Champlain Realty Co v. Town of Brattleboro
Decision Date | 11 December 1922 |
Docket Number | No. 128,128 |
Citation | 43 S.Ct. 146,260 U.S. 366,67 L.Ed. 309 |
Parties | CHAMPLAIN REALTY CO. v. TOWN OF BRATTLEBORO |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was a suit in assumpsit by the petitioner, the Champlain Realty Company, to recover $484.50 and interest from the town of Brattleboro, Vt., being the amount of taxes levied on logs of pulpwood of the petitioner floating in the West river in that town on April 1, 1919, and paid by the petitioner under protest as illegally collected, because the logs were then in transit in interstate commerce to Hinsdale, N. H. The suit was brought in the county court, and, the defendant having failed to set the cause for jury trial within the time fixed by statute, it was heard by the court, which made findings of fact that under the state practice are conclusive on review by the Supreme Court. The county court gave judgment for the Realty Company. The town took the case on exceptions to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court (95 Vt. 216, 113 Atl. 806) summarized the findings of fact by the county court as follows:
On these findings the Supreme Court held that the interstate transit did not begin until the wood left the Brattleboro boom. Everything before that was merely preparations. The floating of the logs from the West river towns to Hinsdale was interrupted, and the interruption, although only long enough to secure safety in the drive, was for the benefit of the owner, and in law postponed the initial step in the interstate transit until the wood was released from the Brattleboro boom. The court, therefore, held the wood taxable at Brattleboro and reversed the county court.
Messrs. Wm. C. Cannon, of New York City, and M. P. Maurice, of Brattleboro, Vt., for petitioner.
Messrs. Arthur P. Carpenter and Ernest W. Gibson, both of Brattleboro, Vt., for respondent.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 369-371 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief JUSTICE TAFT, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Vermont Supreme Court depended for its conclusions chiefly upon Coe v. Errol, 116 U. S. 517, 6 Sup. Ct. 475, 29 L. Ed. 715, which is the leading case on this subject. There logs had been cut on Wentworth's Location in New Hampshire during the winter and had been drawn down to Errol in the same state, and placed in Clear stream and on the banks thereof on lands of John Akers and part on land of George C. Demerritt in said town, to be from thence floated down the Androscoggin river to the state of Maine. 116 U. S. 518, 6 Sup. Ct. 475, 29 L. Ed. 715.
It is not clear how long they had lain there, but certainly for part of one winter season. This court, speaking by Mr. Justice Bradley, sought to fix the time when such logs, in the course of their being taken from New Hampshire to Maine, ceased to be part of the mass of property of New Hampshire and passed into the immunity from state taxation as things actually in interstate commerce. The learned Justice states the rule to be:
'That such goods do not cease to be part of the general mass of property in the state, subject, as such, to its jurisdiction, and to taxation in the usual way, until they have been shipped, or entered with a common carrier for transportation to another state, or have been started upon such transportation in a continuous route or journey.' 116 U. S. 527, 6 Sup. Ct. 478, 29 L. Ed. 715.
Again, on page 528 of 116 U. S., on page 479 of 6 Sup. Ct. (29 L. Ed. 715), Justice Bradley said:
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