Darnell Son Company v. City of Memphis

• Decision Date: 20 January 1908
• Docket Number: No. 75,75
• Citation: 208 U.S. 113,52 L.Ed. 413,28 S.Ct. 247
• Parties: I. M. DARNELL & SON COMPANY and H. D. Minor, Plffs. in Err., v. CITY OF MEMPHIS and Thomas J. Taylor, Trustee
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

208 U.S. 113

28 S.Ct. 247

52 L.Ed. 413

I. M. DARNELL & SON COMPANY and H. D. Minor, Plffs. in Err.,

v CITY OF MEMPHIS and Thomas J. Taylor, Trustee.

No. 75.

Argued December 16, 1907.

Decided January 20, 1908.

Messrs. Dent Minor, C. H. Trimble, C. W. Metcalf, H. B. Anderson, and Metcalf, Minor, & Metcalf for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 113 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Marion G. Evans, William H. Carroll, and Thomas H. Jackson for defendants in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 114 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Article 2 of the Tennessee Constitution of 1870 provides:

'Sec. 28. All property—real, personal, or mixed—shall be taxed, but the legislature may except such as may be held by the state, by counties, cities, or towns, and used exclusively for public or corporation purposes, and such as may be held and used for purposes purely religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational, and shall except one thousand dollars' worth of personal property in the hands of each taxpayer, and the direct product of the soil in the hands of the producer and his immediate vendee.

* * * * *

'Sec. 30. No article manufactured of the produce of this state shall be taxed otherwise than to pay inspection fees.'

By chapter 258 of the acts of Tennessee for 1903 it was, among other things, provided:

'Sec. 1. That all property—real, personal, and mixed—shall be assessed for taxation for state, county, and municipal purposes, except such as is declared exempt in the next section.

'Sec. 2. That the property herein enumerated, and none other, shall be exempt from taxation. . . . Sub-sec. 5. All growing crops of whatever nature and kind, the direct product of the soil of this state in the hands of the producer and his immediate vendee, and manufactured articles from the produce of the state in the hands of the manufacturer.'

In the recent case of Benedict Bros. v. Davidson County, 110 Tenn. 183, 191, 67 S. W. 806, 808, the supreme court of Tennessee held as follows:

'We are of opinion that, under the facts in this record, the logs upon the yard, in the hands of the mill-operating manufacturer, and his property, and lumber, rough and smooth, cut by him from such logs, grown on Tennessee soil, are articles manufactured from the produce of the state, and exempt, under the provisions of § 30, article 2, of the Constitution; and the demurrer was therefore properly overruled, and complainants, under the allegations of their bill, are entitled to recover back the taxes paid the state, and to perpetually enjoin the taxes assessed by the county and city.'

For more than three years prior to January 30, 1905, the I. M. Darnell Son & Company, a corporation of Tennessee, was domiciled in Memphis, in that state, and there owned and operated a lumber mill. Shortly prior to the date just named, pursuant to chapter 366 of the acts of Tennessee for 1903 (Tenn. Acts 1903, pp. 1097-1101), the value of the personalty of the Darnell Company was assessed for taxation by the city of Memphis at $44,000. Of this amount $19,325 was the value of logs cut from the soil of states other than Tennessee, which the company had brought into Tennessee from other states, and were held by the company as the immediate purchaser or vendee, awaiting manufacture into lumber, or consisted of lumber already manufactured by the company from logs which had been acquired and brought into the state from other states, as above mentioned, and all of which lumber was lying in the mill yard of the company, awaiting sale. The Darnell Company protested against this assessment, asserting that it was not liable to be taxed on said sum of $19,325, the value of the property owned by it as the immediate purchaser of logs brought from other states, or lumber, the product thereof. The ground of the protest was that the property represented by the valuation in question could not be taxed without discriminating against it, as like property, the product of the soil of Tennessee, was exempt from taxation under the Constitution and laws of that state, and therefore to tax its said property would violate the commerce clause (§ 8, article 1) of the Constitution, and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The protest was overruled. Thereupon threat of distress and sale was made by the collecting officer, unless the taxes on all the property were paid. On January 30, 1905, the Darnell Company filed in the chancery court of Shelby county its bill against the city of Memphis and the collecting officer to enjoin the enforcement of the tax as to the logs brought in from other states, and the lumber, the product thereof, as above stated, on the ground of the repugnancy of the tax to the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment, because of the foregoing alleged discrimination. At the same time it paid into court the amount of the taxes which were not in dispute. The sufficiency of the bill was challenged by demurrer, asserting in substance that the assessment complained of did not constitute an unlawful discrimination, and was not repugnant either to the Constitution of Tennessee or of the United States. Subsequently, by leave of court, an additional demurrer was filed, which, in effect, asserted that, as the plaintiff company was a citizen of Tennessee, it could not be heard to complain of the tax, and that the enforcement of the same was not repugnant to the 14th Amendment, and that, as the property sought to be taxed was not in transit or awaiting shipment out of the state, but, on the contrary, had reached its destination and was in the hands of the consignee and owner, who was a citizen of Tennessee, and had become a part of the general property of the state, the assessing of the same for taxation was not an interference with commerce between the states. The chancellor overruled the demurrer and decided the case in favor of the Darnell Company, because the court, as stated in the decree, was of the opinion 'that the tax in controversy is in contravention of the rights of complainant as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and particularly the interstate commerce clause thereof, and the 14th Amendment thereof, as set out in the complainant's original bill.'

