Opinion ID: 1309027
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: fourteenth amendment inquiry

Text: The decision to be made by this court in application of the Wyoming Constitution receives support by analysis of decisions of the United States Supreme Court although our decision could otherwise require consideration under the due-process and equal-protection mandates of the Fourteenth Amendment. [15] State action as reviewed by the federal courts has been denominated by state constitution, statute, and administrative action as used for federal court interpretation (as normally based upon state law definition by the state courts). Wheeling Steel Corporation v. Glander, 337 U.S. 562, 570, 69 S.Ct. 1291, 93 L.Ed. 1544 (1949). Review of federal cases construing state ad valorem taxation makes it apparent that the thrust has fallen into two definable categories, although not generally so stated in opinions. One category involves taxpayer attack on the state constitution or statutory taxation system from a federal constitutional perspective. Included within this category are differentiated assessment approaches or percentage classifications, where authorized or at least not denied by state constitution. [16] The second category of cases, which encompasses discriminatory application of state constitutions and statutes, has developed a subcategory for relief denial based on failure of proof of the discriminatory result. See Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway v. Browning, 310 U.S. 362, 60 S.Ct. 968, 84 L.Ed. 1254 (1940); Rowley v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co., supra, 293 U.S. 102, 55 S.Ct. 55, 79 L.Ed. 222 which originated from railroad taxation efforts by the State of Wyoming, condemned through district court and circuit court consideration, and then reversed by the United States Supreme Court. The principal case of this category establishing the rule and then affording the exception is Sunday Lake Iron Co. v. Township of Wakefield, supra, 247 U.S. 350, 38 S.Ct. 495, 62 L.Ed. 1154, where the court differentiated between mere errors of judgment by taxing officials as insufficient to support a claim of discrimination from something more  something which in effect amounts to an intentional violation of the essential principle of practical uniformity. Id. at 353, 38 S.Ct. at 495. The principal cases reflecting United States Supreme Court attention to equal-protection and due-process attacks charging discrimination arise initially from Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, Nebraska, 260 U.S. 441, 43 S.Ct. 190, 67 L.Ed. 340 (1923), where the railroad property was being taxed 100% of valuation while other properties were taxed at a reduced amount and the objective in proof required upon remand was to establish an intentional violation of the essential principle of practical uniformity. This case was followed by Cumberland Coal Co. v. Board of Revision of Tax Assessments, 284 U.S. 23, 25, 52 S.Ct. 48, 49, 76 L.Ed. 146 (1931), where the court related absence of question that the assessments under review were made pursuant to a deliberately adopted system    not one of mere errors in judgment in following a proper method. Entitlement to equality was required to eliminate the discrimination as repugnant to the constitutional right for equal protection. Generally, in the railroad cases where egregious discrimination was obviously emplaced by state agencies and legislatures, judicial failure to find an adequate remedy came to require congressional intervention. See Burlington Northern Railway Co. v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, ___ U.S. ___, 107 S.Ct. 1855, 95 L.Ed.2d 404 (1987), as applying the commerce clause to state taxation of interstate railroad property. Earlier, the United States Supreme Court in Greene v. Louisville & Interurban R. Co., 244 U.S. 499, 37 S.Ct. 673, 61 L.Ed. 1280 (1917), and the two opinions that followed, Louisville & Nashville Railway Co. v. Greene, 244 U.S. 522, 37 S.Ct. 683, 61 L.Ed. 1291 (1917), and Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Greene, 244 U.S. 555, 37 S.Ct. 697, 61 L.Ed. 1309 (1917), validated the unequal application of state taxation to protesting railroads. See also Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U.S. 20, 28 S.Ct. 7, 52 L.Ed. 78 (1907). Conversely, in the two most recent cases, Hillsborough Township v. Cromwell, 326 U.S. 620, 66 S.Ct. 445, 90 L.Ed. 358 (1946), and Wheeling Steel Corporation v. Glander, supra, the United States Supreme Court, after it determined that no state remedy was available to adequately protect the taxpayers' rights under the federal constitution, fashioned a federal-court-imposed judicial remedy: The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual from state action which selects him out for discriminatory treatment by subjecting him to taxes not imposed on others of the same class. The right is the right to equal treatment. He may not complain if equality is achieved by increasing the same taxes of other members of the class to the level of his own. The constitutional requirement, however, is not satisfied if a State does not itself remove the discrimination, but imposes on him against whom the discrimination has been directed the burden of seeking an upward revision of the taxes of other members of the class. Hillsborough Township v. Cromwell, supra, 326 U.S. at 623, 66 S.Ct. at 448. Under this Hillsborough rule, in Wyoming there would be only the one class by virtue of the explicit constitutional requirement of equality. Finally, in Wheeling Steel, the taxpayer attacked an Ohio ad valorem tax on intangible property assets owned by a foreign corporation. The Supreme Court found that the obvious discrimination violated the equal-protection criteria of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Weissinger v. Boswell, 330 F. Supp. 615 (M.D.Ala. 1971), where systematic discrimination was found from nonuniformity to violate both the Alabama Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Similarly directed, although raising congressional action against discriminatory taxation for railroads under the commerce clause, we find Burlington Northern Railway v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, supra, where assessment ratios or taxation rates imposed on railroad property which differ significantly from ratios or rates imposed on other commercial or industrial property are prohibited as burdens on interstate commerce. Cf. Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 1076, 51 L.Ed.2d 326, reh. denied 430 U.S. 976, 97 S.Ct. 1669, 52 L.Ed.2d 371 (1977), another commerce-clause case as distinguished from due-process and equal-protection constraints objections, where the ratio is not attacked, but rather the basic delineation of market value.