State v. The American Sugar Refining Company

• Decision Date: 01 January 1901
• Docket Number: 14,353
• Citation: 32 So. 965,108 La. 603
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE OF LOUISIANA v. THE AMERICAN SUGAR REFINING COMPANY

32 So. 965

108 La. 603

STATE OF LOUISIANA v. THE AMERICAN SUGAR REFINING COMPANY

No. 14,353

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 1, 1901

Rehearing refused.

APPEAL from the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans -- St. Paul, J.

Hugh C Cage, for Plaintiff, Appellee.

Carroll & Carroll and Foster, Milling, Godchaux & Sanders, for Defendant, Appellant.

OPINION

PROVOSTY J.

This is a suit by the State of Louisiana through its tax collector, to recover of the defendant, the American Sugar Refining Company, a license tax of $ 6,250 for each of the years 1900 and 1901, under Section 11, Act 171 of 1898. The allegation is that defendant is engaged in the business of refining sugar in the City of New Orleans, and that its gross receipts from said business for each of the said years exceeded $ 2,500,000, and that defendant owes the said license.

For answer the defendant pleaded that its business of refining sugar was a manufacturing business, and that defendant, being a manufacturer, was exempt from license taxation by the terms of article 229 of the Constitution of the State.

To this the plaintiff filed a formal plea of res adjudicata, based on a former suit, wherein the licenses for 1898 and previous years had been claimed and the same defense of exemption from taxation had been urged.

That suit was based on section 9 of Act 150 of 1890, and the present suit is based on section 11 of Act 171 of 1898; but these two laws are virtually the same, the latter being substantially a re-enactment of the former.

The process used by defendant in its business of refining sugar as shown on the trial of the former suit, has not changed.

Two questions, therefore, are presented for decision: First, the preliminary question of res judicata; and in case that question is decided adversely to plaintiff, then, second, whether defendant is a manufacturer.

The law of res judicata is stated with great simplicity and precision by Article 2286 Civil Code, as follows:

"The authority of the thing adjudged takes place only with respect to what was the object of the judgment. The thing demanded must be the same; the demand must be founded on the same cause of action; the demand must be between the same parties, and formed by them against each other in the same qualities."

This formula was borrowed by our Code from the Code Napoleon, Article 1351; by the Code Napoleon from Pothier, Obligations No. 889; and by Pothier from the Roman Jurisconsults. It brings out with great distinctness the salient feature of the law of res judicata, namely: The identity that must exist as to thing demanded, cause of action and persons in the two suits. "Quae nisi omnia concurrant alia res est," say the Roman Jurisconsults. Cod. L. 12, L. 13, L. 14, ff de except. rei jud. "Ce n'est que du concours simultane de tous ces elements que peut resulter l'autorite de la chose jugee. En l'absence de l'un d'entre eux, on ne saurait, sans violer la loi, ecarter une instance nouvelle par l'exception de la chose jugee," says Dalloz, No. 103, Repertoire de Legislation, Vo. Chose Jugee, voicing the unanimous sentiment of the courts and writers of France. And to the same effect are our own decisions.

"The exception of the thing adjudged is stricti juris, and if there should be any doubt as to the identity of the things claimed, or of the persons claiming them, it cannot be maintained." West vs. Creditors, 3 Ann. 529.

"The plea of res adjudicata is without force, unless the object demanded in the former suit was precisely the same as that demanded in the action pending." Edwards vs. Ballard, 14 Ann. 362.

"The only test as to the effect of a decree is its finality as to the matters embraced in it, and its having the requisites of Article 2265 (2286) of the Civil Code." Kellum vs. Rippey, 3 Ann. 203.

"The authority of res adjudicata takes place only with respect to what was the object of the judgment." Succession of Durnford, 1 Ann. 92.

See also First Presbyterian Church vs. New Orleans, 30 Ann. 259; Slocomb vs. Lizzardi, 21 Ann. 355; Collens vs. Jumel, 30 Ann. 861; Carre vs. New Orleans, 41 Ann. 996; Plique vs. Lebeau, 19 Ann. 327, and innumerable other cases. Our court has never wavered, that we know of, in the rigid exaction of the three identities.

