Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/146/279/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 21:51:29+00:00

Document:
The general rule that a valid grant to a corporation, by a statute of a state, of the right of exemption from state taxation, given without reservation of the right of appeal, is a contract between the state and the corporation protected by the Constitution of the United States against state legislative impairment is not qualified by Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson City, 141 U. S. 679, nor by St. Paul, Minneapolis &c. Railway v. Todd County, 142 U. S. 282.
The surrender of the power of taxation by a state cannot be left to inference or conceded in the presence of doubt, and when the language used admits of reasonable contention, the conclusion is inevitable in favor of the reservation of the power.
The exemption from taxation conferred upon the Wilmington & Raleigh Railroad Company by the Act of January 3, 1834, incorporating it, was not conferred by that act upon the branch roads which the company was thereby authorized to construct.
Exemption from taxation may or may not be a "privilege" within the sense in which that word is used in a statute, and in the act of North Carolina referred to, the word "privileges" does not include such exemption.
The portion of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad which lies between Halifax and Weldon, having been constructed by the Halifax & Weldon Railroad Company, and not under the charter of the Wilmington & Raleigh Railroad Company, is not exempt from state taxation.
The proceedings in Wilmington Railroad v. Reid, 13 Wall. 264, and in the same case in the state courts of North Carolina, do not operate as an estoppel so far as the road from Halifax to Weldon is concerned, nor as controlling authority in the premises.
"for the purpose of receiving subscriptions to an amount not exceeding eight hundred thousand dollars, in shares of one hundred dollars each, to constitute a joint capital stock for the purpose of effecting a communication by a railroad from some point within the Town of Wilmington, or in the immediate neighborhood of the said town, to the City of Raleigh or in the immediate neighborhood of the said city, the route of which road shall be determined on by the company hereby incorporated."
The first twenty sections of the act relate to the main line thus described.
therein shall be exempt from any public charge or tax whatsoever."
"SEC. 21. That the stockholders in general meeting may, if they think fit, resolve to construct a branch or branches to the main road, to be connected with the main road at such point or points as they may determine on, and to lead in such direction, and to such a point or points, as they may think best; and in order that they may do so, the said stockholders are fully authorized to cause books to be opened for subscriptions to the said lateral road or branch of the main road, and the subscribers for stock shall be subject to all the rules previously made by the company, and become members of the company, with this exception only, viz., that the stock subscribed by them shall be faithfully and honestly applied to the construction of that branch of the road for which they subscribed it; but the subscribers for the main road and the branches shall constitute but one company, and their rights of property and estate shall be in common, and not separate, provided, however, that the whole capital of subscribed stock shall not exceed one million of dollars."
"SEC. 22. That all the powers, rights, and privileges conferred by the preceding sections upon the said company in respect to the main road and the lands through which it may pass are hereby declared to extend in every respect to the said company, and the president and directors thereof, in the laying out, in the construction, and in the use and preservation of said lateral or branch roads."
"SEC. 23. That it shall and may be lawful for the said company to construct a branch to the main road as aforesaid, under the restrictions aforesaid, so soon as the main road has reached the point at which the branch road is intended to be joined with the main road; but they shall not under any pretense whatever apply the funds of the company to the construction of a lateral or branch road until the main road is completed, except they be subscriptions specifically made for the branch or lateral road. "
"SEC. 25. That where a branch or lateral road to the main road is shorter than twenty miles, no other person or company shall be authorized and empowered to build a railroad from any point near its termination, so as to intersect with this main road, in order to injure this company."
Section 24 refers to the right to connect or intersect with "said railroad or any of its branches," and these five sections, out of thirty-eight in all, relate to branch roads.
"An act to amend an act passed in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three entitled 'An act to incorporate the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company.'"
