Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/327/573.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 19:39:19+00:00

Document:
Messrs.C. C. Parsons, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Charles A. Horsky, of Washington, D.C., for petitioners. [327 U.S. 573, 574] Messrs.Arthur H. Nielsen and Zar E. Hayes, both of Salt Lake City, Utah, for respondents.
Whether Utah has submitted itself to suit in the United States District Court for the District of Utah for the recovery of taxes alleged to be wrongfully exacted by that state is the ultimate issue brought here by these writs of certiorari. Preliminarily, we must decide if the present proceeding is a suit against Utah.
The causes present identical questions. They were consolidated for trial in the District Court and separate judgments were entered for plaintiffs against the 'State Tax Commission, et al.' for the amounts claimed. 60 F.Supp. 181. Separate appeals were perfected to the Circuit Court of Appeals. The cases were there briefed, argued and decided together but with separate judgments reversing the District Court with directions to dismiss without prejudice since it was a suit against the state without its consent. State Tax Commission v. Kennecott Copper Corp., 10 Cir., 150 F.2d 905. On account of the importance of the issues, we granted certiorari to determine whether the basis of the decisions in Great Northern L. Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47 , 64 S.Ct. 873, and Ford Motor Co. v. Department of [327 U.S. 573, 576] Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459 , 65 of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459 , 65 S.Ct. 347, encompassed the circumstances of these cases. A single opinion suffices here also.
Federal jurisdiction is claimed under diversity of citizenship and because the controversy arises under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The claim is that the inclusion of the subsidy in the tax base interferes with the War Power of Congress and the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C. 901, 902(e), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix 901, 902(e), by taxing the subsidy on surplus production over fixed quotas with the result that a part of the subsidy was diverted from its sole purpose of insuring the maximum necessary production. See Revenue Act of 1942, 209, 735, 56 Stat. 904-907, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev. Acts.
As we conclude that these suits are suits against Utah and that Utah has not consented to be sued for these alleged wrongful tax exactions in the federal courts, we express no opinion upon the merits of the controversy.
This is a suit against the state. Utah has established an adequate procedure for the recovery of taxes illegally collected. When the state collects a tax under protost, the money is segregated and held for the determination of the taxpayers' rights with provision for any deficiency for interest or costs to be paid by the state. 2 The Mining Occu- [327 U.S. 573, 577] pation Tax makes the State Tax Commission the state agency for administration and collection of the Utah tax. The petitioners paid their taxes to the Commission under protest and brought these actions to recover the contested portion.
Petitioners alleged compliance with the act's requirements for reports, assessments and administrative remedies with payment under protest of the controverted sums for Utah to the 'State Tax Commission' only. The Commission, lone, is charged to have 'exacted final payment' and to have acquiesced in plaintiffs' demand in accordance with statutory requirements to show payment and protest on the Commission's books with resultant segregation of the funds collected from Utah's general funds.
As the suits were against the Commission and the members as 'constituting' such Commission, were based upon the payment to the Commission as collector for Utah and sought recovery of the fund, sequestered by section 80-11-13, together with the interest and costs therein provided for, we are satisfied these are suits against Utah. Mine Safety Appliances Co. v. Forrestal, 326 U.S. 371 , 66 S.Ct. 219; Great Northern L. Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 51 , 64 S.Ct. 873, 875; Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 462 , 65 S.Ct. 347, 350.
Upon the question of the consent of Utah to suit against itself in the federal courts for controversies arising under the Federal Constitution, little needs to be added to our discussion in the Read and Ford cases. Those cases declare the rule that clear declaration of a state's consent to suit against itself in the federal court on fiscal claims is required. The reason underlying the rule, which is discussed at length in the Read and Ford cases, is the right of a state to reserve for its courts the primary consideration and decision of its own tax litigation because of the direct impact of such litigation upon its finances.
For these reasons petitioners contend that the Utah statutes indicate an intention to permit suits against the state in federal courts. Furthermore, petitioners find significance in variations between the state statutes in the Read case and the Ford case on one hand and the Utah statutes on the other. Petitioners show that we place reliance in both cases on the procedural requirements of the respective statutes of Oklahoma and Indiana. 5 We said in those cases that since state laws could not affect procedure in federal courts, it was to be inferred that only state courts were included in the states' consent to suit. [327 U.S. 573, 579] The basis for inference advanced by petitioners might logically lead to a conclusion that Utah intended to submit the interpretati n of its tax statutes to federal trial courts where the controversies arise under federal law. On the other hand, it may be cogently argued that the practice of treating the federal courts as courts of competent jurisdiction under section 80-11-11 before the addition of the state as a possible defendant resulted from the fact that consent was not necessary for suits against counties and municipalities. 6 It could be urged that grants of jurisdiction to courts of competent jurisdiction by federal legislation for the benefit of litigants other than the United States are not persuasive as to the intent of a state to consent to suits in federal courts. 7 We are informed that Utah employs explicit language to indicate, in other litigation, its consent to suits in federal courts. 8 It is to be noted that the cases under consideration illustrate the disadvantage of deducing from equivocal language a state's consent to suit in the federal courts on causes of action arising under state tax statutes. The disadvantage referred to is that, if the merits were to be passed upon, the initial interpretation of the meaning and application of a state statute would have to be made by a federal court without a previous authoritative interpretation of the statute by the highest court of the state. See Spector Motor Service, Inc., v. McLaughlin, 323 U.S. 101 , 103- 105, 65 S.Ct. 152, 153, 154.
