Keystone Watch Case Co. v. Com.

• Decision Date: 24 May 1912
• Citation: 212 Mass. 50,98 N.E. 1063
• Parties: KEYSTONE WATCH CASE CO. v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

212 Mass. 50

98 N.E. 1063

KEYSTONE WATCH CASE CO. v. COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 24, 1912

COUNSEL

Malcolm Donald and Phillips

Ketchum, of Boston, for petitioner.

J. M Swift, Atty. Gen., and Andrew Marshall, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

RUGG C.J.

The questions argued at large relate to the constitutionality of the provisions of St. 1909, c. 490, pt. 3, § 56, establishing an annual excise to be paid by foreign business corporations as a condition of doing business other than interstate commerce within the commonwealth. It has been held in S S. White Dental Manufacturing Co. v. Commonwealth, 98 N.E. 1056, Baltic Mining Co. v. Com., 207 Mass. 381 93 N.E. 831, and Atty. General v. Electric Storage Battery Co., 188 Mass. 239, 74 N.E. 467, after extended examination of authorities, that the statute as construed by these decisions does not contravene any clause of the Constitution of the United States or of this commonwealth. It is not necessary to restate the principles or the reasoning of such recent decisions. They are adopted as the basis of this judgment.

In brief, the statute has been held not to apply to foreign corporations carrying on general interstate commerce exclusively, or engaged in conducting some kind of interstate commerce for hire as its principal function with which intrastate business is so closely connected that it cannot be given up without serious detriment to the interstate commerce, like telephone or telegraph business, or to the interstate portion of the business conducted by a corporation doing both interstate and intrastate commerce, and not to impose a property tax or any burden upon the transaction of interstate commerce. But it does impose an excise as a condition precedent to the doing of business other than interstate commerce within the commonwealth by foreign corporations, whether such business is exclusively domestic or conducted in connection with interstate commerce. The statute exacts only a license fee upon foreign corporations for the privilege of doing domestic business within the commonwealth.

It remains to examine the special facts of this case in order to determine whether it comes within the terms of the statute thus interpreted, or whether there are such vital differences between this and the cases just cited as to call for the application of other rules of law. The petitioner is a Pennsylvania corporation engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling watches, watch cases, watch movements and other similar articles. Its principal place of business is in Philadelphia, where are located its executive offices. It maintains sales offices in New York, Ohio, Illinois and California. It owns and operates extensive manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania and at three different places in New Jersey. At Waltham in this commonwealth it also maintains a large factory with fixtures, machinery and other appliances fully equipped for the manufacture of watches, where...