"that the stockholders of said company shall and may be at liberty to run the main road from some point within or near the Town of Wilmington to some point in the City of Raleigh, or in the immediate neighborhood thereof, or from Wilmington, or near it, as aforesaid, to some point at or near the River Roanoke in this state at the election of said stockholders, with the view of connecting with the Petersburg and Norfolk railroads; . . . that the said company may be at liberty to lay off and construct any lateral road, under the rules and regulations provided in the aforesaid act, before or after they have completed the main railroad aforesaid; . . . that it shall and may be lawful for the said company to purchase, own, and possess steamboats and other vessels to ply and sail from the port of Wilmington to Charleston or elsewhere, and to take and receive for the use of said company, over and besides the profits allowed in the said original act, such sums of money or other property for freight, passengers, or other accommodation on said boats and vessels as they may be able to make by contracts with their customers, and according to such rates as they may from time to time establish,"
and enlarged the time for commencing the road to three years from January 1, 1836.
"SEC. 2. Upon the subscription of the stock held by the stockholders in the Halifax and Weldon Railroad Company in the books of the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company, all the property, real and personal, owned and held by the Halifax and Weldon Railroad Company shall vest in and be owned and possessed by the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company aforesaid, and be owned and held and possessed by the said company in the same manner that all the other property, real and personal, which has been acquired by the said company is owned, held, and possessed, and the road which may have been built, or partly built, by the Halifax and Weldon Railroad Company, shall thenceforward be deemed, to all intents, as well criminal as civil, a part of the Wilmington and Raleigh road."
under the before recited act of assembly, passed in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, entitled 'An act to incorporate the Halifax and Weldon Railroad Company,' shall cease, and the corporate existence of said company be determined."
The terms of the agreement between the two companies were that the Wilmington Company should receive the assets of the Halifax Company, and pay its debts, and the stockholders in the Halifax Company should be entitled to their respective number of shares of stock in the Wilmington Company.
"in the year 1840, the plaintiff completed the construction of its main road from the Town of Wilmington, through the Town of Halifax, to the Town of Weldon, on the Roanoke River in said state, and thereby connected its main line with the Portsmouth and Norfolk Railroad, and has had the same in use or operation ever since."
"that said scrip shall represent shares in the capital stock of said company as though the said shares had been originally subscribed for by the holders thereof, and the said holders of the scrip thus issued under the provisions of this act shall be members of the said corporation, with the same privileges, rights, and immunities, and subject to the same rules and regulations, as the original stockholders of said company."
By an act approved February 15, 1855, the name of the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad Company was changed to the name of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Company. At the session of 1867 of the General Assembly an act was passed amending the act incorporating the Wilmington Company, which was duly accepted by its stockholders, November 13, 1867. This act provided for the opening of books for subscriptions to any amount deemed necessary, but not to exceed $25,000 per mile, for the construction of any branch to the main line, which stock was to be separate and independent of the stock of the main road, and to be applied exclusively to the branch road for which it was subscribed.
branch was built pursuant to the provisions of the original charter or amendments thereto. That the branch road was operated and managed by the officers of the plaintiff company, and known as the "Scotland Neck Branch of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad." That, in addition to the said Scotland Neck branch, the plaintiff company owned and operated in the same manner the following other branch roads in the state: the Clinton and Warsaw branch, 13 miles in length; the Nashville or Spring Hope branch, 18 miles in length; the Wilson and Fayetteville branch, 73.6 miles in length; the Tarboro branch, 17 miles in length; making a total of 206.6 miles, the main road being 162 miles in length. That the said branch roads, except the Tarboro branch, had been built within the past ten years, and that the plaintiff company also owned other investments in railroads and other properties.
A transcript of the proceedings and judgment roll in the case of Wilmington and Weldon Railroad Co. v. John H. Reid was attached to the findings.
