Court Opinion

ID: 9427122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:48.059115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.058319
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice .Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, dissenting.
Petitioner, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, brought suit against the United States to recover a charge of $131.43 plus penalties and interest imposed upon it by reason of its use of a helicopter in connection with its state police force. The United States moved to dismiss petitioner’s complaint, and its motion was granted by the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed that judgment, but expressly chose to do so on a narrower ground than that relied upon by the District Court. 548 F. 2d 33, 34 (1977). The Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to examine the law of intergovernmental tax immunity, because it concluded that the charge imposed here “is, in reality, a user charge.” Id., at 35. While the Court of Appeals recognized that the labeling of an assessment as a user charge is not of itself conclusive, cf. Packet Co. v. Keokuk, 95 U. S. 80, 86 (1877), it quoted the following language in explaining its understanding of the distinction between a tax and a user charge:
“ ‘It is a tax or duty that is prohibited: something imposed by virtue of sovereignty, not claimed in right of proprietorship. Wharfage is of the latter character. Providing a wharf to which vessels may make fast, or at which they may conveniently load or unload, is rendering them a service. . . . [A]nd, when compensation is demanded for the use of the wharf, the demand is an assertion, not of sovereignty, but of a right of property.’ ” 548 F. 2d, at 36, quoting Packet Co. v. Keokuk, supra, at 85.
*472The United States has defended its judgment in this Court solely on the basis that the Court of Appeals was correct in concluding that the exaction in question was a user charge. Its brief states:
“[T]his case presents no occasion to consider the present status of the doctrine of implied constitutional immunity of the states from federal taxation. Here, the annual excise tax on the use of civil aircraft is not a tax subject to any constitutional restrictions but is simply a required payment by the user for airport and airway facilities funded or provided by the federal government. Petitioner can no more claim the right to free use of these facilities than it could, for example, use the postal service without purchasing stamps.” Brief for United States 6-7.
It is therefore somewhat surprising to find Part II-A of today’s opinion (which reflects the views of only four Justices) discussing at length the scope of intergovernmental tax immunity. Petitioner insists that it may be able to prove at a trial of the action that the charge is not in fact a user fee; the United States insists that it is a user fee, apparently as a matter of law. This is the issue before the Court, and the only issue before it.
I agree that the United States would have a valid defense to this action if it had established, or could establish, that the charge imposed was reasonably related to services rendered to the petitioner by agencies of the Federal Government. I further conclude that the United States would have a valid defense to this action if it could establish that the charge was based on use by the petitioner of some property which the United States owned or in which it had some other type of proprietary interest. Cf. Packet Co. v. Keokuk, supra, at 84-85. I am at a loss to know why the Court feels obligated to draw on cases decided under the Commerce Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, to establish its vague and convoluted *473three-part test to determine whether the user fee is valid, since cases regarding intergovernmental relations raise significantly different considerations. Commerce Clause cases, while no doubt useful analogies, are not required to deal with the fact that the payer of the user fee is a State in our constitutional structure, and that its essential sovereign interests are entitled to greater deference than is due to ordinary business enterprises which may be regulated by both State and Federal Governments. Since the United States concedes that the absence of intergovernmental immunity to user fees is a reciprocal one, Tr. of Oral Arg. 26-28, it stands to lose as much from the vagueness of the Court’s test as do petitioner and its sister States.
Regardless of the phrasing of the test, I cannot accept the Court’s conclusion that the Commonwealth need not be given the opportunity to prove that the test has not been satisfied. The Court, retying heavily on our opinion in Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 405 U. S. 707 (1972), holds that the fee need not be precisely calibrated to the value of the service furnished so long as it is not shown to be excessive in relation to the cost to the United States of the benefits conferred. Ante, at 466-467. But in the cases considered in that opinion, the Court explicitly noted that the challengers had been given the chance to prove the fee excessive and had failed to do so. 405 U. S., at 720. In addition, there was no doubt that the municipal corporations which sought to impose the head tax in fact owned the airport facilities, nor that passengers who were paying the head tax were taking advantage of the services provided by those facilities.
Neither of those conclusions can be reached as a matter of law on the record before us. The United States does not “own” the airspace above its territorial boundaries, although it undoubtedly has considerable authority to regulate the use of that airspace. Nor does the United States, so far as this record shows, “own” any of the facilities which are used by *474the helicopter in question. Indeed, it is not even clear from this record whether the helicopter in question has made use of any of the services, such as air traffic controllers, which are furnished by the United States to those who make use of the airways. Were any of these facts to be found to- exist by a finder of fact, I might well concur in the Court’s judgment. I cannot, under my view of the law, accept as a substitute for such factual findings House and Senate Reports which merely state that a tax of this kind is “ ‘generally viewed as a user charge.’ ” Ante, at 449 n. 6, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 91-601, p. 46 (1969).
The Court’s reliance upon Clyde Mallory Lines v. Alabama ex rel. State Docks Comm’n, 296 U. S. 261 (1935), which arose under the Duty of Tonnage Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3, as well as the Commerce Clause, is misplaced in this regard. The Court there held that neither provision was violated by a flat fee which was charged by the State as compensation for the “policing service rendered by the state in the aid of the safe and efficient use of its port.” 296 U. S., at 264. The Court held that the vessels were properly liable for the fee despite the fact that they had not received any special assistance, because the evidentiary record affirmatively demonstrated that “[t]he benefits which flow from the enforcement of [the] regulations . . . inure to all who enter [the harbor].” Id., at 266.
It may be that upon further development of the record in this case, by trial or by procedures leading to summary judgment, a situation similar to that in Clyde Mallory Lines, supra, could be shown by the United States to exist. But that does not justify the order of the District Court dismissing petitioner’s complaint without such development. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings.