Yellowstone Park Transp. Co. v. Gallatin County

• Decision Date: 22 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 5573.,5573.
• Parties: YELLOWSTONE PARK TRANSP. CO. v. GALLATIN COUNTY et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

31 F.2d 644 (1929)

YELLOWSTONE PARK TRANSP. CO. v. GALLATIN COUNTY et al.

No. 5573.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

March 18, 1929.

Rehearing Denied April 22, 1929.

T. B. Weir and Harry P. Bennett, both of Helena, Mont., for appellant.

E. F. Bunker, of Bozeman, Mont., for appellees.

Before GILBERT, RUDKIN and DIETRICH, Circuit Judges.

RUDKIN, Circuit Judge.

The principal question for decision on the present appeal is this: May the taxing officers of the county of Gallatin, in the state of Montana, impose taxes on personal property owned by a Delaware corporation and having its situs in that portion of the Yellowstone National Park within the territorial limits of that county, in view of the act of the Montana Legislature, approved February 14, 1891 (Laws 1891, p. 262), which ceded to the United States exclusive jurisdiction over and with respect to all lands within the state which were or might be embraced within the Yellowstone National Park, together with such other lands as were then or might thereafter be occupied and held by the United States for military purposes, reserving only concurrent jurisdiction for the execution of process, civil and criminal, lawfully issued by the courts of the state. This question must be answered in the negative. Cessions of exclusive jurisdiction, such as that made by the Legislature of Montana, have been very common in the history of this country, and their effect is well settled. We need only refer to a recent case. In 1903 the Legislature of the state of Arkansas (Acts 1903, p. 52) ceded to the United States exclusive jurisdiction over certain territory surrounding the Hot Springs in that state, reserving only the right to execute civil and criminal process and the right to tax, and in Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant, 176 Ark. 613, 4 S.W.(2d) 7, it was held that a statute enacted by the state Legislature after the date of cession, restricting the liability of innkeepers, was inoperative within the ceded territory. The judgment of the Supreme Court of the state was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant, 49 S. Ct. 227, 73 L. Ed. ___, decided February 18, 1929. In other words, after the date of cession, the ceded territory was as much without the jurisdiction of the state making the cession as was any other foreign territory, except in so far as jurisdiction was expressly reserved. For this reason, the taxing laws of the state of Montana are wholly inoperative in that portion of the Yellowstone National Park within the territorial limits of the state.

But the appellee contends that the act is unconstitutional, because the subject of the act is not clearly expressed in the title, as required by section 23 of article 5 of the state Constitution. The title of the act is "An act ceding to the United States jurisdiction over certain lands." Such a title satisfies the constitutional requirement.

"The title is not required to be an index to the body of the act or as comprehensive in matters of detail, but if it fairly indicates the general subject, and reasonably covers all the provisions of the act, and is not calculated to mislead the General Assembly or the people, it is a sufficient compliance with the constitutional requirement. Unless the act contains matters having no proper connection or relation to the title, or the title itself contains subjects having no proper relation to each other, the constitutional provision is not violated. An act having a single general subject, indicated in the title, may contain any number of provisions, no matter how diverse they may be, so long as they are not inconsistent with or foreign to the general subject, and may be considered in furtherance of such subject by providing for the method and means of carrying out the general object." Public Service Co. v. Rechtenwald, 290 Ill. 314, 125 N. E. 271, 8 A. L. R. 466.

"The generality of a title is therefore no objection to it, so long as it is not made a cover to legisla...