The Railroad Commission of North Carolina, pursuant to the provisions of the Revenue Act of 1891 of that state (Acts 1891, c. 323), assessed for taxation the portion of plaintiff's main road and rolling stock from Halifax to Weldon, being the portion acquired from the Halifax Company and also that part of the Scotland Neck branch in Halifax County, and directed the Commissioners of Halifax County to place the same upon the tax list of the county for the year 1891, which was done by the county commissioners, and taxes were levied by them thereon accordingly. The tax list was duly placed in the hands of the defendant, the sheriff of the county, and he demanded payment of the taxes, which being refused, he threatened to collect the same by distraint.
as to the branch line, but should have also decided the roadbed and rolling stock between Halifax and Weldon to be taxable, and therefore, in that respect, reversed the judgment of that court. Final judgment having been afterwards entered in the superior court in accordance with the opinion and judgment of the supreme court, the case was again taken by plaintiff to the supreme court, and the judgment affirmed, whereupon this writ of error was sued out. The opinions of the supreme court, by Clark, J., which discuss the questions involved in all their aspects, will be found reported in 110 N.C. 137.
The jurisdiction of this Court is questioned upon the ground that the decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina conceded the validity of the contract of exemption contained in the act of 1834, but denied that particular property was embraced by its terms, and that therefore such decision did not involve a federal question.
In arriving at its conclusions, however, the state court gave effect to the revenue law of 1891 and held that the contract did not confer the right of exemption from its operation. If it did, its obligation was impaired by the subsequent law, and, as the inquiry whether it did or not was necessarily directly passed upon, we are of opinion that the writ of error was properly allowed. New Orleans Water Works v. Louisiana Sugar Co., 125 U. S. 18, 125 U. S. 38.
We do not regard Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson City, 141 U. S. 679, and St. Paul, Minneapolis &c. Railway v. Todd County, 142 U. S. 282, cited by defendant in error, as qualifying the rule upon this subject.
interpretation justified the municipal taxation in question and could not be reviewed by us, we declined to maintain jurisdiction.
In St. Paul, Minneapolis &c. Railway Co. v. Todd County, certain lands were considered by the state court as not within the exemption claimed under the revenue law existing at its date.
But in the case in hand, the court passed upon the action of the authorities in virtue of a legislative act approved more than fifty years after the making of the supposed contract, and explicitly upheld the law.
We are obliged, then, to consider the legality of this taxation in respect of the branch road proper and of the road from Halifax to Weldon.
The inquiry is limited to taxation on corporate property only, though the original exemption also covered the shares of the capital stock in the hands of its shareholders. The legislature recognized the distinction between the one class and the other, and if it were conceded that all the shares should be treated as exempt, as contended, in respect of which we are called upon to express no opinion, yet the entire property of the company might or might not be exempt in the light of all the provisions of the charter with its amendments, and the terms of the authority under which it may have been acquired.
The applicable rule is too well settled to require exposition or the citation of authority. The taxing power is essential to the existence of government, and cannot be held to have been relinquished in any instance unless the deliberate purpose of the state to that effect clearly appears. The surrender of a power so vital cannot be left to inference or conceded in the presence of doubt, and when the language used admits of reasonable contention, the conclusion is inevitable in favor of the reservation of the power.
property of said company and the shares therein shall be exempt from any public charge or tax whatsoever."
"that all the powers, rights, and privileges conferred by the preceding sections upon the said company in respect to the main road, and the lands through which it may pass are hereby declared to extend in every respect to the said company, and the president and directors thereof, in the laying out, in the construction, and in the use and preservation of said lateral or branch road."
So far from its plainly appearing from this language that the exemption from taxation was thereby extended to branch roads, it seems to us entirely clear that the words used were words of limitation, and in terms confined the powers, rights, and privileges granted to those relating to the laying out, the construction, the repair, and the operation of the branches.
The powers, rights, and privileges conferred by the preceding sections upon the company in respect to the main road, and the lands through which it might pass, embraced the rights and powers necessary for the laying out, construction, repair, maintenance, and operation of a railroad, including the power of eminent domain in the various forms of its exercise -- in short, the positive rights or privileges, without which the branch roads could not be constructed or successfully worked, but which did not in themselves include immunity from taxation, a privilege having no relation to the laying out, construction, use, or preservation of the road.
from the imposition of any tax or burthen by the states assenting to this law."
