Cars of the Union Refrigerator Transit Company, a corporation of
Kentucky, engaged in furnishing to shippers refrigerator cars for
the transportation of perishable freight, and which were employed
in the State of Utah for that purpose, were subject to taxation by
that state.
The Union Refrigerator Transit Company filed its bill in the
District Court in and for Salt Lake County, Utah, against Stephen
H. Lynch, Treasurer of Salt Lake County and collector of taxes
therein, alleging:
"That it is and was during all the times hereinafter mentioned a
corporation duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the
laws of the Kentucky; that its principal office and place of
business is in the City of Louisville, in said state, and was and
is engaged exclusively in the business of furnishing to shippers
refrigerator cars for the transportation of perishable freight over
the various lines of railroads throughout the United States and of
soliciting shipments for such cars and giving to the said cars
needful attention at various points in transit; that the said cars
are and were during the said times the sole property of the
plaintiff, and are not and were not during any of the said time
allotted,
Page 177 U. S. 150
leased, rented, or furnished under contract to any railroad
company or companies or carriers of freight, nor were they run on
any particular line or lines of railroad, nor were they confined to
any particular route or routes, nor in any particular trains, nor
at any specified or agreed times, but are and were run
indiscriminately over the lines of railroad over which consignors
of freight shipped in such cars choose to route them in
shipping."
The plaintiff further alleges that the business in which said
cars, including the cars hereinbefore mentioned, are and were
during the said times engaged was exclusively interstate commerce
business, being confined to interchange and transportation of
perishable products of the various parts of the United States from
points in some of said states to points in others of the said
states, that plaintiff has not now and has not had any office or
place of business within the State of Utah, and that all freight
transported in plaintiff's cars in or through the State of Utah,
including the cars hereinafter mentioned, was transported in said
cars either from a point or points in a state of the United States
outside of the State of Utah to a point or points within the State
of Utah or from a point or points within the State of Utah to a
point or points without the State of Utah, or between points
neither of which were within the State of Utah, and that said cars
were within the said State of Utah at no regular intervals nor in
any regular number, and when in said State of Utah were only within
it in transit, except to load or unload freight shipped from within
out of said state or coming into said state from without the same
or in the transportation of freight entirely through or across said
state, and at such times the said cars were only transiently
present for the said purposes, and not otherwise.
And plaintiff further alleges that said cars do not and did not
abide, nor have they at any time had any situs, within the said
State of Utah, nor has this plaintiff, nor has it heretofore at any
time had, other property of any description whatsoever located
within the State of Utah.
And plaintiff alleges that its cars so used as hereinbefore
stated, and not otherwise, are not subject to tax within the said
state for any purpose whatsoever.
Page 177 U. S. 151
That, notwithstanding the aforesaid facts, the State Board of
Equalization of the State of Utah unlawfully and wrongfully on the
14th day of August, 1897, assessed and valued, of the property of
the plaintiff, ten cars of the aggregate assessment of $2,600, for
all purposes of county and state taxation for the year 1897, and
thereafter wrongfully and unlawfully apportioned the said
assessment to the several counties in the said State of Utah
through which lines of railway pass and over which the said cars
might pass or be transported, that, among the counties to which
said apportionment was made was the County of Salt Lake, and there
was by the said board apportioned to said County of Salt Lake of
the said assessment the sum of $210.
That the taxes levied upon the said property so assessed and
apportioned to Salt Lake county for state, state school, county,
city, and city school taxes amounted to the sum of $5.76; that the
said tax was and is by reason of the aforesaid facts illegal and
void.
Plaintiff then averred the payment of the tax under written
protest, claiming the tax to be illegal, in order to avoid the
seizure and sale of its property and to prevent incurring the
penalties provided by law, and prayed judgment for the sum of $5.76
and interest, and for costs. Defendant filed a general demurrer to
the complaint, which was sustained, and, plaintiff electing not to
amend but to stand on its complaint, judgment of dismissal, with
costs, was entered. The cause was then taken to the Supreme Court
of Utah and the judgment affirmed. 18 Utah 378. Thereupon this writ
of error was allowed by the chief justice of that court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE Fuller delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Constitution of the State of Utah provided that:
"All
Page 177 U. S. 152
property in the state not exempt under the laws of the United
States or under this Constitution shall be taxed in proportion to
its value, to be ascertained as provided by law,"
and that:
"All corporations or persons in this state, or doing business
herein, shall be subject to taxation for state, county, school,
municipal, or other purposes, on the real and personal property
owned or used by them within the territorial limits of the
authority levying the tax."
Constitution, Art. 13, §§ 2, 10.
Some question was raised in the Supreme Court of Utah as to the
proper construction and scope of the state statutes in respect of
taxation, but the court held that, by those laws all property owned
or used by railway, car, telephone, telegraph, and other companies,
within the territorial limits of the state, was subjected to
taxation according to its value, regardless of the domicil of its
owner.
