Court Opinion

ID: 9418901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:42:51.273912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:45.674654
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Caedozo,
dissenting.
To show that the revolving fund was used as a common pot for the regulation of public utilities generally, irrespective of their special function, does not make out a case of wrong to railroads considered as a separate class or to appellant in particular. Eor the purposes of this case there is no need to inquire whether anything in the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the recognition of a single and all-inclusive class of public service corporations without further subdivision. If the prohibition be assumed, still the burden is on the railroads to satisfy the court that what was contributed by them was more than what was expended for their account, since otherwise the common pot may have been a help and not a hurt. *169That burden was not discharged. Far from being discharged, there was a disclaimer of any attempt or purpose to discharge it. And so the case must fail. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. North Carolina, 297 U. S. 682, 688, 689, 690.
The decision in Foote v. Stanley, 232 U. S. 494, much relied on by appellant, is inapplicable here. That was a case under Article I, § 10, of the Constitution, which provides that “no State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws.” Maryland passed an act for the payment of charges, characterized as inspection fees, upon imports of oysters from neighboring states. The “inspectors” did more than inspect the oysters; they policed the waters of Chesapeake Bay, being thus policemen as well as inspectors. On its face the act provided that a fee of one cent per bushel should be “levied to help pay the salary of the inspectors and the other expenses of the State Fishery Force.” 232 U. S. at 505. In these circumstances the ruling was that in a suit for an injunction brought by the importers the state had the burden of showing that the fee was not an unreasonable one for the service of inspection as distinguished from the other services covered thereby. Imposts upon interstate commerce being generally prohibited, and being, lawful only when “absolutely necessary” for the purpose of inspection, a charge covering the service of inspection and also something else must collapse in its entirety unless the state is in a position to break it up into its elements. A power has been granted to be used in exceptional conditions. The state must bring itself within the exception if it seeks to act within the grant.
A very different situation confronts us in the case at hand. Here the statute of the state does not trespass upon a field of legislation where entry is forbidden with*170out the license of the nation. What has been done is well within the field of general legislative power, with every presumption of validity back of it. In such circumstances the burden of making good a claim of invalidity and thus establishing an exception is on the assailants of the rule, and not on its proponents. The conclusion becomes clearer when the statute is analyzed more closely. All that it does is to exact of public utilities generally (with particular exceptions) a fee of l/10th of one per cent of their gross revenues, confined, however, to operations in intrastate commerce, the fee when collected to be paid into a revolving fund. Laws of Washington, 1929, c. 107; Laws of 1923, c. 107; Laws of 1921, c. 113. Another statute (Laws of Washington, 1929, c. 108) lays a heavier tax (1%), to be paid into the same fund, upon the receipts of auto-transportation companies. Steamship companies of a stated class' are subject to a special rule, the fee in their case being l/5th of one per cent. Laws of Washington, 1927, c. 248. Plainly there is no presumption that these varying contributions are out of proportion to the expenses incurred in supervising and regulating the several classes of contributors. Illegality, if there is any, is to be found in the administration of the statute, and not in anything inherent in its essential scheme and framework. That being so, the taxpayer may not rest upon a showing of possible overpayment. There must be a showing of an overpayment not merely possible but actual, and one substantial in amount. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. North Carolina, supra; Foote v. Stanley, supra. To hold otherwise would be to go counter to the settled rule that “one who would strike down a state statute as obnoxious to the Federal Constitution must show that the alleged unconstitutional feature injures him.” Premier-Pabst Sales Co. v. Grosscup, 298 U. S. 226, 227. Analogies drawn from the law of trusts are inapposite and mis*171leading. The state does not collect the taxes or place them in the fund as trustee for the contributor or for any one else. It receives the moneys and expends them as an owner, charged with no other duty to a particular group of taxpayers than to members of the public generally.
The burden resting on the railroads to. show that the use of the common pot has resulted to their damage, the record must be scrutinized to see whether the burden has been borne. In that scrutiny there is no denial of a duty to inquire whether the decision of the state court, irrespective of its surface protestations, amounts in substance and reality to the denial of a federal right. Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 589; Beidler v. South Carolina Tax Comm'n, 282 U. S. 1, 8. There is a recognition of the duty, and an endeavor to fulfill it.
1. The trial court suggested to counsel for appellant that it would be interesting to know whether the amount that had been collected through the tax upon the railroads was in excess of the amount expended for their benefit. Counsel responded that he would not embark on that inquiry. His position was stated to be that the act was invalid on its face, in which event it would be vain to pursue the subject further. This court by its opinion has rejected that contention. The act is not invalid on its face, whether valid or invalid otherwise.
