Court Opinion

ID: 6915570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 22:40:00.64101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:39.066151
License: Public Domain

BRATTON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the Act of August 27, 1935, 49 Stat. 877, 27 U.S.C.A. § 122, each prohibit the transportation or importation of intoxicating liquor into a state in violation of the laws of such state. A state is free to forbid the importation of intoxicating liquor in interstate commerce into its territorial boundaries, or it may enact regulatory provisions for such importation. State Board of Equalization of California v. Young’s Market Co., 299 U.S. 59, 57 S.Ct. 77, 81 L.Ed. 38; Mahoney v. Joseph Triner Corp., 304 U.S. 401, 58 S.Ct. 952, 82 L.Ed. 1424. And exercising its prerogatives in that field, the State of Kansas in 1949 enacted a liquor control act. Chapter 41, General Statutes of Kansas, 1949. The purpose of the act was to regulate and tax the manufacture, sale, possession, and transportation of intoxicating liquor within the state. State v. Larkin, 173 Kan. 112, 244 P.2d 686.
The act imposes a gallonage tax upon intoxicating liquor. Payment of the tax is evidenced by tax stamps or crowns to be affixed to the original package, K.G.S. 1949, § 41-502. It is unlawful for a person to have liquor in his possession without the stamp thereon required by law; but one may possess or transport not to exceed two quarts for the personal use of the possessor, his family, and his guests § 41-407. A common carrier is not per*789mitted to transport into the state liquor upon which the tax has not been paid, except for delivery to manufacturers, dealers, or jobbers who maintain a bonded warehouse within the state § 41-408. And under the act, particularly § 41-407, unstamped liquor is prima facie contraband subject to seizure and confiscation. Therefore it is clear that if the non-tax-paid shipment in question had been consigned to an individual in Kansas outside of the military enclave of Fort Leavenworth it would have been subject to seizure after coming into the state and before being delivered to the consignee.
The shipment in question was moving to a consignee residing within the military enclave of Fort Leavenworth. And, except as modified by statute, the area within the enclave is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. But it is provided by Act of Congress commonly referred to as the Buck Act that no person shall be relieved of liability for payment of, collection of, or accounting for any sales or use tax levied by any state having jurisdiction to levy such tax on the ground that the sale or use, with respect to which such tax is levied, occurred in whole or in part within a Federal area; and that such state shall have full jurisdiction and power to levy and collect any such tax in any Federal area within such state to the same extent and with the same effect as though such area was not within a Federal area. 4 U.S.C.A. § 105. By such act, Congress effected a recession of jurisdiction to the State of Kansas in respect to the laying and collecting of use taxes. With such recession of jurisdiction in effect, the laws of Kansas in respect to the levying and collecting of use taxes upon liquor and in respect to the possession or transportation of liquor upon which the tax has not been paid are in force and effect within the enclave at the fort to the same extent as in other parts of the state. Howard v. Commissioners, 344 U.S. 624, 73 S.Ct. 465, 97 L.Ed 617; Commissioners of Sinking Fund of City of Louisville v. Howard, Ky., 248 S.W.2d 340; Howard v. Commissioners of Sinking Fund, Ky., 249 S.W.2d 816.
The case of Collins v. Yosemite Park and Curry Co., 304 U.S. 518, 58 S.Ct. 1009, 82 L.Ed. 1502, was decided before the enactment of the Buck Act and therefore is without persuasive application here. The case of Johnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co., 321 U.S. 383, 64 S.Ct. 622, 88 L.Ed. 814, was decisively different from this one and does not have the effect of immunizing this shipment of liquor from seizure and confiscation. There, a shipment of liquor was moving from Illinois, through Missouri, into Oklahoma, and thence to a consignee within the military reservation of Fort Sill. But Oklahoma was a dry state. It prohibited the sale of liquor, except for medical purposes. It had no law regulating the taxing or control of liquor within the state. Liquor in Oklahoma was not subject to any state tax. And therefore the Buck Act was completely inapplicable. And the case of Miller Brothers Co. v. State of Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 74 S.Ct. 535, 98 L.Ed. 744, upon which appellee places strong reliance, fails to lend effective support to the judgment of the court below. There, Maryland sought to assert a use tax against a merchant engaged in business in Delaware. Sales of merchandise were made in Delaware to purchasers in Maryland. In some instances, the purchasers received the merchandise at the store in Delaware and transported it into Maryland. And in some instances, the deliveries were made by common carrier. But in all instances, the sales were made at the store in Delaware. It was held that the merchant in Delaware was not liable for the use tax under the law of Maryland. The basis for the holding was that the practical and legal effect of the contention of Maryland was to make the vendor in Delaware liable for a use tax due from the purchaser. Here, Kansas was not asserting a use tax against the carrier. It was engaged in the enforcement of its law in forbidding and making penal the possession and transportation *790of liquor upon which the tax had not been paid.
It is my view that after the truck passed from Missouri into Kansas, the liquor being transported without the stamps or crowns attached to the original containers or packages as required by the law of Kansas became contraband subject to seizure and confiscation.
I would reverse the judgment.