In was held that exemption from taxation was not one of the privileges of the Baltimore and Ohio Company which the new company was permitted "to have and use," since the powers and privileges conferred were only such as were necessary to the construction, repair, and use of the railroad. And Railroad Companies v. Gaines, 97 U. S. 697, and Morgan v. Louisiana, 93 U. S. 217, where similar rulings were made, were cited and approved.
"the subscribers for the main road and the branches shall constitute but one company, and their rights of property and estate shall be in common, and not separate,"
(§ 21), do not change the rule, for restrictive words cannot be wrested from their apparent meaning because used in the same charter, and with regard to the creating of certain parts of one system, if those subdivisions as authorized have a separate physical existence, and constitute in themselves a certain class of property. If other companies had been chartered in the language employed in these sections, there could be no question that their property would be liable to taxation, and no reason is perceived for treating these branches as differently situated in this regard.
to the exclusion of restriction. To extend the powers, rights, and privileges of the company existing as to the main road so as to comprehend the branches may, it is true, be said to have enlarged their application, but only in the particulars named and as restricted by the enumeration.
We do not deny that exemption from taxation may be construed as included in the word "privileges" if there are other provisions removing all doubt of the intention of the legislature in that respect, Picard v. East Tennessee &c. Railroad Co., 130 U. S. 637, 130 U. S. 642, but we have none such here.
And in this connection, some further observations may properly be made. As pointed out by the supreme court, the charter, as originally granted, was for the construction of a railroad from Wilmington to Raleigh, a distance of something over one hundred miles, with a capital stock of $800,000, and branches were authorized under the sections referred to, interjected into the body of the act, the capital being, however, limited to $1,000,000. The act of 1835 authorized a change of terminus "to some point at or near the River Roanoke," and an increase of the capital stock to $1,500,000, and the company was also empowered to purchase, own, and possess steamboats and other vessels, to ply from Wilmington to Charleston or elsewhere. The act of 1851 permitted an increase of the capital stock to $2,500,000. These acts contained no exemption of property from taxation, nor did the act of 1867, which authorized the company to open books for subscription to build branch roads to the amount of $25,000 per mile, nor any other amendatory act availed of by the company.
Under the act of 1835, the road was built to Halifax, one hundred and fifty-four miles, and by the acquisition of the Halifax and Weldon Railroad was extended to Weldon, making a distance of one hundred and sixty-two miles. The findings show over two hundred miles in branch roads. Doubtless these, or some of them, might be treated as constituting parts of the main line in fact, but under the charter, that term is applicable to the line from Wilmington to Halifax, or to Weldon, a consideration involved in another aspect of the case.
main line from Wilmington to Raleigh within twelve years" was required, but it is insisted that this limitation had no application to the branches; that as to the main line, its construction was a duty, but as to the branches, their construction was simply licensed, and that under the acts of 1834 and 1835 it was competent for the company at discretion and at any time to construct branches from any point on its main road in any direction and to any point, within the state. None of the branch roads were either commenced or finished within the twelve years. The Tarboro branch, it is said, was built in 1860, and the others, according to the findings, within ten years prior to December, 1891. We find nothing in the record to indicate that if the legislature intended to empower this company to tessellate the state with branch roads, it was designed that they should be exempted from the payment of taxes. Whatever effect the acceptance of the amendments and the delay in building the branches may have had, it is quite clear that their immunity from taxation cannot be successfully asserted under the circumstances.
It remains to examine the case as respects the road from Halifax to Weldon.
Under the amendment of 1835, the Wilmington Company was at liberty to run its main road from Wilmington to Raleigh, or from Wilmington "to some point at or near the River Roanoke."
