Interstate Oil Pipe Line Co. v. Guilbeau

• Decision Date: 20 March 1950
• Docket Number: No. 39226,39226
• Citation: 217 La. 160,46 So.2d 113
• Parties: INTERSTATE OIL PIPE LINE CO. v. GUILBEAU, Sheriff.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 113

46 So.2d 113

217 La. 160

INTERSTATE OIL PIPE LINE CO. v. GUILBEAU, Sheriff.

No. 39226.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

March 20, 1950.

Rehearing Denied April 24, 1950.

Arthur M. Curtis, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-appellant.

Wesley H. Clanton, Eunice, Walter M. Hunter, Alexandria, for defendant-appellee.

LE BLANC, Justice.

This is a suit to recover the sum of $2,064.69, the amount of certain taxes that were paid under protest to Clayton J. Guilbeau, Sheriff and Ex-Officio Tax Collector of the Parish of St. Landry, in his capacity as such, for the Red River, Atchafalaya and Bayou Boeuf Levee District, for the year 1944, on property belonging to plaintiff, Interstate Oil Pipe Line Company, which was assessed for that year against its predecessor, Standard Oil Company of Louisiana.

The property involved is situated in that part of St. Landry Parish lying west of the Atchafalaya River Main Levee and east of the west guide levee of the West Atchafalaya Floodway as now established extending from the Avoyelles Parish Line on the north to Bayou Courtableau on the south. It was formerly owned by the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana and was acquired by plaintiff in an act of exchange executed on December 19, 1944, effective as of December 31, 1944. On December 28, 1944, Standard Oil Company of Louisiana paid all taxes assessed against it in the Parish of St. Landry in which was included the tax under contest. In compliance with the provisions of Act No. 330 of 1938, it advised the Tax Collector, by letter, that the amount of tax was being paid under protest and gave notice as required of its intention to file suit for the recovery of the amount so paid within thirty days. As assignee, under the act of exchange of December 28, 1944, of all the properties, assets and rights of the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana, plaintiff instituted this suit in accordance with the notice given, on January 22, 1945.

The suit is based on certain language found in Act. No. 260 of 1938 which redefines the limits of the Red River Atchafalaya and Bayou Boeuf Levee District which was created by Act No. 46 of 1892. The pertinent language is as follows: 'Provided, however, that there shall be excluded from the limits of said levee district the following: All that portion of St. Landry Parish lying west of the Atchafalaya River main levee and east of the west guide levee of the West Atchafalaya Floodway as now established extending from the Avoyelles Parish line on the north to Bayou Courtableau on the south, with the exception of rights of way and other property belonging to railroads, pipe-lines, common carriers or other public utilities.'

On the face of the proviso it would seem the intention of the Legislature was to exclude from the entire limits of the Levee District, all property within the area covered by the Atchafalaya Floodway with the exception of rights of way and other property owned by all railroads, pipe lines, and common carriers or other public utilities and situated and located within the excluded area and this, plaintiff contends, constitutes a discrimination in that its properties were assessed for taxation under the Act while other properties in the same geographical area were specifically excluded from the taxing district and were not subject to taxation by the Levee District. Consequently, plaintiff alleges that the foregoing quoted provision of Act No. 260 of 1938 is unconstitutional as being in contravention of Article 10, Section 1 of the Constitution of the State which provides that '* * *; all taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects throughout the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, * * *' or as being in violation of the 'due process' clause of Article 1, Section 2 of the State Constitution and the 'due process' and 'equal protection' clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.

The prayer of the petition is that the proviso in Act No. 260 of 1938 under attack be declared unconstitutional, unll and void and of no force and effect and that the defendant Tax Collector be ordered to return to plaintiff the sum of $2,064.69 being the taxes levied on the property involved, together with interest at the rate of two per cent per annum from December 28, 1944, until paid.

The defendant filed various pleas and exceptions which were either overruled or referred to the merits. Before he filed his answer, the Red River, Atchafalaya and Bayou Boeuf Levee Board intervened to join the defendant in the pleas of estoppel and prescription which he had urged. Under reservation of those pleas and the other exceptions, defendant filed his answer in which the question of constitutionality raised was put at issue. Plaintiff then filed its answer to the petition of intervention of the Levee Board in which it placed at issue the pleas of estoppel and of prescription and the case was then tried and submitted on the merits on an agreed stipulation of facts and on the testimony of two witnesses, G. M. McCuin, for the plaintiff and Harry Henderson, Jr., for the defendant and intervenor.

The district judge handed down a lengthy written opinion in which he concluded that the provision of Act No. 260 of 1938, the constitutionality of which was attacked, was constitutional on its face and he accordingly rendered judgment rejecting the plaintiff's demand and dismissing its suit at its costs. The appeal is from that judgment.

The important, and indeed the controlling, question in the case is the one of constitutionality, for, if the provision of the law that is contested is constitutional, the assessment of the properties for taxes and the collection of those taxes was a valid exercise of his powers by the tax collector and it becomes unnecessary to consider and pass on the secondary issues of estoppel and of prescription that are presented.

It does not seem to be disputed that the contested tax being a property or an advalorem tax, the constitutional requirement of uniformity as provided for in Section 1 of Article 10 of the State Constitution applies. That is the law as appears from the decisions of this Court and particularly from the case of State ex rel. Porterie et al. v. H. L. Hunt, Inc., 182 La. 1073, 162 So. 777, 781, 9 A.L.R. 9, wherein it is stated: 'The requirement of section 1 of article 10 of the State Constitution that all taxes shall be uniform applies only to property taxes and not to license taxes levied by the Legislature under the authority of section 8 of article 10 of the Constitution. State v. American Ry. Express Co., 159 La. 1001, 106 So. 544.'

In its original petition plaintiff complained that it owned certain property in that area of the levee district which had been excluded for taxing purposes, which had been subjected to taxation by the said district, 'whereas other property of the same kind and class now owned by [it] or other public utilities and situated within the same geographical limits, is not included within the limits of the said Levee District and is not subjected to taxation by the said District.' In compliance with an order granted on an exception of vagueness, the petition was amended in respect to this allegation by additionally pleading that the discrimination complained of was not in regard to 'the kind of character of such properties, or the uses to which they are put, but in the nature of the business in which petitioner is engaged, as opposed to the nature of the business in which other property owners are engaged.'

Stated in a simpler form, the gravamen of the complaint is that all property of others, of whatever kind, is excepted by the proviso in Act No. 260 of 1938 whereas all property of whatever kind belonging to the plaintiff, which is a common carrier, is included for taxation and therefore the tax is assessed against it not according to the kind of property or the use to which it may be put, but simply because plaintiff is a common carrier.

Assuming that to be so, that would not ipso facto make the proviso in that statute unconstitutional. It is an elementary rule of construction in constitutional law that all statutory enactments are presumed to be constitutional. Whilst this presumption is not conclusive it nevertheless...