Worth v. Comm'rs of Ashe County

• Decision Date: 28 February 1884
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: DAVID WORTH v. COMMISSIONERS OF ASHE COUNTY.

90 N.C. 409

DAVID WORTH

v.COMMISSIONERS OF ASHE COUNTY.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

February Term, 1884.

CIVIL ACTION tried at Fall Term, 1883, of ASHE Superior Court, before Graves, J.

In this case the plaintiff, a resident of this state, asks that the defendant commissioners and their agents be restrained from collecting taxes upon his stock held in the bank of Abingdon, a corporation formed under an act of the legislature of the state of Virginia, and doing business in that state. The plaintiff alleges that the stock of the bank is taxed in Virginia for state and county purposes there, and that the same has been placed on the tax list here, and the sheriff threatens to collect the tax. The defendants demurred to the complaint, the court sustained the demurrer, and the plaintiff appealed.

Messrs. Q. F. Neal and T. M. Argo, for plaintiff .

Attorney General, for the state .

Mr. J. W. Todd, for the county .

SMITH, C. J.

The case presented by the demurrer to the plaintiff's complaint differs in no essential particular from that before us on the defendants' appeal between the same parties and upon the same subject matter, and decided at January term, 1880 ( Worth v. Commissioners of Ashe, 82 N. C., 420). The conclusion then reached, after a careful and full examination of the authorities, and reflection, that the plaintiff's shares of stock in the Bank of Abingdon, a corporation formed under the laws of Virginia and there doing business, were liable to taxation under the laws of this state, the power to enact which was vested in the general assembly, must control the decision in the present case, for it is of the utmost importance that the law, when declared after deliberate and careful examination, should remain undisturbed, unless a palpable error is seen to have been committed, and it is likely to lead to disastrous results.

Since that decision, our attention has been called to the case of Dyer v. Osborne, 11 R. I., 321, which is so fully in accord with our ruling that we shall make a brief extract from the opinion of the Chief-Justice therein delivered as the opinion of the court. The defendant there contested his liability to taxation in Rhode Island, where he resided, on stock which he held in certain corporations formed and operating under the laws of Massachusetts, and in that state, where all the stock was already taxed.

The court declared that in the light of the cases cited and reviewed, the state of Rhode Island has...