Court Opinion

ID: 9731627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:52:35.728798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:18.078817
License: Public Domain

Brown, J.
(dissenting in part, concurring in part). As an original construction of sec. 10, art. I, clause 2, United States constitution, I would have little difficulty in agreeing with the dissenters in Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt (1945), 324 U. S. 652, 688, 65 Sup. Ct. 870, 89 L. Ed. 1252, 142 Ohio St. 235, 51 N. E. (2d) 723, that when imported goods or raw materials have reached the place where the importer intends to put them to the use for which they were imported and he stores them until he needs them, a nondiscriminatory ad valorem tax upon them does not of*582fend the constitution even though the goods or materials in such storage remain in their original package. The difficulty would be even less in agreeing with the majority of this court that part of the goods are taxable.
But I must recognize that this is not an original proposition and the dissenters’ view in Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, supra, is that of a minority. The majority in that case reiterated the law as it had been established by an unbroken line of decisions beginning with Brown v. Maryland (1827), 25 U. S. (12 Wheat.) 419, 6 L. Ed. 678, that the constitution protects imported items against local taxation while they are in their original packages and have not been disposed of or used by the importer. For examples see Low v. Austin (1871), 80 U. S. (13 Wall.) 29, 20 L. Ed. 517; Anglo-Chilean Corp. v. Alabama (1933), 288 U. S. 218, 53 Sup. Ct. 373, 77 L. Ed. 710, 225 Ala. 141, 142 So. 87, as well as Hooven & Allison Co.v. Evatt, supra.
In the latter case, the majority said, page 666:
“. . . no opinion of this court has ever said or intimated that imports held by the importer in the original package and before they were subjected to the manufacture for which they were imported, are liable to state taxation.”
And, further, page 667:
“It cannot be said that the fibers were subjected to manufacture when they were placed in petitioner’s warehouse in their original packages.”
The law, as I read it, is well settled by the decisions of the supreme court of the United States that, until put to use or sold or otherwise disposed of by the importer, materials in their original packages are not subject to a state tax. The veneers now in question satisfy all these conditions of immunity; and, like the fibers in Hooven & Allison, supra, have not been subjected to manufacture. It is our proper province *583to apply that oft-stated law. It is not our province to modify it or to declare exceptions to it.
The argument, unsupported by the record, was made by the tax collector in Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, supra, that some of the materials were so essential to current manufacturing requirements that they might be deemed to have entered the manufacturing process and so were taxable, as already put to use although still in their original packages. In reply to this the court said (p. 667) there was no necessity and no occasion to consider that question. I cannot agree with the majority of our court that the form of the rejection of the argument changed the established law. The decision, in fact, refused to change it. Therefore I consider that this court is still bound to apply the law as it has been so often declared and as it remained when the court got through with Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, supra. We, as a state court, have not been invited, nor are we authorized, to create an exception to the principle so often stated by the United States supreme court, that in the original package, unsold and unused imported materials are tax exempt. It is not for us to say that their immunity is lost when the day of use draws near. The United States supreme court was asked to make that change in the law. It would not. We should not.
Therefore, I think we must reverse, as to the veneers.
Respecting the lumber, the learned trial court found that the method of piling it had the dominant purpose of readying it for use. That finding makes it possible, I think, to agree that the manufacturing process had begun when the pile was constructed. Therefore I am able to concur in the decision that the lumber lost its status as an import and is taxable, though the ground that half of it is taxable because of current manufacturing needs is untenable.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Currie and Mr Justice Steinle concur in what is said here.