Court Opinion

ID: 9418166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:11:13.663108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:56.599373
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White
concurring.
It is shown that the Telegraph Company, many .years ago, went into' the State of Kansas, constructed its lines, established *49its offices, etc., and has since been engaged in business, both interstate and local. It is not disputed that there was no law in the State forbidding the company from doing as it did. From this it results that the corporation went into the State, constructed its plant, anvd carried on its business,' on the implied invitation, or at least with the tacit consent of the State. No one questions that the tax which is hero in dispute, imposed by the law of Kansas upon the corporation, is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States because wanting in due process, and that it' is therefore confiscatory in character. The tax being thus conceded to be inherently vicious, there is, of. course, no attempt to sustain its validity on its intrinsic merits. The sole contention is that although the tax is void, the Telegraph Company may not invoke the protection of the Constitution of the United States, because, it is in a position where, it is not entitled to avail itself of the fundamental safeguards which it was the purpose of the Constitution to secure to all. The reasoning by which it is thus sought to sustain the right of the State to exert a power prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, and to outlaw the corporation by depriving it of the protection afforded by that instrument, is this: The State, .it is insisted, has the right to prevent a foreign corporation from coming into its jurisdiction and engaging there in local business, and this power, in the nature of things, must include the right to affix such conditions to the privilege of coming in as the State chooses to . impost'. Under these circumstances, the argument proceeds, it becomes immaterial to consider the character of,the condition annexed by the State to the enjoyment of the right to come in, since, although such conditions be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and destructive of the most obvious and sacred rights, as the condition only becomes operative provided the -corporation elects to come in, therefore the condition is not obligatory but is voluntarily assented to by the corporation and, hence may not be by it, questioned. But even if, for the sake of the argument only, *50the general correctness of the proposition be conceded, it has no application to the case here presented. Such is the case, since this cause is concerned, not with the power of the State to prevent a corporation from coming in for the purpose of doing local business and to attach conditions to the privilege of ‘so coming in, but involves the right of the State .to confiscate the property of the corporation already within the State and which has been there for years, devoted to the doing of local business as the result of the implied invitation or tacit consent of the State arising from its failure to forbid or to regulate the coming in. In other words, this case involves determining, not how far a State may arbitrarily exclude, but to what extent, after allowing a corporation to come in and acquire property, a State may take its property within the State without compensation upon the theory that the corporation is not in the State and has no property right therein which is not subject to confiscation. The difference between the premise upon which the proposition contended for rests and the situation here presented seems to me self-evident. I say this because my mind fails to perceive how the doctrine of election or voluntary assumption of an unconstitutional burden can have any possible application to a case like this. Let me illustrate. The Telegraph Company has expended in the.State large sums of money, adequate for the purpose of enabling, it to do both local and interstate business. The investment is there, and its magnitude, it is fair to assume, is, in part, a resultant of the requirements of the local business. The continued beneficial existence of the investment depends upon the right to use the property for the purpose for which it was acquired, that is, for both interstate and local business. The state law takes the property, or what is equivalent thereto, imposes an unconstitutional and confiscatory burden, upon the condition that such burden be discharged or the local business be abandoned. What possible election can there be? The property is in the State. It has been invested therein for the very purpose of doing local as *51well as other business. If the unconstitutional burden be not assumed, local business must cease, and hence the property established for the purpose of doing the local business becomes worthless and is in effect confiscated. If, on the other hand, the unconstitutional burden be borne, a like result takes place.
Nor, I submit, is there force in the suggestion that under the facts here disclosed the company cannot be heard to complain, because, as it was in the State without express authority, it must be assumed to have gone into the State and made its investment subject to the exertion by the State of its authority. I concede the proposition to be sound in so far as it includes the right of the State to exert its lawful powers. That is to say, I concede that the corporation in going in and investing its property within the State did so subject to the right of the State to exert, as to the property thus in the State, all lawful powers which migkt be called into play as to property so situated, of the character of that under consideration. But I cannot assent to the correctness of the contention in so far as it asserts that the State may suffer a corporation to come into its borders, invest in property therein, and then, after having allowed, by acquiescence or implied invitation, such a situation to arise, the State may treat the corporation as if it had never come in and. its property within the State as if it were wholly out of the State, and despoil the corporation of its rights and property upon such false assumption.
It is to be observed that the view taken by me does not deprive the State of. power to exert its authority over the corporation and its property in the amplest way subject to constitutional limitations. It simply prevents the State from driving out the corporation which is in the State by imposing upon it arbitrary and unconstitutional conditions, when upon no -possible theory could the right td exact them exist, "except upon the assumption that the corporation is not in the State, and that the illegal exactions are the price of the privilege of allowing it to come in.
*52Resting, as I do, my concurrence in the decree in this case upon the grounds just previously stated, it becomes unnecessary for me to say anything concerning the wider ground upon which the opinion of the court proceeds, but I do not wish to be understood as dissenting in any respect from the fundamental principle which the opinion of the court embodies and applies.