Illinois Central Railroad Company v. Robert Greene No 642 Robert Greene v. Illinois Central Railroad Company No 643 Illinois Central Railroad Company v. Robert Greene No 644 Robert Greene v. Illionis Central Railroad Company No 645
| Citation | 37 S.Ct. 697,61 L.Ed. 1309,244 U.S. 555 |
| Decision Date | 11 June 1917 |
| Docket Number | 644 and 645,643,Nos. 642,s. 642 |
| Parties | ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Appt., v. ROBERT L. GREENE, Auditor, Sherman Goodpaster, Treasurer, James P. Lewis, Secretary of State, Constituting the Board of Valuation and Assessment for the State of Kentucky, et al. NO 642. ROBERT L. GREENE, Auditor, et al., Constituting the Board of Valuation and Assessment for the State of Kentucky, et al., Appts., v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY. NO 643. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Appt., v. ROBERT L. GREENE, Auditor, Sherman Goodpaster, Treasurer, James P. Lewis, Secretary of State, Constituting the Board of Valuation and Assessment for the State of Kentucky, et al. NO 644. ROBERT L. GREENE, Auditor, et al., Constituting the Board of Valuation and Assessment for the State of Kentucky, et al., Appts., v. ILLIONIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY. NO 645 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
[Syllabus from pages 555-556 intentionally omitted] Mr. Marvel Mills Logan, Attorney General of Kentucky, and Messrs. John L. Rich, Charles Carroll, and Charles H. Morris for Robert L. Greene et al.
Messrs. Blewett Lee, Edmund F. Trabue, Robert V. Fletcher, John C. Doolan, and Atilla Cox, Jr., for the Illinois Central Railroad Company.
These are appeals and cross appeals from two final decrees of the district court enjoining (upon certain conditions) the enforcement of franchise tax assessments for the respective years 1912 and 1913, made against the Illinois Central Railroad Company (plaintiff below in each case) by Henry M. Bosworth and others, constituting the Board of Valuation and Assessment of the State of Kentucky, who were among the original defendants, and to whose offices the cross appellants Robert L. Greene and others succeeded pending the suits, and were thereupon brought in as parties defendant. Plaintiff being an Illinois corporation, the Federal jurisdiction was invoked upon the ground of diversity of citizenship, and also of alleged infringement of plaintiff's rights under the due process and equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment; the assessments being attacked as having been made by the Board in a manner not in accordance with the state law, as including in the valuation property not within the state, contrary to the due process clause, and as being based upon a discriminatory rule of valuation as compared with other property in the state, and thus amounting to a denial of the equal protection of the laws. The equity jurisdiction was invoked upon the usual grounds. The pleadings are involved, and no attempt will be made to summarize them. In the case relating to the 1912 assessment, they differ somewhat from those in the case relating to the assessment for the following year; but the two cases were consolidated for the purposes of final hearing. They resulted in decrees granting relief to the plaintiff to the extent of equalization with the basis of assessment customarily adopted by assessing officers with respect to other property in the state, and denying relief upon the other grounds of complaint. Plaintiff appealed to this court in both cases upon the ground that it was entitled to more ample relief; defendants took cross appeals upon the ground that no relief ought to have been granted.
The cases were heard here together with several cognate cases, this day decided, viz.: Nos. 617 and 618, Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co. 244 U. S. 499, 61 L. ed. ——, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 673, and Nos. 778 and 779, Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Greene, 244 U. S. 522, 61 L. ed. ——, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 683.
The salient facts of the present cases are as follows: During the two years pertinent to the controversy, plaintiff operated a system of railroads extending throughout the state of Kentucky and ten other states, having, according to the averments contained in the bills of complaint and the proofs upon which the cases were heard, a total mileage owned, operated, leased, or controlled amounting to 4,550.54, of which 563.79 miles, or 12.3 per cent, were in Kentucky. For the year 1912, the Board of Valuation and Assessment fixed plaintiff's capital stock valuation for the state of Kentucky at $27,124,240, and deducted from this the tangible property assessment made by the Railroad Commission, $12,377,383, leaving the franchise assessment $14,746,857. The district court granted a restraining order, followed by a preliminary injunction, conditioned that plaintiff should pay taxes, state and local, on a valuation of $6,618,585 (209 Fed. 465), and eventually made a final decree enjoining the enforcement of the assessment, conditioned upon plaintiff's paying taxes upon an additional valuation of $1,347,212, or $7,965,797 in all.
For the year 1913, the capital stock value fixed for Kentucky was $23,679,180, the assessed value of tangible property $12,478,903, which, being deducted, left $11,200,277 as the franchise valuation. The court granted a restraining order upon payment of taxes on an assessment of $6,000,000, followed this with a temporary injunction upon the same terms, and made a final decree granting a permanent injunction upon condition of the payment of taxes upon $2,161,067 in addition to the $6,000,000 upon which taxes had been paid under the order for preliminary injunction.
With respect to three of the questions raised by defendants herein: (a) that the suits are not maintainable because in effect suits against the state; (b) that plaintiff has an adequate remedy at law under § 162, Kentucky Statutes; and (c) that plaintiff is not entitled to relief by way of equalization because of the undervaluation of property in general by the local assessors; these cases, like the Louisville & Nashville R. Co. Cases, are controlled by the decision in Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co. supra. Upon the question of the sufficiency of the proofs to warrant the conclusion of the district court as to the general, systematic, and notorious undervaluation of property in Kentucky by the assessing officers for purposes of taxation, and as to the ratio of such undervaluation, the present cases are indistinguishable from the Louisville & Nashville R. Co. Cases, supra, and are controlled by our decision therein. Upon the point that the jurisdiction of the court extends to enjoining the collection of illegal taxes, whether assessed for state or for local pur- poses, the present cases are controlled by the decision in the Louisville & Nashville R. Co. cases.
This disposes of all assignments of error filed by the cross appellants (defendants below).
In these cases, as in those last mentioned, it is earnestly insisted by plaintiff that the district court erred in holding that the Kentucky statutes, properly construed, require...
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