Pacific American Fisheries v. Territory of Alaska

• Decision Date: 24 November 1924
• Docket Number: No. 4246.,4246.
• Citation: 2 F.2d 9
• Parties: PACIFIC AMERICAN FISHERIES v. TERRITORY OF ALASKA.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

2 F.2d 9 (1924)

PACIFIC AMERICAN FISHERIES v. TERRITORY OF ALASKA.^*

No. 4246.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

October 20, 1924.

Rehearing Denied November 24, 1924.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Chickering & Gregory, of San Francisco, Cal., Kerr, McCord & Ivey, of Seattle, Wash., R. E. Robertson and H. L. Faulkner, both of Juneau, Alaska, and Blair S. Shuman, of San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff in error.

John Rustgard, of Juneau, Alaska, for defendant in error.

Before ROSS, HUNT, and RUDKIN, Circuit Judges.

ROSS, Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

We see no merit in the contention that the imposition by the Legislature of Alaska of the license taxes in question was in any way an interference with interstate commerce. True, the plaintiff in error is a corporation of the state of Maine and engaged in the business of catching and canning fish in the waters of that territory for the purpose of transporting and selling them in states and other places outside of Alaska; but that no more makes the fish so caught and canned interstate commerce than would the wheat, barley, corn, wool, or other products of the agriculturists and stockraisers of Alaska, or the metals taken by a citizen of one of the states out of the ground of Alaska thereupon become interstate commerce. When moving in transportation from the territory to outside states, such property undoubtedly thereupon becomes interstate commerce, but not before. This, in our opinion, is very clear.

Does the statute imposing the taxes in question violate any provision of the organic Act of Alaska, enacted by Congress in 1912? We have no doubt that the business of catching and canning the fish constituted but one business, which business the Legislature of the territory was expressly authorized to tax by the organic act. That such a tax is not a property tax has been expressly decided, both by this court and by the Supreme Court of the United States. See Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. Territory of Alaska, 236 F. 52, 61, 149 C. C. A. 262; Alaska Fish Co. v. Smith, 255 U. S. 44, 50, 41 S. Ct. 219, 65 L. Ed. 489.

In the Alaska Pacific Fisheries Case, supra, 236 F. 52, 57, 149 C. C. A. 262, we further expressly held that one of the purposes conferred by the Organic Act on the terriorial Legislature was "the creation of revenue by imposition of a license tax on the business of canning" fish. It cannot, therefore, be now held, as plaintiff in error urges should be done, that the purpose of the Legislature in imposing the license taxes here complained of was a mere regulation of the canning business without overruling the views of this court heretofore expressed, which we are not disposed to do. In the latter case (236 F. 52, 57, 149 C. C. A. 262, 267) we further held that, "when Congress, in 1912, conferred the legislative power which we have shown exists, while it expressly withheld power to alter or amend laws pertaining to fish and other certain subjects and saved certain laws then in force, it nevertheless unmistakably transferred power to the newly created legislative body to impose other and additional taxes and licenses; that is, power to impose taxes different from, and it might be additional to, those already in force when the Organic Act was approved. And thus by the Organic...