2. Explaining or at least supplementing the refusal to compare disbursements and receipts, counsel stated o'n the trial that there were no records available. But the contrary was clearly proved. The auditor of the Department of Public Works caused the employees of the Department to submit vouchers or slips descriptive of their services with an appropriate segregation and apportionment among the several classes of utilities. He testified on the basis of these reports, which were on file in his office, that disbursements for account of the rail*172roads were in excess by $37,833.14 of the railroads’ contributions. Counsel for appellant expresses his belief that inspection and discovery of the contents of the vouchers would have yielded inadequate information. His business was to look and see.
3. The objection will not hold that the documents might be ignored for the reason that, if produced, they would be incompetent as evidence. Apart from the possibility of examining the men who made them, it is the law of the state of Washington, declared in this very case, that the slips and vouchers so filed in the course of the business of the bureau were sufficient to support the testimony of the auditor as to the conclusions to be drawn from them. Referring to that subject, the court said: “While the account kept by the auditor was not official, in the sense that of itself it was admissible in evidence, yet what the auditor did in that respect qualified him to testify as to the ultimate fact. Without further detailing the evidence, we will say that in our opinion, and in so far as there was any evidence on the subject, it preponderated against the findings made by the [trial] court as to the cost of supervising and regulating railroads.”
Whether the evidence thus accepted and relied upon would be rejected by other courts either as hearsay or on other grounds is quite beside the point. The Fourteenth Amendment does not confine the states to the common law rules of evidence, however well established. West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 258, 262, 263; Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U. S. 172, 174, 175; Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 101; Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9, 25. “The State is not tied down by any provision of the Federal Constitution to the practice and procedure which existed at the common law.” Brown v. New Jersey, supra. The acceptance of the testimony of the auditor does not touch the privilege of confrontation in a prose*173cution for a crime. Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 106. It does not substitute hearsay for direct testimony generally or as to every possible issue arising in a case. At most it is an enlargement of the common law rule as to entries in books of account or in public or official documents. Cf. Wigmore, Evidence, vol. 3, § 1517 et seq; § 1630 et seq.
Hearsay is competent evidence by the law of many enlightened countries. Stumberg, Guide to the Law and Legal Literature of France, pp. 148, 149; Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Title “Evidence”; vol. v., pp. 646, 647. Even at common law it is competent at certain times and for certain purposes, though narrowly restricted. Wigmore, Evidence, vol. 3, § 1420 et seq.; Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law, p. 518. The range of its competence has been greatly enlarged by statutes in many of the states, as, e. g., in the administration of Workmen’s Compensation Laws, and by the relaxation of ancient rules as to entries in accounts. Dodd, Administration of Workmen’s Compensation, pp. 227-236; Wigmore, Evidence, Supplement, 1934, §§ 1519, 1520; Morgan and others, The Law of Evidence, p. 51; New York Civil Practice Act, § 374 a; cf. Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. v. Norwich Pharmacal Co., 18 F. (2d) 934; Cub Fork Coal Co. v. Fairmont Glass Co., 19 F. (2d) 273; United States v. Cotter, 60 F. (2d) 689. The question may be laid aside whether a change in the law of evidence might be so radical and unjust as to work a destruction of fundamental rights and thus a denial of due process. Brown v. New Jersey, supra, p. 175. Assuming such a possibility, there is nothing in this ruling to make it a reality. If the legislature of Washington had passed a statute to the effect that vouchers in a public office, filed by the employees at the bidding of a superior, should be prima facie evidence of the truth of their contents, it is not open *174to doubt that such a statute would be valid. It would not even involve an extreme departure from common law analogies rooted in the presumption of official regularity. What a state may do in changing the rules of evidence through the action of its legislature, it may do with equal competence through the action of its judges, for anything to the contrary in the Constitution of the United States.
4. Appellant did not discharge its burden by proving in a vague way that some of the disbursements classified by the auditor as a charge against the railroads were incidental to proceedings conducted before the Interstate Commerce Commission or elsewhere for the benefit of private shippers and were not properly a part of the expense of local regulation.
The Attorney General takes the ground that disbursements from the revolving fund, if made for that purpose, were without authority of law. If that be so, they cannot avail to invalidate the statute, though they may lay the basis for a remedy in behalf of the state or others against the officers or agents guilty of unintentional misfeasance. Aside, however, from that objection, there was no attempt by appellant to prove the amount of these or like withdrawals in even the roughest fashion. There was no suggestion, much less evidence, that they would wipe out the excess of $37,833.14 stated by the auditor. An inquiry directed to the point would have yielded in all likelihood an estimate at least approximately correct. If such inquiry was inadequate, the slips and vouchers were available for scrutiny and dissection. Examination of the auditor in connection with the documents would have shown forth the truth.
The presumption of validity which sustains an act of legislation is unbroken by the evidence.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Brandéis and Mr. Justice Stone join in this opinion.