Dyer v. City of Melrose

• Decision Date: 01 January 1908
• Citation: 83 N.E. 6,197 Mass. 99
• Parties: DYER v. CITY OF MELROSE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

197 Mass. 99

83 N.E. 6

DYER v. CITY OF MELROSE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

January 1, 1908

COUNSEL

Chester

M. Pratt and Wm. Harold Hitchcock, for appellant.

Claude L. Allen, for appellee.

OPINION

KNOWLTON C.J.

We do not find it necessary to consider whether the plaintiff has chosen a proper remedy, for, if we assume this in his favor we are of opinion that he cannot recover. The property said to have been taxed illegally was money on deposit in two national banks. The ground on which the plaintiff claims for it an exemption from taxation is that it was derived from his salary as a rear admiral in the navy of the United States. He was a resident of the city of Melrose, and was properly taxable there on all his personal property that was not exempt from taxation. He relies upon the decision in Dobbins v. Commissioners of Erie County, 16 Pet. (U S.) 435, 10 L.Ed. 1022, in which it was held that a state cannot lay a tax upon an office under the government of the United States, nor upon any means or instruments used solely for the maintenance of the federal government or the performance of any of its functions. The principle on which the case was decided has been reaffirmed repeatedly and held to apply to taxation of state officers by the federal government. Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. (U. S.) 113 20 L.Ed. 122. It precludes taxation by either government of the salary or emoluments of an officer of the other; but it has never been held, under a general provision for the taxation of the property of individual owners, to prevent the taxation of money or other property merely because it was derived from an official salary that had been received and held for use by the officer. The reason of the decision does not go far enough to warrant following the money after it has become a part of the general estate of the owner, and has lost its distinctive character as a part of the governmental machinery, which it has up to the time when it passes into the general control of the officer. In Railroad Company v. Peniston, 18 Wall. (U. S.) 5, 21 L.Ed. 787, the doctrine is stated as follows: 'It is, therefore manifest that exemption of federal agencise from state taxation is dependent, not upon the nature of the agencies, or upon the mode of their constitution, or upon the fact that they are agents; but upon the effect of the taxation, that is, upon the question whether the taxation...