1. To "maintain" a suit is to uphold, continue on foot, and keep
from collapse a suit already begun. P.
275 U. S.
61.
2. There is no vested right to an injunction against illegal
taxes, and bringing a bill does not create one. P.
275 U. S.
61.
3. In the Act of March 4, 927, amending the Act to provide a
civil government for Porto Rico, the provision that no suit for the
purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax
imposed by the laws of Porto Rico shall be maintained in the
District Court of the United States for Porto Rico applies to suits
which were decided in the district court and circuit court of
appeals before the date of the Act and afterwards brought here by
certiorari, and makes necessary that the decrees, which dismissed
the bills on the merits, be reversed with directions to dismiss for
want of jurisdiction. P.
275 U. S.
61.
4. A court which has been deprived by statute of jurisdiction
over a pending suit to enjoin a tax has no jurisdiction to dispose
of money deposited in the registry by the plaintiff to secure the
tax except to return it to the depositor. P.
275 U. S. 62.
16 F.2d 545 reversed.
Certiorari, 274 U.S. 732, to review a decision of the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the First Circuit which affirmed decrees of
the United States District Court for
Page 275 U. S. 57
Porto Rico dismissing the bills in suits to enjoin collection of
taxes. The decision of the court below is reported
sub nom.
Porto Rico Tax Appeals, 16 F.2d 545.
Page 275 U. S. 60
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court.
These are suits brought in the District Court of the United
States for Porto Rico to restrain the collection of taxes imposed
by the laws of Porto Rico. On January 7, 1927, the circuit court of
appeals affirmed decrees of the district court dismissing the
bills. On March 4, 1927, by c. 503, § 7, of the Act of that
year, Congress provided that § 48 of the Act to provide a
civil government for Porto Rico should be amended to read as
follows:
"Sec. 48. That the Supreme and District Courts of Porto Rico and
the respective judges thereof may grant writs of habeas
Page 275 U. S. 61
corpus in all cases in which the same are grantable by the
judges of the district courts of the United States, and the
district courts may grant writs of mandamus in all proper
cases."
"That no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment of
collection of any tax imposed by the laws of Porto Rico shall be
maintained in the District Court of the United States for Porto
Rico."
44 Stats. 1418, 1421.
Writs of certiorari were granted by this Court on May 16, 1927,
but argument was ordered on the question whether the cases had not
become moot by virtue of that Act.
Apart from a natural inclination to read them more narrowly,
there would seem to be no doubt that the words of the statute
covered these cases. To maintain a suit is to uphold, continue on
foot and keep from collapse a suit already begun. And although the
circuit court of appeals, in
Gallardo v. Porto Rico Ry., Light
& Power Co., 18 F.2d 918, 923, with some color of
authority, has held that the Act does not apply, we cannot accept
that view. To apply the statute to present suits is not to give it
retrospective effect, but to take it literally and to carry out the
policy that it embodies of preventing the island from having its
revenues held up by injunction, a policy no less applicable to
these suits than to those begun at a later day, and a general
policy of our law. Rev.Stat. § 3224. So interpreted the Act as
little interferes with existing rights of the petitioners as it
does with those of future litigants. There is no vested right to an
injunction against collecting illegal taxes, and bringing these
bills did not create one.
Hallowell v. Commons,
239 U. S. 506,
239 U. S. 509.
This statute is not like a provision that no action shall be
brought upon a contract previously valid, which in substance would
take away a vested right if held to govern contracts then in force.
It does not even attempt to validate previously unlawful taxes. It
simply makes it plain that these cases are not excepted from the
well
Page 275 U. S. 62
known general rule against injunctions. It does not leave the
taxpayer without power to resist an unlawful tax, whatever the
difficulties in the way of resisting it.
The sequence of the clause in the amendment after others giving
authority to grant writs of habeas corpus and mandamus shows that
it puts a limit to the power of the court.
See Dodge v.
Osborn, 240 U. S. 118,
240 U. S. 119.
That is a question of construction and common sense.
Fauntleroy
v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230,
210 U. S. 235.
Therefore, when the district court required a deposit in the
registry of a sum to secure payment of the tax in dispute, the
money should be returned, as there is no jurisdiction to dispose of
it otherwise.
Of course, it does not matter that these cases had gone to a
higher court. When the root is cut, the branches fall.
McNulty v.
Batty, 10 How. 72.
As the bills were dismissed upon the merits (with partial
injunction in
Valdes v. Gallardo and
Finlay, Waymouth
& Lee, Inc. v. Gallardo) the decrees should be reversed
and the cases sent back with directions to dismiss for want of
jurisdiction.
Decrees reversed and bills ordered to be dismissed.
Money deposited in court for payment of taxes in case of
adverse decision to be returned.
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND was absent.
