McCormack Bros. Co. v. City of Tacoma, Wash.

• Citation: 201 F. 374
• Decision Date: 04 January 1913
• Docket Number: 1,226.
• Parties: McCORMACK BROS. CO. v. CITY OF TACOMA, WASH., et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington

201 F. 374

McCORMACK BROS. CO. v. CITY OF TACOMA, WASH., et al.

No. 1,226.

United States District Court, W.D. Washington, Southern Division.

January 4, 1913

Tucker & Hyland, of Seattle, Wash., for plaintiff.

T. L Stiles and Frank M. Carnahan, both of Tacoma, Wash., for defendants.

CUSHMAN District Judge.

This suit was brought by plaintiff, a Washington corporation against the city of Tacoma, a city of that state, and its officers, praying that the defendants be enjoined from bringing any proceeding for the collection from plaintiff of a tax, under a certain ordinance of said city imposing a license tax of $100 a year upon every firm, person, or corporation within the city which uses any stamps, cards, or coupons, or other similar device for the sale of goods wares, and merchandise, which said stamps, coupons, tickets or other similar device shall entitle the purchaser receiving the same to procure from another person, firm, or corporation any goods, wares, or merchandise free of charge upon production of a number of the said stamps, tickets, coupons, cards, or other similar devices.

The cause is now before the court upon defendants' demurrer to the bill of complaint. The bill alleges that plaintiff carries on a department store in said city; that the Sperry &amp Hutchinson Company maintains a store in Tacoma in which articles of merchandise are offered in exchange for trading stamps, which company sells these stamps to merchants, and the merchants give them to their cash customers, as an inducement for cash payments; that the plaintiff, knowing the desire on the part of many persons for these stamps, and that they were induced to trade where they could get them, entered into a contract with the Sperry & Hutchinson Company to furnish plaintiff with trading stamps, one of which, under this contract, plaintiff agrees to give each of its customers for each 10 cents represented in cash value. There are further allegations of the advertising value of plaintiff's use of these stamps and the co-operation secured with other merchants in other lines of trade using these stamps, and the saving made in not having to carry articles of trade for gift purposes. It is alleged that the city ordinance was heretofore in the United States Circuit Court for this District decreed null and void as in violation of the Constitution of the United States; that this decree has never been appealed from, modified, or reversed; that the Supreme Court of the state of Washington has held such ordinance valid, and, by reason of said decision, it would be useless for plaintiff to defend, or prosecute an action in the state court, or pay the license and sue to recover the same; that plaintiff has no remedy in law or equity in the courts of the state; that the city and its officials, the defendants herein, have threatened, unless plaintiff pays for a license under the ordinance, that it will arrest the officers of plaintiff; that the ordinance impairs the obligation of plaintiff's contract with the Sperry & Hutchinson Company, in violation of article 1, Sec. 10, of the Constitution of the United States; that, in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it deprives plaintiff of its liberty of contract, of its liberty and property, without due process of law, and that it denies plaintiff the equal protection...