People ex rel. Edison Elec. Light Co. v. Wemple

• Decision Date: 10 March 1896
• Citation: 43 N.E. 176,148 N.Y. 690
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. v. WEMPLE, Comptroller.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

148 N.Y. 690

43 N.E. 176

PEOPLE ex rel. EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO.

v.WEMPLE, Comptroller.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 10, 1896.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Third department.

Certiorari, on the relation of the Edison Electric Light Company of New York, to review the decision of Edward Wemple, comptroller of the state of New York, denying an application of relator for revision of a tax. From an order quashing the writ, relator appeals. Reversed.

Eugene H. Lewis, for appellant.

T. E. Hancock, Atty. Gen., for respondent.

GRAY, J.

We think, within the authority of the case of this same relator against Campbell (138 N. Y. 543, 34 N. E. 370), that the order of the general term confirming the action of the comptroller in imposing certain taxes upon the relator for the years 1889 and 1890 must be reversed. In the former case (decided in June, 1893), we held, because the comptroller had determined that the entire capital of the relator for the year 1891 was employed in this state, when it appeared that a portion of its capital was invested in the stocks of companies organized outside of this state, that the tax should be readjusted so far as he had included these stocks for the purposes of valuation. The principle of our decision was that when the relator, in compensation for its grants of patent rights to local corporations, received stocks of such corporations, it was an employment of its capital in the purchase thereof, and, when such local corporations were situated outside of the state, then, to the extent that the relator held their certificates of stock, its property was outside of the state, and its capital could not be said to be employed here. Therefore, within the provisions of law for the taxation of ‘capital stock employed within this state,’ a tax based upon an estimate of its value, which took into consideration the relator's property in shares of corporations outside of the state, would be erroneous. The case to which we have alluded related to the tax for the year 1891, and was determined by the comptroller and by the general term subsequent to the decision rendered by the latter in the present case; the affirmance there being expressly rested upon its decision in the case now on appeal. There may be a few differences with respect to the facts, as they were made to appear in the present case, upon the proceeding for the revision and readjustment of the account. But it appeared that the relator was a holder of stocks in local companies situated within and without the state, for the two years in question. It also appeared that the...