Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/393/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:57:04+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 261 › Hallanan v. Eureka Pipe Line Co.
A mandate from this Court reversing a judgment of a state court sustaining a tax here found to have been imposed partly on interstate commerce leaves the state court free to determine the purely state question whether the statute under which the tax was imposed is separable, so that the tax may be sustained in that part which affects only intrastate commerce. P. 261 U. S. 397.
Petition for certiorari (No. 569) denied.
Writ of error (No. 885) dismissed.
entered after the reversal of the same case by this Court in Eureka Pipe Line Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 265.
This is an effort by writ of error, and, if that is inappropriate for the purpose, by an application for a writ of certiorari, to review the action of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in the judgment which it entered in avowed and attempted compliance with the judgment of this Court in the case on writ of error sub nomine Eureka Pipe Line Co. v. Hallanan, 257 U. S. 265. It is contended by the state authorities seeking review here that the Supreme Court of Appeals did not enter the judgment required by our mandate, and that we should in some appropriate way direct that court specifically what judgment it should enter.
A summary of the litigation must needs be made in order that the controversy may be understood and decided.
"If it can be contended that the tax affects this particular, oil it is only incidental to the like tax imposed upon the whole body of oil transported. It is plain the legislature did not mean to distinguish as between the two classes of oil, for the act makes no attempt at a division. We are not able to say from an inspection of the act whether or not the legislature would have imposed the tax upon the privilege of handling this intrastate oil alone, had it been exempting the balance of the oil when framing the law, as we think it should have done. Whether it would have made the tax applicable to the West Virginia oil alone, no one can say, and this we understand to be the test of whether or not the act is divisible. Eckhart v. State, 5 W.Va. 515; Robertson v. Preston, 97 Va. 296; Trimble v. Com., 96 Va. 818."
Accordingly, the circuit court held the whole act bad and granted an injunction against enforcing it against the pipeline "in any respect."
it did not apply to transport of oil in interstate commerce. It held, however, that oil originating in West Virginia, a large part of which was ultimately carried out of the state, but the destination of which was undetermined because its owners might withdraw it from the line at any point within the state, was intrastate commerce, and was a proper basis for the privilege tax under the law. Accordingly, insofar as the decree of the circuit court enjoined collection of a privilege tax measured by intrastate commerce in oil as thus determined, it was reversed. In this Court, it was held that oil produced in West Virginia and constituting in fact a stream of oil flowing out of the state was interstate commerce, even though those who delivered the oil to the company for transportation might have diverted it from the interstate commerce stream, and though in comparatively small quantities some oil was thus diverted.
"Upon an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County pronounced on the 8th day of September, 1920."
"The court, having maturely considered the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States filed and entered of record in this cause and the record of the decree aforesaid, is of opinion that there is no error in said decree. It is therefore adjudged, ordered, and decreed that the decree of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County pronounced in this cause on the 8th day of September, 1920, be, and the same is, hereby affirmed."
"But all the oil of the same grade was mixed, regardless of source, and, of the Pennsylvania grade, only 1,239,099.55 barrels were used in West Virginia. It is admitted that the tax may be levied in respect of the last item, but the question before us is whether the tax can be laid upon the whole product of the state upon which was imposed the gathering charge."
not infer that the legislature would have enacted the law at all. Accordingly, it affirmed the decree of that court, as it had full power to do.
The application for the writ of certiorari is denied, and the writ of error is dismissed.

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