We conclude that the Utah statutes fall short of the clear declaration by a state of its consent to be sued in [327 U.S. 573, 580] the federal courts which we think is required before federal courts should undertake adjudication of the claims of taxpayers against a state.
The CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER dissenting, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BURTON concur.
Even while the Civil War was raging Lincoln deemed it important to ask Congress to authorize the Court of Claims to render judgments against the Government. He did so on the score of public morality. 'It is,' wrote Lincoln in his First Annual Message, 'as much the duty of Government to render prompt justice against itself in favor of citizens as it is to administer the same between private individuals. The investigation and adjudication of claims in their nature belong to the judicial department.' 7 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 3245, 3252. Both the United States and the States are immune from suit unless they agree to be sued. Though this immunity from suit without consent is embodied in the Constitution, it is an anachronistic survival of monarchical privilege, and runs counter to democratic notions of the moral responsibility of the State.
Not so long ago this Court acted on the realization that 'the present climate of opinion ... has brought governmental immunity from suit into disfavor.' Keifer & Keifer v. R.F.C., 306 U.S. 381, 391 , 59 S.Ct. 516, 519. Today the Court treats governmental immunity from suit as though it were a principle of justice which must be safeguarded even to the point of giving a State's authorization to be sued the most strained construction, whereby a federal court sitting in Utah is made to appear not a 'court of competent jurisdiction.' Thus, while during the last seventy-five years, governmental immunity from suit, as a doctrine without [327 U.S. 573, 581] moral validity, has been progressively contracted, the Court now takes a backward step by enhancing a discredited doctrine through artificial construction.
A State may of course limit its consent to suit in its own courts. It may do so by explicit language or by implication through procedural requirements and restrictions which could not be satisfied by a federal court sitting in the State. Such were the grounds of the recent decisions in Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47 , 64 S.Ct. 873, and Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459 , 65 S.Ct. 347. These decisions, as the Court concedes, relied on procedural requirements of the respective statutes of Oklahoma and Indiana which the federal courts in these States could not meet. Therefore, those statutes impliedly granted the State's consent to be sued only in the State courts, for only these could meet the State's procedural requirements.
Utah made no restriction on the right to sue. The statute giving consent to suit merely requires the court in which suit may be brought to be a 'court of competent jurisdiction.' That the District Court for the district of [327 U.S. 573, 582] Utah is otherwise a 'court of competent jurisdiction' is not gainsaid. How could the State include the United States District Court in its consent to be sued in a 'court of competent jurisdiction' short of stating explicitly that a 'court of competent jurisdiction' shall include the federal courts' The opinion does not say that nothing short of such specific authorization to sue in the federal court gives the State's consent to be sued there. But if such a formal requirement be the meaning of the present decision, it runs counter to a long course of adjudication and pays undue obeisance to a doctrine, that of governmental immunity from suit, which, whatever claims it may have, does not have the support of any principle of justice.
[ Footnote 3 ] These examples of suits in federal courts were cited: Bassett v. Utah Copper Co., 8 Cir., 219 F. 811 (Section 80-11-11 was then Section 2684); South Utah Mines & Smelters v. Beaver County, 262 U.S. 325 , 43 S.Ct. 577 (Section 2684); Salt Lake County v. Utah Copper Co., 8 Cir., 294 F. 199; Beaver County v. South Utah Mines & Smelters, 8 Cir., 17 F.2d 577.
[ Footnote 4 ] Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U.S. 505, 506 , 20 S.Ct. 726.
[ Footnote 5 ] Great Northern L. Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. at page 55, 64 S.Ct. at page 877; Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. at pages 465, 466, 65 S.Ct. at pages 351, 352.
[ Footnote 6 ] Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U.S. 529 , 10 S.Ct. 363; Chicot County v. Sherwood, 148 U.S. 529 , 13 S.Ct. 695. See Hopkins v. Clemson College, 221 U.S. 636 , 31 S.Ct. 654, 35 L. R.A.,N.S., 243.
[ Footnote 7 ] Compare State of Minnesota v. United States, 305 U.S. 382, 389 , 59 S.Ct. 292, 295.

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