Southern Natural Gas Corporation v. State of Alabama

• Citation: 81 L.Ed. 970,57 S.Ct. 696,301 U.S. 148
• Decision Date: 26 April 1937
• Docket Number: No. 570,570
• Parties: SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS CORPORATION et al. v. STATE OF ALABAMA
• Court: United States Supreme Court

301 U.S. 148

57 S.Ct. 696

81 L.Ed. 970

SOUTHERN NATURAL GAS CORPORATION et al.

v STATE OF ALABAMA.

No. 570.

Argued March 10, 1937.

Decided April 26, 1937.

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama.

Messrs. Forney Johnston and Jos. F. Johnston, both of Birmingham, Ala., for appellants.

Mr. Frontis H. Moore, of Birmingham, Ala., for appellee.

Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question of the validity of a franchise tax assessed pursuant to a statute of the State of Alabama upon the Southern Natural Gas Corporation. The imposition of the tax was assailed as a direct burden upon interstate commerce and as also depriving the corporation of its property without due process of law and denying it the equal protection of the laws contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The Supreme Court of the State sustained the tax (170 So. 178) and the case comes here on appeal.

The statute, enacted in pursuance of section 232 of the State Constitution, is section 54 of Act No. 163, General Acts of Alabama 1927, page 176, provides:

'That every corporation organized under the laws of any other state, nation, or territory, and doing business in this State, except strictly benevolent, educational or religious corporations, shall pay annually to the State an annual franchise tax of Two Dollars ($2.00) on each One Thousand Dollars of the actual amount of capital employed in this State.'

The assessment was made by the State Tax Commission for the year 1931 in the sum of $11,047.43 and was said to be based upon capital employed in Alabama amounting to $5,523,715. Appellant resisted the assessment upon the ground that it was not doing business and did not propose to do business in the State of Alabama except in interstate commerce and that the property by which the tax was measured was used exclusively in interstate commerce.

The case was submitted upon an agreed statement from which the following facts appear:

Appellant was organized prior to May 12, 1928, under the laws of Delaware and on that date it qualified to do business in Alabama. It named a statutory agent and filed in the office of the Secretary of State a copy of its charter which covered a wide range of activities.¹ It has paid annually the required permit fee. At the time of the assessment in question appellant maintained its office and chief place of business in the city of Birmingham, Ala. The entire management, control, and conduct of its business was conducted from that office.

Appellant is engaged in the transmission and distribution of gas which it purchases from the producers in the Louisiana and Mississippi fields. In May, 1929, it began the construction of its pipe lines and by January, 1931, it had constructed its main lines from the Louisiana fields to Atlanta and Columbus, Ga., the Columbus line turning south from the Atlanta line at a point near Tuscaloosa, Ala. In 1931, appellant owned approximately 564 miles of pipe and various items of real and personal property located within Alabama, all constituting part of its general transmission system. It was agreed that in the event that it should be held that all of appellant's property located in the State was subject to the assessment of a franchise tax, the value of that property as of January 1 to May 13, 1931, the date of the final assessment, was $5,500,000.

Appellant had contracts for the delivery of natural gas in Alabama to only four purchasers. Three were intrastate utilities in Alabama, the Alabama Natural Gas Corporation, the Southern Cities Public Service Com- pany, and the Birmingham Gas Company. These companies were not consumers but were engaged, either directly or through subsidiaries, in the distribution of natural gas as public utilities in the State of Alabama. The fourth purchaser was the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, which purchased gas for itself and affiliated companies operating steel and industrial plants in the Birmingham district and which were not public utilities but consumers. A majority of orders for gas were received by and cleared through the Birmingham office; all collections for sales were received and disbursements for expenses were made or authorized at that office. The sales to the Tennessee Company and its affiliates were made from time to time upon orders given by the Birmingham office as the needs of the purchasers required.

The gas sold to the above-named purchasers was delivered in continuous movement from the gas fields in Louisiana or Mississippi without break or interruption, to the point where it was delivered, viz., the meter house at which the gas so sold was measured for the purpose of payment. The gas was moved under unregulated gas pressure, as produced by the natural pressure of the gas wells, to the designated points of delivery. The stipulation of facts also states that in the sales to the Tennessee Company and its affiliates the pressure is reduced at the point of delivery for the accommodation of the purchaser to meet its needs and requirements. The general practice is thus described in appellant's brief: 'All gas delivered in Alabama moved under main line pressure in continuous movement from the wells in Louisiana to the immediate point of delivery in Alabama, where it was reduced in pressure and measured for the sole purpose of effecting delivery.'²

The agreed statement set forth appellant's contracts with the Alabama Natural Gas Corporation and the Tennessee Company, respectively. These contained detailed provisions as to delivery, pressure, measurement, etc. In the contract with the Tennessee Company provision was made for the establishment of service lines to the consuming plants, as follows, appellant being described as 'Seller':

'Seller shall at its own expense provide in advance of the initial delivery date of March 1, 1930, service lines of suitable size to a point mutually agreed upon on the property of Buyer's Bessemer plant. To reach Buyer's Fairfield Plant Seller shall provide a service line that will cross Buyer's Ensley property and run in a southwesterly direction on the property of Buyer to some point mutually agreed upon, on Buyer's Fairfield premises. Buyer agree that it will make no charge for right of way for any part of the service lines traversing its property. A suitable meter will be provided for metering gas that may be used in the Bessemer plant, in the Ensley plant and in the Fairfield plant, of the Buyer and the plants of other subsidiary companies.'

These plants, the state court said, were 'widely separated.' The contract also provides:

'The natural gas shall be delivered at a pressure of not less than 30 pounds gauge at some mutually satisfactory location or locations upon the premises of Buyer, and Seller shall there furnish, install, operate and maintain at its own expense regulating and measuring station or stations properly equipped with orifice meters and recording gauges or other type of meter or meters of stand- ard style as may be mutually agreed upon conformable to the current recommendations of Gas Measurements Committee of American Gas Association, the measurement by which shall fix the total amount of natural gas delivered by Seller to Buyer.

'The measuring equipment so installed by Seller, together with any building erected by it for such equipment, shall be and remain its property.'

First.—The statute, which is challenged as here applied, was under consideration in Anglo-Chilean Nitrate Sales Corporation v. Alabama, 288 U.S. 218, 53 S.Ct. 373, 77 L.Ed. 710. In the light of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State, this Court concluded that the tax was laid 'not upon the authorization, right, or privilege to do business in Alabama, but upon the actual doing of business.' Id., 288 U.S. 218, at page 223, 53 S.Ct. 373, 374, 77 L.Ed. 710. The tax was held invalid as applied to a foreign corporation whose sole business in the State consisted in the landing, storage, and sale in the original packages, of goods imported from abroad. In the instant case the Supreme Court of the State has reviewed its rulings and has expounded the meaning of the statute. The state court holds that the tax is a franchise tax laid 'upon the right to do business.' It is a tax levied 'on foreign corporations as a prerogative to the right of exercise of its corporate functions in the state.' It 'is not on any basis a tax on business' but is laid 'on the...