Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/302/90/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:25:38+00:00

Document:
1. The business of a stevedoring corporation, acting as an independent contractor, insofar as it consists of the unloading or discharge of cargoes of vessels engaged in interstate or foreign commerce by longshoremen subject to its own direction and control, is interstate or foreign commerce, and the privilege of doing it cannot be taxed by the State. P. 302 U. S. 92.
2. Insofar as the business of a stevedoring corporation consists of supplying longshoremen to shipowners or masters without directing or controlling the work of loading or unloading, it is not interstate or foreign commerce, but rather a local business, and subject, like such business generally, to taxation by the State. P. 302 U. S. 94.
Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50. A stipulation in the record tells us that any serious interruption in the service of such cargo handlers cripples at once the activities of a port and slows down and obstructs the free and steady flow of commerce. We might take judicial notice of the fact if the stipulation were not here.
The business of loading and unloading being interstate or foreign commerce, the State of Washington is not at liberty to tax the privilege of doing it by exacting in return therefor a percentage of the gross receipts. Decisions to that effect are many and controlling. Philadelphia & Southern S.S. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S. 326, 122 U. S. 341-342; Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S. 640; Galveston H. & S.A. Ry. Co. v. Texas, 210 U. S. 217; Crew Levick Co. v. Pennsylvania, 245 U. S. 292; Matson Navigation Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 297 U. S. 441, 297 U. S. 444; Fisher's Blend Station v. Tax Commission, 297 U. S. 650, 297 U. S. 655. The fact is not important that appellant does business as an independent contractor as long as the business that it does is commerce immune from regulation by the states. What is decisive is the nature of the act, not the person of the actor. An independent contractor undertaking to navigate a vessel would have the same protection as a pilot agreeing to navigate it himself.
in question and those reviewed in McCall v. California, 136 U. S. 104; Texas Transport & Terminal Co. v. New Orleans, 264 U. S. 150, and Di Santo v. Pennsylvania, 273 U. S. 34. The contractors there considered were found to be acting as agents of foreign steamship companies with authority to make contracts binding on the principals and even running in their names. If appellant stands in that relation to the vessels that it serves in this branch of its activities, it has failed to make the fact apparent by the allegations of its bill. The effect of such a showing is not before us now.

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