Ware Leland v. Mobile County No 173 Ware Leland v. State of Alabama No 174
Decision Date | 06 April 1908 |
Docket Number | 174,Nos. 173,s. 173 |
Citation | 14 Ann. Cas. 1031,52 L.Ed. 855,209 U.S. 405,28 S.Ct. 526 |
Parties | WARE & LELAND, a Copartnership, and J. H. Ware, E. F. Leland, Charles W. Lee, and F. J. Fahey, Plffs. in Err., v. MOBILE COUNTY. NO 173. WARE & LELAND, a Copartnership, and J. H. Ware, E. F. Leland, Charles W. Lee, and F. J. Fahey, Plffs. in Err., v. STATE OF ALABAMA. NO 174 |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Burwell B. Boone for plaintiffs in error.
No appearance for defendants in error.
These cases were submitted together, and are in all respects similar, and involve the constitutional validity of subd. 40 of an act of the legislature of Alabama imposing license taxes, 'to better provide for the revenue of the state,' General Acts 1903, p. 207, which reads as follows:
'For each person engaged in the business of buying and selling futures for speculation or on commission, either for themselves or for other persons, and each place of business commonly known as cotton exchanges, or stock exchanges, and sometimes called 'bucket shops,' in towns and cities of 20,000 inhabitants or more, $500; in all other towns and cities, $250; but this shall not be held to legalize any contract which would otherwise be invalid.'
In case No. 173 the action was brought by Mobile county for the recovery of the defendants' license tax for the year 1903, for engaging in the business of buying and selling futures on commission for other persons in the city of Mobile. The other case (174) was an action by the state. Plaintiffs recovered in the circuit court and both judgments were affirmed by the supreme court. 146 Ala. 163, 41 So. 153.
The cases were submitted upon an agreed statement of the facts as follows:
office in the city without the state of Alabama selected for such transaction; that such order would be thereupon executed by defendants by the purchase or sale, as directed, of a future cotton contract for such customer in the cotton exchange of the city to which such order was sent, and subject to the rules and regulations of such cotton exchange, which rules and regulations may be introduced in evidence by defendants in this cause; that said contract would be held by defendants for such customer until he ordered the same closed out, when they would sell or buy another cotton contract against it as might be necessary to cover the same or close it out, or receive or deliver the cotton on said contract. If a profit was made on the transaction defendants remitted the same to its agent in Mobile, who paid it over to the customer; if a loss was made, it was taken by the agent out of the customer's margin, or if that was insufficient therefor, the customer was called on for the balance. Said business was done on a commission paid defendants by the customers.
'A similar future grain business was done by defendants at their said office in Mobile, Alabama, for customers through their office in Chicago, in the state of Illinois,—said orders being executed on the Chicago, Illinois, board of trade, and subject to its rules and regulations, which contemplated and provided for the actual receipt or delivery of grain bought or sold therein,—such delivery to be made in Chicago, Illinois.
'During the whole of the year 1903 said city of Mobile, Alabama, was a city of more than 20,000 inhabitants.
'Defendants paid to plaintiff a license tax of $100 for doing such business in said city for the year 1903, which payment was made prior to the 4th day of March, 1903; they have not paid any further license tax to plaintiff for doing such business in said year.'
Upon the trial of the action, in addition to the foregoing agreed facts, the counsel for the plaintiff admitted that the rules and regulations of the New York cotton exchange, New Orleans cotton exchange, and Chicago board of trade, respectively, provided 'that contracts executed therein should be in writing; and also provided that in every cotton or grain contract for future delivery, executed and entered into in said exchange or board of trade, it should be stipulated,...
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