Mississippi Levee Com'rs v. Refuge Cotton Oil Co.

• Decision Date: 18 November 1907
• Docket Number: 12874
• Citation: 91 Miss. 480,44 So. 828
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MISSISSIPPI LEVEE COMMISSIONERS v. REFUGE COTTON OIL COMPANY

44 So. 828

91 Miss. 480

MISSISSIPPI LEVEE COMMISSIONERS v. REFUGE COTTON OIL COMPANY

No. 12874

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 18, 1907

FROM the chancery court of, first district, Bolivar county, HON PERCY BELL, Chancellor.

The Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, appellant, was complainant in the court below; the Refuge Cotton Oil Company, appellee, was defendant there. From a decree dismissing the suit complainant appealed to the supreme court.

The appellant began suit in the chancery court against the appellee, a domestic corporation, charging that defendant company, between September 1, 1904, and the date of filing of the bill, May 9, 1907, had been engaged in reginning cotton seed, after the lint had been partially removed by its ordinary gins and the plantation gins of the community; the reginning being accomplished by the use of two distinct machines or gins, one known as the Grabboll machine, which gins hard locks of cotton and cotton mixed with hulls and other substances refused by ordinary gins, the cotton thus separated being of a grade commonly known as "Grabboll cotton"; the other known as a delinter, a machine which takes lint from previously ginned cotton seed, the cotton thus separated from the seed being known as "linters" or "delinter cotton"; that defendant, within the period mentioned, had, in violation of the statutes of the state, removed from the Levee District a large number of bales of Grabboll cotton and of linters without paying the statutory cotton tax, thus subjecting itself to a penalty of $ 10 for each bale of said cotton so removed. The bill sought to enforce a lien on certain real estate in the county owned by the defendant, and its prayer was for a discovery and an accounting, in order to ascertain the amount due complainant, and for a decree for the amount so found due.

The court below sustained the defendant's general demurrer and dismissed the bill.

The statutes referred to above and under which complainant seeks to recover are § 16, ch. 156, p. 172, of the Laws of 1896, as follows:

"Section 16. That a tax of one-fifth of one cent per pound be and the same is hereby levied on all lint cotton annually grown in said district, and the sum of one-fifteenth of one cent per pound is hereby levied upon each and every pound of cotton in the seed raised and grown in said district and not ginned therein, which tax shall continue until the year 1897, after which time said tax upon cotton may be, by resolution of the board of Mississippi levee commissioners, repealed and abolished; provided, however, that the tax on cotton shall never be abolished so long as any bonds of said levee board which shall have been issued prior to March 30, 1892, are outstanding unless by written consent of the holders."

And § 5, ch. 90, 126, of the Laws of 1904, as follows Section 5. It shall be unlawful for any one to remove, or cause to be removed, from the Mississippi Levee District any cotton grown therein, without first paying the levee tax thereon, and anyone so removing such cotton without paying such tax and without the consent of the levee board of said district, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than ten dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or be imprisoned in the county jail of the county wherein the offense occurs, not less than thirty days, nor more than one year, for each offense, and one-half of any fine so collected shall go to the informer, and, in addition, the board of Mississippi levee commissioners shall be entitled to recover from the person so removing such cotton a tax of ten dollars per bale, or one dollar per hundred pounds of seed cotton, on all cotton so removed, and such tax shall be a lien upon all cotton, or other property belonging to the party so removing such cotton."

Judgment affirmed.

Fontaine Jones, for appellant.

To establish appellee's liability for the cotton taxes in question, the concurrence of two things is all that is required: first, the cotton must have been grown within the Mississippi Levee District; and, second, the removal by appellee of such cotton from such district without first paying the levee taxes thereon and without consent of the levee board of the district. Laws 1904, p. 126; Laws 1906, p. 115. The bill of appellant, inasmuch as it distinctly alleges these two things, and inasmuch as it is to be considered as true on demurrer, accordingly shows, without question, the liability of appellee.

The law levies the tax on all lint cotton grown in the Mississippi Levee District, regardless of the gin used, and regardless of whether the cotton has been ginned once or more than once.

