Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/114/317/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 04:21:31+00:00

Document:
The 16th clause of § 629 Rev.Stat., authorizing suits, without reference to the sum or value in controversy or the citizenship of the parties, to be brought in the circuit courts of the United States to redress the deprivation, under color of state law, of any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States in violation of § 1979 Rev.Stat., does not embrace an action of trespass on the case in which the plaintiff seeks a recovery of damages against a tax collector in Virginia, who, having rejected a tender of tax receivable coupons, issued under the Act of March 30, 1871, seeks to collect the tax for which they were tendered by a seizure and sale of personal property of the plaintiff.
Although the right to have such coupons received in payment of taxes is founded on a contract with the state, and that right is protected by the Constitution of the United States, Art. I, Sec. 10, forbidding the state to pass any laws impairing the obligation of the contract, the only mode of redress in case of any disturbance or dispossession of property, or for other legal rights based on such violation of the contract, is to have a judicial determination, in a suit between individuals, of the invalidity of the law under color of which the wrong has been committed. No direct action for the denial or the right secured by the contract will lie.
"Samuel S. Carter, plaintiff, complains of Samuel C. Greenhow, defendant, of a plea of trespass on the case, for that the said plaintiff is a citizen of the State of Virginia and a resident of the City of Richmond, in said state. That the plaintiff owns property in said city, and that he was lawfully assessed on said property by the officers of the State of Virginia, whose duty it was under the laws of Virginia to make such assessment, with taxes to be paid to the State of Virginia for the year 1882, and that said taxes were due and leviable for, on, and after the first day of December, 1882."
two last-mentioned acts of the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, and the other mentioned statutes of said state, commanding the defendant to levy so as aforesaid upon the property of the plaintiff, are repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and are therefore void. That in refusing to receive the said coupons and money in payment of said taxes and in levying on and seizing the plaintiff's property for said taxes after the plaintiff had tendered the same in payment thereof, the defendant deprived the plaintiff of a right secured to him by the Constitution of the United States under color of statutes enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, to the damage of the plaintiff two hundred dollars ($200), and therefore he brings this suit."
To this declaration a general demurrer was filed and sustained, and judgment rendered accordingly for the defendant. To reverse that judgment the present writ of error is prosecuted.
"of all suits authorized by law to be brought by any person to redress the deprivation, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any state, of any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States, or of any right secured by any law providing for equal rights of citizens of the United States, or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States."
Similar jurisdiction is conferred upon district courts by the twelfth clause of § 563, Rev.Stat.
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any state or territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States, or other person within the jurisdiction thereof, to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
"such proceeding to be prosecuted in the several district or circuit courts of the United States with and subject to the same rights of appeal, review upon error, and other remedies provided in like cases in such courts, under the provisions of the act of the ninth of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, entitled 'An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication,' and the other remedial laws of the United States which are in their nature applicable in such cases."
"That any person, who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any state or territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time, been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court."
The question presented in this record is whether the facts stated in the plaintiff's declaration constitute a cause of action within the terms of § 1979 Rev.Stat. -- that is, whether he shows himself, within its meaning, to have been subjected by the defendant, under cover of a statute of a state, to the deprivation of a right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution.
The acts charged against the defendant are that he refused to receive from the plaintiff the coupons tendered in payment of taxes, and thereafter proceeded to levy upon and take his property for the purpose of collecting such taxes in money.
The rights alleged to be violated are the right to pay taxes in coupons instead of in money, and after a tender of coupons, the immunity from further proceeding to collect such taxes as though they were delinquent. These rights the plaintiff derives from the contract with the state contained in the Act of March 28, 1879, and the bonds and coupons issued under its authority.
Constitution and laws of the United States where the sum or value in dispute exceeds $500. Congress has provided no other remedy for the enforcement of this right.
It might be difficult to enumerate the several descriptions of rights secured to individuals by the Constitution the deprivation of which by any person would subject the latter to an action for redress under § 1979, Rev.Stat., and fortunately it is not necessary to do so in this case. It is sufficient to say that the declaration now before us does not show a cause of action within its terms.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, with whom were THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE MILLER, and MR. JUSTICE GRAY, concurred in the judgment, but rested their concurrence upon the grounds stated in their opinion post, p. 114 U. S. 330, after the opinion of the Court in Marye v. Parsons.

References: § 629
 § 1979
 § 563
 § 1979
 § 1979
 v.