Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/283/96/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:21:41+00:00

Document:
1. The protection of the Fourteenth Amendment against state action is only for the benefit of those who are injured through the invasions of personal or property rights, or through the discriminations, which the Amendment forbids. The constitutional guaranty does not extend to the mere interest of an official, as such, who has not been deprived of his property without due process of law or denied the equal protection of the laws. P. 283 U. S. 99.
So held where a state official, suing a railway company in the state court to collect a tax, which had been reduced by an amendatory law relied on by the company, attacked the amendment upon the ground that the bill therefor had not been published as required by the state constitution, and where the state supreme court, ignoring that contention, adjudged the amendment invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
2. In taxing railroad within a levee district upon the mileage basis, it is not necessarily arbitrary and contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to fix a lower rate per mile for those having less than twenty-five miles of main line within the district than for those that have more. P. 283 U. S. 100.
Appeal and certiorari, 282 U.S. 825, to review a judgment recovered by the present respondent in his suit to collect a tax. See also 154 Miss. 317; 122 So. 366.
"arbitrary and unreasonable, and therefore in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution."
154 Miss. 317, 122 So. 366, 367.
The railway company then pleaded that it was not indebted, and gave notice that it would undertake to show that the classification of the Act of 1926 was valid, and, further, that the statute laying the tax demanded by the plaintiff, that is, the Act of 1914, was itself unreasonable and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Upon the trial, evidence offered by the defendant in support of these allegations was received subject to objection which the circuit court finally sustained, and judgment was entered for the amount of the tax on the basis of $350 a mile. This judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the state in the view that the case was ruled by its previous opinion, and that the excluded evidence, if competent, could not have changed the result. 127 So. 784.
An appeal was taken to this Court, and a motion to dismiss or affirm was postponed to the hearing on the merits. At the same time, this Court granted a writ of certiorari. 282 U.S. 825.
That part of the State of Mississippi known as the Mississippi Delta is divided into two districts, the Mississippi Levee District and the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee District, to the end that each district may maintain the levees necessary to protect the lands within it. The Mississippi Levee District, created in 1865, comprises the southern part of the Delta. It is said that four methods of taxation are used to maintain this district -- an acreage tax, a cotton tax, an ad valorem tax on property gnerally, and a mileage tax on railroad companies which it appears is in lieu of the ad valorem tax. Miller v. Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Co., 160 Miss. ___, 132 So. 597.
"Provided further that the tax per mile per annum on the main line of any railroad company which does not own in excess of twenty-five miles of railroad in the Mississippi levee district shall be $50.00 per annum."
The supreme court of the state, holding that this proviso was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment, did not deem it necessary to decide, whether this ruling invalidated merely the proviso or the entire Act of 1926, as in either event the tax to be paid would be the same.
taxes the railroad of the petitioner within the levee district at $1,000 a mile, and that of the other railroad at $32,000 a mile, and, further, that in the classification of railroads by the state railroad commission for the purpose of levying a privilege tax, the petitioner was placed with respect to its main line in class three and the other railroad in class one.
"Whether the classification shall be according to the amount of passengers and freight carried, or of gross or net earnings, during a previous year, or according to the simpler and more constant test of the length of the line of the railroad is a matter within the discretion of the legislature."
fifty miles in length (New York, New Haven & Hartford R. Co. v. New York, 165 U. S. 628, 165 U. S. 633-634), and statutes requiring a minimum number of men in train crews but not applying to railroads of less than a stated mileage (Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 219 U. S. 453; St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 240 U. S. 518). See, also Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, 243 U. S. 354.
As we find no ground for holding the Act of 1926 to be invalid under the Federal Constitution, it is unnecessary to consider the questions discussed in relation to the Act of 1914.
Smith v. Indiana, 191 U. S. 138, 191 U. S. 148; Huntington v. Worthen, 120 U. S. 97, 120 U. S. 101; Stewart v. Kansas City, 239 U. S. 14, 239 U. S. 16.
Clark v. Kansas City, 176 U. S. 114, 176 U. S. 118; Standard Stock Co. v. Wright, 225 U. S. 540, 225 U. S. 550; Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 262 U. S. 488; Roberts & Schaefer Co. v. Emmerson, 271 U. S. 50, 271 U. S. 54-55; Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Burley Tobacco Growers' Assn., 276 U. S. 71, 276 U. S. 88.
Smith v. Indiana, supra; Braxton County Court v. West Virginia, 208 U. S. 192, 208 U. S. 197-198; Marshall v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250, 231 U. S. 257; Stewart v. Kansas City, supra.
Bell's Gap Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 134 U. S. 237; Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146, 281 U. S. 159.

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