The learned counsel who has fought the battle of the State in this matter with such commendable zeal and such signal ability does not himself doubt the necessity of the three identities, but insists that they are met with in the case. Says he: --

"The rule seems universal that where any question is litigated between the parties, affirmed on one side, denied on the other, and finally determined by the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, that particular question or matter is forever at rest between the respective parties and their privies.

Suppose that a mortgage note of $ 10,000 were given, with interest at six per cent., payable annually for ten years, and that a suit was brought for the first year's installment of interest, and payment was resisted on the ground that the note was obtained by fraud and there was no consideration therefor, and that this defense was overruled by the court and declared to be ill-founded, and the court should find and declare that the note was obtained in good faith and that full consideration was given therefor, and render judgment accordingly; and then, the following year, suit was brought to recover the second year's interest, and the same identical defense was set up, can it be possible that any one would, for a moment, contend that the plea of res adjudicata would not avail plaintiff? There can be no doubt of it. The doctrine of res judicata and the provisions of our Code are intended to apply to just such cases.

In the present case, the contention is that res judicata does not apply because the license sued for is that of a subsequent year. The parties are the same; the cause of action is the same; the demand is the same; and the defense is the identical one that was pleaded in the former suit. The defendant alleges, as its sole defense, that it is a manufacturer and therefore exempt from license taxation. The State denies that it is a manufacturer, alleges that it is not a manufacturer, and that it is liable to license taxation. This issue was distinctly asserted, distinctly denied, hotly and strenuously litigated and argued, and positively and absolutely decided in favor of the State and against the defendant. As between the State and this defendant, this question is forever at rest, and can never again be litigated between them."

The learned counsel is right in saying that the defence is the same, and that the parties are the same, but he is wrong in saying that the thing demanded and the cause of action are the same. The thing demanded in the first suit was a certain sum of money which has been paid and which is neither being demanded a second time, nor sought to be recovered back.

The cause of action in a suit for the recovery of a license is the indebtedness of the defendant, springing from the joint operation of the statute imposing the license and of the act of the defendant in carrying on the licensed business. In two suits for the recovery of the licenses of different years the statute imposing the license may be said to be the same in the two suits, but the act of the defendant by which the debt for the license is incurred is each year a separate, independent, act, similar to but not the same as the act by which the debt of the license of the preceding year was incurred. At the beginning of each year it is entirely optional with the defendant to do business and incur the debt of the license of the year, or not to do business and not incur the debt of the license. Just as much so as it is optional with a man not to commit assault and battery, or not to trespass, or do any other act from the joint operation of which and of the law a debt will arise. In the latter class of cases, equally as in the case of a debt for a license, the debt, or cause of action, comes into existence by the joint operation of the law and of the act of the defendant. In successive suits for cases of this kind one of the causes generative of the cause of action, namely: the law, is the same; but the other generative cause, namely: the act of the defendant, is different; and res judicata does not obtain.

It is undeniable that the issue as to whether or not defendant is a manufacturer does occur in both cases, but this issue, as we shall show presently, involves only a question of law, and there can be no objection to litigating a second time a question of law, provided the litigation is in connection with different facts; and we have shown that the act of the defendant in carrying on business in the years 1900 and 1901 was a separate and independent act from the similar act of carrying on business in the preceding years, and that the debts or causes of action arising from the different acts were separate and distinct causes of action. In the cases supposed of repeated assault and batteries and trespasses under circumstances precisely similar, if in every succeeding case the same defence of the unconstitutionality of the law imposing a legal obligation in such cases were set up, res judicata would not obtain. The same legal question would be mooted between the same parties, but in connection with facts distinct, separate and independent, though closely similar.

The basic principle of res judicata is found in the necessity that a time should come when the litigation shall cease, in order that the decree of the court may be carried out. This is what the law concerns itself with, that the object of the judgment shall not remain eternally in suspense, but be delivered...