Dunbar-Stanley Studios, Inc. v. State, DUNBAR-STANLEY
| Citation | 282 Ala. 221,210 So.2d 696 |
| Decision Date | 13 May 1968 |
| Docket Number | 3 Div. 278,DUNBAR-STANLEY |
| Parties | STUDIOS, INC. v. STATE of Alabama. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Alabama |
Thornton & McGowin, Mobile, for appellant. MacDonald Gallion, Atty. Gen., Willard W. Livingston and Wm. H. Burton, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.
This is an appeal from a final decree of the circuit court of Montgomery County, in equity, that upheld a final assessment of license taxes made by the State Department of Revenue against the appellant imposed by the last line of Section 569, Title 51, Code of Alabama, 1940, reading:
'* * * For each transient or traveling photographer, five dollars per week.'
No procedural requisites are here questioned or involved.
Appellant, as we view the pleading and testimony, was a non-resident corporation with its principal place of business in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was so located during the period for which the assessment was made. It sent a photographer, in its employment, to Alabama, to perform the skilled service of taking children's photographs. The exposed film was sent to the North Carolina studio to be developed and converted into finished photographs, which were sent back to Alabama for delivery to appellant's customers. No photographer engaged in the service was a resident of Alabama.
It seems that the services relative to certain features of the operation were performed through a contractual arrangement with the parent office of J. C. Penney Company which operates stores in several counties in Alabama. The photographer, under the direction of appellant, visited several of the Penney stores in Alabama during the taxable period here under consideration and performed the photographic service, that is, exposing the films for the purpose of making pictures of the subject children.
It further appears that the Penney stores caused certain advertising to be done which resulted in the recruitment of customers for the proposed photographic service. Penney also took the orders which were transmitted to appellant in Charlotte for acceptance. When the orders were accepted, the finished product was sent to the Penney store for delivery to the customer and collection of charges therefor. Penney received a percentage of the money so collected and accounted to appellant for the balance. Penney also made accounting reports to appellant and to its home office.
We might add that appellant prepared cards notifying its customers of the proposed visit of its photographer. These cards were all stamped and mailed by Penney. Penney also did a certain amount of newspaper advertising relative to the photographic service.
When the photographer arrived at the Penney store, he took the pictures, returned the exposed film to the principal office in North Carolina, where the film was developed, and the picture finished and returned to the Penney store for the delivery to the customer and collection of charges, as above noted. Appellant maintained no office, developing laboratory, or permanent agent in Alabama. The service of exposing the film on the subject child was performed in Alabama through the photographer, with equipment temporarily located in Alabama. With the exception of the laboratory work, preparing announcement cards, exposing the films, all the work incident to the photographic service was performed by Penney employees. We do not find anywhere in the record that the photographer took orders for the pictures. This was done, as we have stated, by Penney employees and mailed to appellant for acceptance.
The contention of appellant is that it was operating through the channels of interstate commerce, and was exempt under Article 1, Section 8, Constitution of the United States, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce among the several states. Appellant insists that the taking of the pictures, or exposing the films, was just a link in a chain of events that constituted an interstate transaction, and that it took all the activities enumerated above to constitute engaging in business as a photographer; hence, the license had to apply to all of it, or there would be no activity to which the license would apply. It insists that this activity, consisting of soliciting orders for out of state activity ending in delivery into the State, is a...
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Studios, Inc v. Alabama
...interstate commerce, in conflict with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Alabama sustained the tax. 282 Ala. 221, 210 So.2d 696 (1968). We Appellant is a photography firm specializing in selling photographs of children. It is organized as a North Carolina corporat......
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Dunbar-Stanley Studios, Inc. v. City of Mobile
...Some of the above details may not appear in the complaint at issue, but the modus operandi is set forth in Dunbar-Stanley Studios, Inc. v. State of Alabama, Ala., 210 So.2d 696, recently decided by this court. We think the above statement of facts fairly presents appellant's operations in M......