to the Attorney General of the state, who shall cause suits to be instituted for the recovery of said amounts by the district attorney general of the district in which said corporations in default have their principal offices or places of business.

Sec. 2. Be is further enacted, that this act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it."

It will be observed that the act does not provide that the fees exacted are for the purpose of administering the act or defraying any specific costs or expenses connected therewith, thereby constituting it exclusively a regulatory act.

It is alleged in the bill that the act produces $160,000 annually, while the expense of enforcing it does not exceed $5,000 a year.

The bill charged that the act is unconstitutional for various reasons pointed out therein.

The defendants, by demurrer, insisted that the act was valid.

The chancellor sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill, and the complainants have appealed to this court and assigned errors too numerous to be incorporated in this opinion.

Within a few months after the passage of the act of 1907, various bills were filed questioning the validity of the act upon practically every ground now invoked, and this court dismissed the bills, in oral opinions, thereby sustaining the constitutionality of the act. Since that time, about 17 years prior to the filing of the present bill, the corporations affected have acquiesced in those decisions, have filed the reports and paid the fees required by the act, and, according to the allegations of the bill, a substantial part of the state's revenue, with which it discharges its annual budget, has been derived from this source.

In State ex rel. v. Baseball Club, 127 Tenn. 303, 154 S.W. 1154, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 1243, it was said:

"Decisions long acquiesced in, which constitute rules of property or trade, or upon which important rights are based, should not be disturbed, even though erroneous as original holdings. State v. Whitworth, 8 Lea, 594; Sherfy v. Argenbright, 1 Heisk. 128, 2 Am. Rep. 690; Jourolmon v. Massengill, 86 Tenn. 81, 5 S.W. 719; Case Co. v. Joyce, 89 Tenn. 337, 16 S.W. 147, 12 L. R. A. 519; Wilkins v. Chicago, etc., R. Co., 110 Tenn. 442, 75 S.W. 1026.

Decisions construing the Constitution or acts of the Legislature should be followed, in the absence of cogent reasons to the contrary, inasmuch as it is of the utmost importance that our organic and statute law be of certain meaning and fixed interpretation. Judges Cases, 102 Tenn. 509, 53 S.W. 134; Steedman v. Dobbins, 93 Tenn. 397, 24 S.W. 1133; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (7th Ed.) 88; 11 Cyc. 748.

A construction of a statute or the Constitution, not emanating from judicial decisions, but adopted by the legislative or executive departments of the state, and long accepted by the various agencies of government and the people, will usually be accepted as correct by the courts. Richardson v. Young, 122 Tenn. 471, 125 S.W. 664; Kelly v. State, 123 Tenn. 516, 132 S.W. 193; Brown v. Sullivan County, 126 Tenn. 689, 151 S.W. 50; Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 4 L.Ed. 97; Stuart v. Laird, 1 Cranch, 299, 2 L.Ed. 115; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 5 L.Ed. 257; Bank of U.S. v. Halstead, 10 Wheat. 51, 6 L.Ed. 264; Minor v. Hoppersett, 21 Wall. 162, 22 L.Ed. 627; Cooley's Const. Lim. (7th Ed.) 103, 104."

In that case the court quoted from the opinion in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 15 S.Ct. 673, 39 L.Ed. 759, as follows:

"Doubtless the doctrine of stare decisis is a salutary one and to be adhered to on all proper occasions; but it only arises in respect of decisions directly upon the points in issue."

In view of the fact that oral opinions were delivered in the former causes, and that some questions are raised here which probably were not made before, we have considered this cause upon its merits, and have concluded that the former decisions of this court, sustaining the act, were correct.

As to the nature of the áct, it is contended by the complainants that it is solely a revenue measure, while the state insists that it both a police regulation and a revenue statute, and cite Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U.S. 183, 20 S.Ct. 633, 44 L.Ed. 725, in which it was said:

"It is not a valid objection to the ordinance that it partakes of both the character of a regulation and also that of an excise or privilege tax. The business is more easily subjected to the operation of the power to regulate, where a license is imposed for following the same, while the revenue obtained on account of the license is none the less legal because the ordinance which authorized it fulfills the two functions, one a regulating and the other a revenue function. So long as the state law authorizes both regulation and taxation, it is enough, and the enforcement of the ordinance violates no provision of the federal Constitution."

We concur in this view. Whether the Legislature intended, primarily, to regulate these corporations, or to acquire revenue, is immaterial. The question is, Does the act violate either the federal or the state Constitutions?

It is said that the act violates the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, but it is well settled that insurance is not commerce, and is not subject to interstate commerce regulations. State v. Insurance Co., 92 Tenn. 420, 21 S.W. 893; Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 168, 19 L.Ed. 357; Ducat v. Chicago, 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 410, 19 L.Ed. 972; Insurance Co. v. Morse, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 456, 22 L.Ed. 369; Manufacturing Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U.S. 737, 5 S.Ct. 739, 28 L.Ed. 1140; Mining, etc., Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U.S. 181, 8 S.Ct. 737, 31 L.Ed. 650; Hooper v. California, 155 U.S. 648, 15 S.Ct. 207, 39 L.Ed. 297.

Neither does the act contravene the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."

The "equal protection of the law" provision only requires the same means and...