Court Opinion

ID: 9419098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:45:52.248585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:55:34.161729
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Hughes,
dissenting:
I think that sound principle governing the exercise of our jurisdiction requires the dismissal of. the writ. I see no reason to doubt that the Supreme Court of Minnesota held that the tax in question was laid in violation of the uniformity clause of the State Constitution. Not only is that shown, as it seems to me, from the court’s discussion of that question, but it conclusively appears from the syllabus which definitely states' that the tax is “viola-tive of art. 9, § 1, of our state constitution.” 205 Minn. 443; 286 N. W. 360. Minnesota requires that in all cases decided by the Supreme Court it shall give its decision in writing, “together with headnotes, briefly stating the points decided.” Mason’s Minn. Stat.; § 134. In obedience to the statute, the court has thus given explicitly in its syllabus its own deliberate construction of what it has decided.
The decision thus rested upon an adequate non-federal ground and in accordance with long-established doctrine we are without jurisdiction. Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U. S. 207, 210.
This is not a case where the record leaves us in uncertainty as to what has actually been determined by the state, court. Honeyman v. Hanan, 300 U. S. 14, 23, 26; State Tax Commission v. Van Cott, 306 U. S. 511. Nor have there been supervening changes since the entry of the judgment. Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Dennis, 224 U. S. 503, 507; Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 600, 607. I find no warrant for vacating the judgment on either of these grounds.
The fact that provisions of the state and federal constitutions may be similar or even identical does not justify us in disturbing a judgment of a state court which ade*559quately rests upon its application of the provision of its own constitution. That the state court may be influenced by the reasoning of our opinions makes no difference. The state court may be persuaded by majority opinions in this Court or it may prefer the reasoning of dissenting judges, but the judgment of the state court upon the application of its own constitution remains a judgment which we are without jurisdiction to review. Whether in this case we thought that the state tax was repugnant to the federal constitution or consistent with it, the judgment of the state court that the tax violated' the state constitution would still stand. It cannot be supposed that the Supreme Court of Minnesota is not fully conscious of its independent authority to construe the constitution of the State, whatever reasons it may adduce in so doing. As the Minnesota court said in Reed v. Bjornson, 191 Minn. 254, 257; 253 N. W. 102, 104, after referring to the question presented under the federal constitution, “Our interpretation of our own constitution is of course final/’
The disposition of this case is directly within our recent and unanimous ruling in New York City v. Central Savings Bank, 306 U. S. 661. In that case, the Court of Appeals of New York had decided that a state statute was repugnant to the due process clause of the state constitution, that clause being the same as the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which the court held had also been violated. 280 N. Y. 9, 10; 19 N. E. 2d 659. We declined jurisdiction upon the ground that the judgment of the state court in applying the state constitution rested upon an adequate non-federal ground, despite the reliance upon our decisions.
M^. Justice Stone and Mr. Justice Roberts join in this opifpbp.