Court Opinion

ID: 9416549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:49:13.10097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:29.402797
License: Public Domain

■Mr. Justice CURTIS.
I dissent from the judgment of the majority of the court in this case. I consider the twenty-fifth section of the charter of the company to be a: contract by the State with the corporation, that the rate of taxation of this company shall not at any time be higher than the rate of taxation actually and legitimately imposed on banking institutions; that this contract is not complied with by passing an act to tax banks, which could not, and did not operate, in point of fact, to tax the banking institutions of the State ; that what was bargained for and granted was not conformity to an inoperative general law,- but conformity to the actual and legal rate of taxation of banks for the time being; and consequently, as when the tax in question was levied, the banking institutions existing in the State were not subject to the law under which the Life and Trust Company was taxed, and were not liable to pay the rate of taxation imposed on that, company, the obligation of the. contract of the State to impose on the Life and Trust Company no higher taxes than are or may be imposed oh banking institutions, has been impaired; because when this-tax was-imposed it was a higher tax than was or could be legitimately imposed on the then existing banking institutions.of the State. I do not go into an extended examination of this subject, because it involves only a construction of this particular contract, and though ipaportant to the parties, is not of general interest. Upon the other questions involved in the case, namely, as to the power of the legislature of Ohio to make a contract fixing the rate of taxation of certain property for a term of years, — as to the duty of this court to expound the contract whose obligation is alleged to be impaired — and the propriety of accepting the construction of the *451constitution of the State which had been practised on by all the branches of its government, and acquiesced in by the people for many years, when the contract in question was made, I fully concur in the views of the chief justice, as expressed in' his opinion.
Mr. Justice NELSON concurs with Sir. Justice CURTIS.

Order.

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the District Court of the State of Ohio, for Hamilton county, and was argued by counsel; on consideration whereof, it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this court, that the judgment and decree of the Supreme Court of Ohio, in this cause as remitted to the District Court of the State of Ohio for Hamilton county, and contained in the transcript of the record filed in this cause, be and the same is hereby affirmed, with costs, and interest at the same rate per annum that similar judgments or decrees, bear in the courts of the State of Ohio.