18 F. Cas. 1226 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Missouri | 1874
(orally). I will proceed to state what conclusions the court has come to in regard to the suits to enjoin the state and counties from collecting taxes of railroads, which have been argued before us for the last three days.
The counsel engaged in the cases will see that it has been almost impossible for us to give any full consideration to the arguments which have been presented, and which were the result of a great deal of labor and research, and upon one branch of the subject —at least upon one of the most interesting questions that can come before the court — I mean the extent to which a court of equity can interfere by injunction to restrain the collection of taxes. The authorities are by no means uniform, are not very specific, and
The main question in these eases, the difficult one, or the one which has been argued most at length, is, as I said before, the extent and nature of the jurisdiction of a court of chancery to enjoin the collection of taxes.
Now, apart from any authorities on the subject, looking at it as a question open to all the general considerations which should govern it, it might seem that those principles, should be different as they, are applied to different classes of taxes. It certainly cannot be denied that these various forms of municipal taxation by communities and cities and townships are exercised by a class of men who are not very familiar with the laws under which they proceed; and, to say the least of it, are not always observant of the rights of all parties interested in taxation, and who do not always use the proceeds of that taxation, either in the wisest manner, or in the manner in which the law peremptorily declares they shall be used; and so for these reasons it would seem, looking at the general nature of the subject, that it ought to be within the power of some judicial body to arrest any unlawful proceeding of theirs in the levying and collection of taxes, and that no great harm would come In dealing with such bodies as they are, in subjecting them occasionally to the wholesome restraint of judicial proceedings, when they are levying their taxes upon the people and disbursing them in ways which are not warranted by law.
But looking at the question of a state levying her taxes and collecting her revenue, a state which, according to the old form of expression, has been called a sovereign — -a body which, if you refer to it as a corporate body or as an organized system of civil government, is wholly dependent upon taxation for its existence — daily existence — and which, unless the taxation is paid, must fall to pieces and dissolve civil society, why, one must pause and hesitate whether an ordinary court shall interpose and say, none of these taxes shall be paid; and yet I do not find in any of the authorities which have been read here, that any such distinction has been made. The right of the court to interpose has been based upon the same principle so far as judicial authority cited here is concerned. .But it is impossible that sitting here as a court of the United States, in some sense, not exactly a court of the state, certainly not a court created by authority of the state — a jurisdiction that in former times, exercising its power upon state rights, has always been looked upon with jealousy, it seems proper that, as judges of this court, we should proceed with very great caution and hesitation, when attempting to lay our hands on the authorities the state has provided for the collection of its revenue. I confess I have always had a very strong opinion that the circumstances under which a court of equity ought to interfere to restrain the collection of any taxes are very limited, but the cases cited on the argument show that the courts have gone further than I had supposed.
It is certainly true that a great many of the best courts in the Union, have held the right to interfere in various felasses of cases in regard to protecting the citizen against unlawful taxation. Now that is about as far as I can go on that subject. We want, lie-fore making up our minds decisively on any of these subjects, to look at the authorities and examine them very carefully, and when it is decided at all to decide it in a manner which we will be content to abide by, until directed by superior authority to do otherwise.
The result of this consideration is, we are not disposed to decide that branch of the case. But we are all united on another proposition which is essentially connected with this case, and which enables us, if not to make a final decree, to make a very important order at this term of court, and that is that we adopt this rule: That whenever a party comes into this court to ask the court to enjoin the collection of a tax or a part of a tax, if there is any part he admits to be due, or which the court can see upon the statement in the bill ought to be paid, there must be an allegation in the bill conforming to the fact that they have paid, or that they have tendered it; and it is not a sufficient allegation that they are willing to pay or that they will pay it into court, because the state is not to be stayed in its revenue, which is admitted to be due, in that way; and a party claiming that he will not pay his tax, or any portion of it, cannot screen himself during a course of long litigation from paying that which must be paid, and everybody can see must be paid, by setting up a contest over that which is doubtful, and which may or may not eventually, be necessary to be paid.
The result of those observations is, that so far as these cases are concerned in all of them we shall enter an order assuming that the reports of amounts for the roads to be assessed, made by the various county courts shall be assumed for the present, at least, as the lowest assessment which can be made, and we will make an order giving reasonable time to these plaintiffs or petitioners to go and pay the state and counties the tax assessed on that valuation, and the injunction will remain until that time has elapsed. But if the various railroads shall come up
2. As to the Missouri Pacific Company. There is another branch of the subject upon which I ought, perhaps, to say something, but I do not feel inclined to say much. The first is the specific claim set up by the Missouri Pacific Railroad to a total exemption from all county taxation; and, second, to exemption from the present tax, because they claim that the 12th section of the act of December 25, 1852, is a contract as to the mode of levying taxes, which has been violated by the manner in which the taxation is levied on it. In regard, first, to the exemption from county taxation. I have no question at all that there is such exemption, and that the statute meant to say there is an exemption of this Missouri Railroad from all taxation until the road is completed and a dividend declared, or until two years after the road is completed. This, I think, is the intention of that section. Then all powers of rightful taxation revert to the legislature, and after that time has arrived the property becomes liable to county taxation as well as all other taxes. As to the other branch of the subject, I have a little more doubt. But my opinion is, and in that my Brother DILLON concurs, that the provision that the tax shall be assessed by the auditor, upon the report of the president of the board, is merely a provisional mode for the first taxation, because there was no mode existing at that time by which railroad property could be taxed, or was taxed. It was simply a provisional mode to be carried out and executed until that period should come, and it leaves the whole subject of taxation of railroads to the same general principles that govern all taxation. (This view was subsequently sustained by the supreme court. Bailey v. New York Cent & H. R. R. Co., 22 Wall. [80 U. S. 604].)
That disposes of the special claim of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
3. As to the Atlantic and Pacific Company. The Atlantic and Pacific Company maintain in the first place that they have all the rights and privileges of exemption from taxation which the said 12th section of the act of 1S52 conferred on the Missouri Pacific, of which it was part at the time, and that they had not completed their road within the time which allows the tax to be levied at all. On that, part of the subject I have only to say that the case of the Iron Mountain Railroad (Trask v. Maguire, 18 Wall. [85 U. S.] 391), decided by the supreme court of the United States at the last term, settles that question against the Atlantic and Pacific Railway. It settles this, that when the state of Missouri, after all those various sales, resumed the franchise and property of the railroad it held them subject to the constitutional provision which forbids any future exemption from taxation. That disposes of this ease as far as the courts have gone into the subject, and as far as we propose to go at this time,