The contention on this writ of error is that the taxation of the
ten cars of plaintiff in error was forbidden by the Constitution of
the United States because they had no situs for that purpose in the
State of Utah, and the tax imposed a burden on interstate
commerce.
In
American Refrigerator Transit Company v. Hall,
174 U. S. 70,
quotations were made from the opinions in
Pullman's Palace Car
Company v. Pennsylvania, 141 U. S. 30;
Adams Express Company v. Ohio State Auditor, 165 U.
S. 194, and
Adams Express Company v. Ohio State
Auditor, 166 U. S. 185, and
the conclusion of the Court was thus expressed:
"It having been settled, as we have seen, that where a
corporation of one state brings into another, to use and employ, a
portion of its movable personal property, it is legitimate for the
latter to impose upon such property, thus used and employed, its
fair share of the burdens of taxation imposed upon similar property
used in like way by its own citizens, we think that such a tax may
be properly assessed and collected, in cases like the present,
where the specific and individual items of property so used and
employed were not continuously the same, but were constantly
changing, according to the exigencies of the business, and that the
tax may be fixed by an appraisement and valuation of the average
amount of the property thus habitually used and employed. Nor would
the fact that such
Page 177 U. S. 153
cars were employed as vehicles of transportation in the
interchange of interstate commerce render their taxation
valid."
The case before us involves the taxation by the State of Utah of
certain cars belonging to a corporation of Kentucky; the case cited
involved the taxation by the State of Colorado of certain cars
belonging to a corporation of Illinois, and if this case comes
within the rule laid down in that case, nothing further need be
said.
In that case, the facts were stipulated, and it appeared that
the American Refrigerator Transit Company was a corporation duly
organized and existing by virtue of the laws of the State of
Illinois, with its principal office in the City of East St. Louis
in said state; that it was engaged in the business of furnishing
refrigerator cars for the transportation of perishable products
over the various lines of railroads in the United States; that
these cars were the sole and exclusive property of the plaintiff,
and that the plaintiff furnished the same to be run
indiscriminately over any lines of railroad over which shippers on
said railroads might desire to route them in shipping, and
furnished the same for the transportation of perishable freight
upon the direct request of shippers or of railroad companies
requesting the same on behalf of shippers, but on the
responsibility of the carrier, and not of the shipper, and
plaintiff had not and never had had any contract of any kind
whatsoever by which its cars were leased or allotted to or by which
it agreed to furnish its cars to any railroad company operating
within the State of Colorado; that it had and had had during said
times no office or place of business nor other property than its
cars within the State of Colorado, and that all the freight
transported in plaintiff's cars in or through the State of
Colorado, including the cars assessed, was transported in such cars
either from a point or points of the United States outside of the
State of Colorado to a point in the State of Colorado or from a
point in the State of Colorado to a point outside of said state or
between points wholly outside of said State of Colorado, and said
cars never were run in said state in fixed numbers nor at regular
times, nor as a regular part of particular trains, nor were any
certain cars ever in the State of Colorado, except as engaged
in
Page 177 U. S. 154
such business aforesaid, and then only transiently present in
said state for such purposes.
All these matters were set up,
mutatis mutandis, in the
complaint in this case in substantially the same language employed
in setting forth the facts in that case. But it was also there
stipulated:
"That the average number of cars of the plaintiff used in the
course of the business aforesaid within the State of Colorado
during the year for which such assessment was made would equal
forty, and that the cash value of plaintiff's cars exceeds the sum
of $250 per car, and that, if such property of the plaintiff is
assessable and taxable within such State of Colorado, then the
amount for which such cars, the property of the plaintiff, is
assessed by said State Board of Equalization is just and
reasonable, and not in excess of the value placed upon other like
property within said state for the purposes of taxation."
The complaint in this case contained no averment as to the
average number of cars of plaintiff in error used in the State of
Utah, but it did show that the company was doing business in Utah
in the year for which the tax in question was levied, and that it
was running its cars into and through the state, using, employing,
and caring for them there for profit, in the same manner as the
cars in that case, and it was not alleged that the assessment by
the State Board of Equalization was unreasonable, or unjust, or in
excess of the valuation of other like property for taxation, or
that the method of apportionment was erroneous. The presumption is
that the action of the taxing officers was correct and regular, and
that the number of cars assessed by the State Board of Equalization
was the average number used and employed by plaintiff in error in
the State of Utah during 1897.
The objection is not that too many cars were assessed, or that
they were assessed too much, or in an improper manner, even if we
could consider such questions, but simply that they could not be
taxed at all. And this objection was considered and overruled in
the case to which we have referred.
Judgment affirmed.
Page 177 U. S. 155
MR. JUSTICE WHITE did not hear the argument, and took no part in
the consideration and disposition of this case.