The supreme court held that Halifax was the point on the Roanoke River which, by election of the company, was made the terminus of the main road as authorized, instead of Raleigh. This followed from the fact that the company only built its road to Halifax under its charter, and that Weldon was reached by the acquisition of the road of the Halifax Company under the act of 1836, passed for that purpose.
under an act of incorporation which did not withdraw the property of the Halifax Company from taxation. The legislature apparently did not consider it necessary to hold out that inducement to the building of a line between Halifax and Weldon, and when, for the benefit of these railroad companies, it authorized the transaction in question, it must be assumed to have done this as a matter of favor, and not upon the consideration of benefit to the public by the creation of what had already been brought into existence without any special release from common burdens.
"owned and held and possessed by the said company in the same manner that all the other property, real and personal, which has been acquired by the said company, is owned, held, and possessed,"
from taxation, which, as we have seen, was confined to the main road alone. The main road built by the Wilmington Company under its charter terminated at Halifax. The prolongation of the line to Weldon was the result of acquisition under another and different act, required to be passed in order to allow this to be done, and not conferring any exemption. As already indicated, if the construction of the main road could be presumed to have been partially induced by the promise of exemption, no such presumption arose from the mere legislative concession of authority to obtain an existing road.
The property acquired was indeed to be owned, held, and possessed by the Wilmington Company in the same manner as its other property, the real estate as in fee simple and the personalty as used and enjoyed, but the way in which property is owned and handled has no necessary relation to an exemption. The branch roads are owned, held, and possessed in the same manner as the main road, but the extent of the exemption is limited by the charter, and that limitation was neither explicitly nor by fair implication removed by the language of the act of 1836.
the Macon Company was intended to go out of existence, for, as said by the Court through Mr. Justice Strong, provision was made for the surrender of all the shares of its capital stock, and without stockholders, it could not exist. The Central Company absorbed the Macon Company, and it ceased to be, just as in the case at bar the merger was to result and did result in the determination of the corporate existence of the Halifax Company.
"In building this extension or branch, the company was placed 'under the rules and restrictions' they were subjected to in building the original road, but that did not necessarily imply an exemption of this line from taxation to the same extent that the old road was exempted. That exemption was only for that road, and, as the amending act does not in terms or by fair implication apply the exemption to the additional road which was to be built under it, we must presume that nothing of the kind was intended, and that the state was left free to tax that road like other property."
We concur with the state court in the conclusions reached, as sustained by reason and authority.
operation of its business, and that the defendant, Reid, sheriff of the county, had seized an engine and tender belonging to the plaintiff in the effort to collect the tax. A demand was made on the county commissioners to correct the tax list in the particular of the levy against the franchise and rolling stock, and subsequently a complaint was filed by the company against the sheriff, the county commissioners not being made parties, setting up that neither the lots nor the franchise or rolling stock were liable to be taxed, because exempt under section 19 of the company's charter. The facts being admitted, judgment was entered sustaining the exemption claimed, and the sheriff was enjoined.
The case was then taken to the supreme court of the state, where it was held that the franchise was liable to taxation, and the order of the superior court was reversed. 64 N.C. 226. To review this judgment a writ of error was sued out from this Court, and it was thereon decided that a statute exempting all the property of a railroad company from taxation exempts not only the rolling stock and real estate owned by it and required by the company for the successful prosecution of its business, but its franchise also, and the judgment of the supreme court was in turn reversed. Wilmington Railroad v. Reid, 13 Wall. 264. These proceedings are relied on as an estoppel so far as the road from Halifax to Weldon is concerned, or as controlling authority in the premises. We think they cannot be so regarded. The causes of action are not identical, and the points or questions actually litigated are not the same. The distinction between the road from Halifax to Weldon and the main road from Wilmington to Halifax was not adverted to, and even if that question might have been raised, this suit being upon a different cause of action, the judgment in the former case cannot operate as determining what might have been, but was not, brought in issue and passed upon. Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351; Nesbit v. Independent District, 144 U. S. 610.
It is quite evident that the former action was simply availed of in order to obtain a decision as to the power to tax the main line, and that no other point was controverted.

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