Texas Co. v. Fort

• Decision Date: 06 April 1935
• Citation: 80 S.W.2d 658
• Parties: TEXAS CO. v. FORT, Com'r et al. PAN-AMERICAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION v. SAME.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

80 S.W.2d 658

TEXAS CO. v. FORT, Com'r et al.

PAN-AMERICAN PETROLEUM CORPORATION v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April 6, 1935.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; James B. Newman, Judge.

Suit by the Texas Company and by the Pan-American Petroleum Corporation against Dancey Fort, Commissioner, and others. From a decree dismissing both bills on demurrer, the complainants appeal.

Affirmed.

Seay, Stockell & Edwards, of Nashville, for Texas Company.

Cobb & Jones, of New Orleans, La., and Trabue, Hume & Armistead, of Nashville, for Pan-American Petroleum Corporation.

Roy H. Beeler, Atty. Gen., Edwin F. Hunt, Asst. Atty. Gen., and W. C. Cook, of Dickson, for the State.

CHAMBLISS, Justice.

These causes were heard together. They present the same questions. Both suits were brought to recover gasoline taxes paid under protest. The chancellor dismissed both bills on demurrer. Both complainants appealed.

By chapter 130, Acts 1933, the Legislature amended various sections of the Code of 1932, beginning with section 1126, so as to provide that the gasoline tax of six cents per gallon (see Pub. Acts 1931, c. 40) should be paid by dealers and distributors according to the amount held in storage in this state, instead of according to the number of gallons withdrawn from storage, as provided by the Code.

The constitutionality of this amendatory act is assailed on the ground that it fails to comply with the requirements contained in section 17, art. 2, of the state Constitution, that "no bill shall become a law, which embraces more than one subject; that subject to be expressed in the title," and that, "All acts which * * * amend former laws, shall recite in their caption or otherwise, the title or substance of the law * * * amended." We understand counsel for appellants to concede that reference to the sections of the Code of 1932 is a sufficient recital of the title of the act to be amended to satisfy the requirement that the amendatory act shall recite the title of the law to be amended. As said in Gamble v. State, 159 Tenn. 446, 19 S. W.(2d) 279, 280, this "was long since decided." State v. Runnels, 92 Tenn. 320, 21 S. W. 665.

But the insistence is that the subject of the amendatory act is not "embraced in the title" of that act; that the language of the title used is restrictive and the subject so limited that it should not be construed to refer to "storing" of gasoline, which it is alleged is a new and independent subject of taxation. Close reasoning is resorted to, turning, apparently, on the construction to be given the word "said," preceding the words "gasoline taxes," and preceding the word "laws."

The caption or title of the Amendatory Act of 1933 reads, "An Act to amend Sections 1126 * * * of the Code of Tennessee, 1932; said sections of the Code relating to the Gasoline Tax Laws, providing for an improved method of assessing and collecting said gasoline taxes and to strengthen the enforcement of said laws, and to repeal all laws," etc. It is insisted that the language of the caption must be limited in its application to just such "gasoline taxes" and just such "laws" as were provided for in the Code sections cited; that "storing" was not embraced within the "said gasoline taxes," or tax laws, so provided for; that therefore the amendment making "storing" a privilege brings in a new and independent subject, not within the scope of the limiting phrase "said gasoline taxes," or "said" laws.

To this we are unable to agree. The sections amended are under a subheading of the Code reading "Gasoline Tax." It is the state `Gasoline Tax" which the title of the amendment gave notice of a purpose to amend, that is, to change, correct, revise. Gamble v. State, supra. And notice was further given that it was proposed by this amendment to provide for "an improved method of assessing," etc., this gasoline tax. To "assess" is to determine and impose a tax; also, but not alone, to value for taxation. Levy is a synonym of assess. Webster's New International. It appears, therefore, that the title of this amendment to the Code sections cited gave notice of a purpose to change and improve the method of assessing, imposing, levying, the state gasoline taxes, so as to strengthen the enforcement of this law set forth in the Code sections cited. The details of the plan were not required to be set forth in the title. Having called attention to the particular form of privilege taxation to be dealt with, that is, gasoline taxes, it was necessary only to indicate the object aimed at by the amendment. This was clearly done. The title discloses the result aimed at; the method is for the body of the act. The "subject" only is called for in the title, not the story; the purpose to do a certain thing, not just how it is to be done. The purpose declared here was to amend the gasoline tax laws, so as to provide an improved method of assessing and collecting this tax. In the body of the amendment the details were set forth clearly, and under all our holdings this was sufficient. For example, see Van Dyke v. Thompson, 136 Tenn. 136, 189 S. W. 62; Hunter v. Conner, 152 Tenn. 258, 277 S. W. 71; Henderson Co. v. Breeden Bros., 148 Tenn. 278, 255 S. W. 359; Couch v. State, 140 Tenn. 156, 203 S. W. 831; Petty v. Phœnix Cotton Oil Co., 150 Tenn. 292, 264 S. W. 353. The manner, modes, means, instrumentalities of enforcement, etc., may be embraced in the body of the act, though not recited in the title. State v. Yardley, 95 Tenn. 546, 553, 32 S. W. 481, 34 L. R. A. 656; State v. Brown, 103 Tenn. 449, 458, 53 S. W. 727; Peterson v. State, 104 Tenn. 127, 131, 56 S. W. 834; Rhinehart v. State, 121 Tenn. 420, 434, 117 S. W. 508, 17 Ann. Cas. 254. The generality of the title is no objection, if not made a cover for incongruous legislation, which by no fair intendment can be considered as having a necessary or proper connection with the subject expressed in the title. Cannon v. Mathes, 8 Heisk. 504, 519. We think it cannot be fairly said that an act which amends the body of our gasoline tax laws so as to measure the tax imposed according to the amount stored, rather than the amount withdrawn from storage, has no proper connection with, is not germane to, the general subject expressed in the title, "providing for an improved method of assessing and collecting said gasoline taxes."

It is next urged for appellants that under a proper construction of the law as amended the tax applies only to such gasoline as appellants have placed in storage since the effective date of the Amendatory Act, April 22, 1933. The state contended that the tax applied to all gasoline stored, that is, in storage, by appellants on and after said effective date. The appellants paid under protest, as before stated.

The opinion of the learned chancellor so well discusses and disposes of this issue that we incorporate and adopt this part of his opinion, as follows:

"The section of the Code, section 1140, as amended by chapter 130, § 13, exempts from taxation gasoline stored for export to points outside the state, if the gasoline is stored in a separate tank marked `export tank,' provided it is not stored for export for longer than a period of sixty days. Under this exemption it would hardly be insisted that gasoline which was in storage when the act became effective and remained in storage for a period longer than sixty days, would not fall within the provisions of the act taxing such gasoline. The amendatory act involved expressly purports in its caption to amend section 1140 of the Code and the amendatory matter in the body of the Act is germane to the section of the Code and the matter covered thereby. This part of the amendatory act does not violate said provision of the Constitution.

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