Appellee's oil mill, located at Rosedale, on the banks of the Mississippi River, receives the full benefit of levee protection. Why should its cotton escape taxation? Certainly the law gives it no special privileges. The act of 1896, p. 172, levying the tax of one-fifth of one cent per pound on all lint cotton annually grown in the district, is unambiguous, and could not be made plainer or more simple in its language. But, even if the law were ambiguous, the rule is that tax laws should be liberally construed in favor of the state. Adams v. Illinois Central R. R. Co., 71 Miss. 752; Bacon v. Board Commissioners, 126 Mich. 22; S.C., 86 Am. St. Rep., 524.

Taxes are levied for the support of government, and all property made liable for contribution to this object by the Constitution and laws of the state ought to be embraced in assessments for that purpose. It is not only the duty of the Legislature to reach all descriptions of property for the sake of justice to all citizens, but the interests of the state require it. O'Neal v. Virginia Bridge Co., 18 Md. 1; Chicago v. Martin, 173 Ill. 243; S.C., 64 Am. St. Rep. 110.

Learned counsel for appellee lay stress upon the fact that the United States Census Bureau, in some of its printed tables showing cotton production in the United States, uses the words, "total crop, including linters," in stating the number of bales of cotton produced. But the very fact that linters were included with the other cotton shows that, in the opinion of the census bureau, linters are as much cotton as is upland, sea-island, benders, staple, or other class of cotton. See United States Census Bulletin of 1907, p. 75. But why is it that "Grabboll cotton" is not mentioned in the census bureau bulletins? The answer is, that such cotton really is included in the class designated as upland cotton, there being but two other classes, sea-island and linters, mentioned in the census tables, and it cannot be supposed that "Grabboll cotton" is included in either of these latter classes. It follows that "Grabboll cotton" and linters are nothing but raw, or lint, cotton, pure and simple; and as such must be subject to the taxes.

The United States Census Bureau's definition of linters is as follows: "A short fiber called 'linters' obtained by the cotton seed oil mills from reginning cotton seed before extracting the oil, is included in the reports of raw cotton. This cotton is largely used in the manufacturing of mattresses, batting, carpets, cheap yarn, rope, twine, and for upholstering purposes." Census Bulletin 76 (1907), page 8. In view of such definition it may be seen that there is no force in the argument advanced by learned counsel for appellee that linters should be exempted from the cotton tax because of the low price at which such cotton is sold.

Smith, Hirsh & Landau, for appellee.

The word cotton, as used in this state, conveys, according to the popular and accepted understanding, the lint removed from the seed by the ordinary process of ginning.

Suppose a farmer is asked, at the end of the cotton season, how many bales of cotton did you raise on your place this last year, and he would say, fifty. The man who asked the question and the farmer who answered it, would both understand that they were talking about the amount of lint cotton that he derived from his seed cotton by ginning.

Suppose a cotton buyer should agree to sell five hundred bales of cotton to a mill at New Bedford, Massachusetts, for twelve and one-half cents per pound delivered, and the mill at New Bedford would agree to receive, accept and pay for this five hundred bales of cotton at this rate. Would a court seriously entertain the proposition that a delivery of five hundred bales of linters or delinted cotton or of Grabboll cotton by the cotton buyer would be a compliance with his contract?

The words "seed cotton" have just as definite, accurate and popular use or meaning as the word "cotton," and these words at once convey the idea, when used, of cotton which has been gathered and not yet ginned. In other words, seed cotton means cotton as it is taken from the stalk, and which has never been subjected to any process of ginning.

The courts approach the interpretation of a statute with the presumption that words and phrases therein are used in their familiar and popular sense, and without any forced, subtle, or technical construction to limit or extend their meaning. 26 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, p. 605. Sutherland on Statutory Construction, § 247. Green v. Weller, 32 Miss. 678.

The absurdity of the appellant's position may be shown by illustrations from other products: If a specific tax were imposed upon corn, and the tax were paid, and the owner who has paid the tax should then make glucose of the corn, could it be seriously insisted that the glucose should also pay the tax? If a specific tax were levied on each pound of sugar could it be contended that, after the sugar had paid its tax, the molasses, as a product derived from the sugar, should also pay the tax? If a specific tax, like this...