On appeal the supreme court of Tennessee, in considering the demurrer, held the disputed tax not to be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and reversed the decree of the chancery court. 116 Tenn. 442, 95 S. W. 816. The court entered a decree against the Darnell Company and H. D. Minor, the surety on the appeal bond, for the amount of the disputed tax, penalty, and interest. The company and Minor prosecute this writ of error.

As all the assignments of error relied on for reversal are but the counterpart of the reasons which led the court below to the conclusion that the tax was not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, we come at once to consider the affirmative conceptions on that subject expressed in the opinion of the court below, as affording the most direct method of disposing of the issues for decision. Those conceptions are of a twofold character, one relating to the commerce clause and the other to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court, in its opinion, conceded that the property embraced in the assessment complained of was purchased by the complainant in and brought from other states, or consisted of lumber produced from logs so brought into Tennessee, and that property of like character would not be subject to taxation under the state law if it had been produced from the soil of Tennessee. But the levy of the tax was held not to be a direct burden upon interstate commerce, and hence not repugnant to the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States, as a result of the interpretation which the court affixed to previous decisions of this court concerning the operation of the commerce clause of the Constitution and the right of a state to impose a tax, even if discriminatory in character, upon property coming from other states, after such property had come at rest within a state and been commingled with the mass of property therein. The court, after stating that the provision of the state Constitution which authorized the exemption of property produced from the soil of Tennessee had its inception in the 'first Constitution of this state, adopted on February 6, 1796, and hence formed a part of the fundamental law of the state when it was admitted by the act of Congress, approved June 1, 1796 [1 Stat. at L. 491, chap. 47],' proceeded to state its reasons for holding that the discriminatory tax was not repugnant to the commerce clause, as follows:

'1. Upon the averments of the bill it is manifest that, although the property sought to be taxed was purchased by complainant in and brought from another state, nevertheless it had become devested of any connection with commerce between the states and was at rest, commingled with and merged into the general mass of property of this state, awaiting sale to purchasers.

'Although the origin of property may be in another state, nevertheless, when it is brought into this state and here merged into the mass of general property, it at once becomes subject to the tax laws of this state. American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 110 Tenn. 524-546, 100 Am. St. Rep. 814, 75 S. W. 1037.

'This principle was recognized and the holding of this court affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States (192 U. S. 500, 48 L. ed. 538, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 365), and is in harmony with other adjudications of that court (Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 19 L. ed. 382; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622, 29 L. ed. 257, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091; May v. New Orleans, 178 U. S. 496, 44 L. ed. 1165, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 976; Emert v. Missouri, 156 U. S. 296, 39 L. ed. 430, 5 Inters. Com. Rep. 68, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 367).

'In Kehrer v. Stewart, 197 U. S. 60-65...