Court Opinion

ID: 6648912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 20:52:21.007934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:46:51.030107
License: Public Domain

Irvine, C.,
dissenting.
Having taken part in the hearing and consideration of this case, and having reached a conclusion upon one branch-thereof different from that stated in the opinion of the court, I desire to express my views upon that branch of the case.
The conclusion reached by the court is that the occupation described in the ordinance is an occupation or business “within the limits of the city” and therefore within the legislative grant of authority to tax. In this view I cannot concur. As a question of authority I concede that the case referred to, of Commonwealth v. Stodder, 2 Cush. [Mass.], 562, is not in point, and I further concede that the case of City of Sacramento v. California Stage Co., 12 Cal., 134, supports the view of the court. It is to be re*710marked in regard to the latter case that it is an early case in the history of California jurisprudence decided by two judges only. Mr. Justice Field, now of the supreme court of the United States, and then a member of the California supreme court, either took no part in the consideration of the case or did not concur in the opinion of the majority. The opinion is very brief and unsatisfactory. So far as the reasons of the court can be gathered from the opinion, the decision was based principally upon the theory that the business of receiving and discharging passengers within the city was separate from that of transporting passengers between Sacramento and other places. I do not think this view sound. It might as well be said that in a mercantile establishment the business of wrapping up goods and handing them over the counter to the customers is separate from the business of selling the goods. Another case relied upon in the opinion of the court is that of City of Los Angeles v. Southern P. R. Co., 61 Cal., 59. There the tax was imposed upon every steam railway company “ having a depot in the city.” The tax was not imposed upon the business of discharging from its trains within the city passengers carried into the city from points without, or upon the business of taking upon its trains within the city passengers to be transported to points without. That form of an ordinance would have made the case analogous to that before us. The tax was not even upon the business of operating a railroad within the city, but extended only to railroads having a depot in the city, and seems to be rather a tax upon the privilege of maintaining a depot than a tax upon the occupation. Even in that view the correctness of the decision may well, be doubted. I think a better test of what constitutes an occupation within the limits of a city is found in the cases relating to interstate commerce, where courts have been called upon to define what constitutes a business within a state. As a preliminary to this discussion it may be well *711to state that in considering the validity of a tax the language employed, or the form or agency for its enforcement, is not the point to be regarded, but the court should look beyond the form of the tax and determine upon what the real burden is imposed. This point is well stated by Mr. Justice Strong in the State Freight Tax Case, 15 Wall. [U. S.], 232, as follows: “ It has repeatedly been held that the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of a state tax is to be determined, not by the form or agency through which it is to be collected, but by the subject upon which the burden is laid. This was decided in the cases of Bank of Commerce v. New York City, 2 Black [U. S.], 620, in the Bank Tax Case, 2 Wall. [U. S.], 200, Society of Savings v. Coite, 6 Wall. [U. S.], 594, and Provident Institution v. Massachusetts, 6 Wall. [U. S.], 611. In all these cases it appeared that the bank was required by the statute to pay the tax, but the decisions turned upon the question what was the subject of the tax, upon what did the burden really rest, not upon the question from whom the state exacted payment into its treasury.”
If we examine this ordinance ifrseems perfectly clear that the burden of the tax here sought to be imposed is not merely upon the receiving and delivery of messages within Fremont, but that it is upon the business of transmitting messages between Fremont and other points outside of Fremont but within the state. The delivery of messages received in Fremont from the wires to the persons to whom they are addressed, and the receipt of messages from senders thereof at the telegraph office for transmission over the wires, are acts merely incidental to the business of the telegraph company. They are not in themselves a business or an occupation. The gist of the business of the company consists of the transmission of messages over the wires; and the transcription of the messages to paper,' their delivery to the persons addressed, and the receipt of written messages tit the office of the company from senders thereof are mere *712incidents, and inseparable from the principal operations, just as the business of a carrier consists of transporting goods, and the delivery to and .receipt from the carrier of the goods at the terminal points are incidental to the transaction of the business, and do not constitute in themselves a business or occupation. The authority of a municipality does not extend beyond its limits. The grant of power to impose taxes, upon which this ordinance is founded, does not purport to confer upon the municipality the power to tax anything beyond the limits of the city. For the purpose of this discussion all occupations may be divided into three classes. First — Occupations without the limits of the city. Second — Occupations partly without and partly within the city. Third — Occupations wholly within the city. I think that the grant of authority to tax could only be conferred and was only conferred as to such occupations as are wholly within the city. Where a portion of a business is wholly carried on within a city, such portion might be taxed, although another portion were conducted wholly outside. But where the business in its nature requires that every part, thereof shall extend beyond its borders, it is different. No portion can then be said to be within the city. In the opinion of the court reference is made to occupation taxes upon physicians and lawyers who have made their domicile within the city but a large portion of whose practice may be beyond its borders. The cases are not analogous for the reason that.professional engagements are personal in their character and necessarily follow the domicile of the taxpayer. Reference is also made to wholesalers of merchandise and persons engaged in similar occupations. I will concede that a wholesale grocer, for instance, might be subjected to an occupation tax by the city in which his place of business is located, although all his sales might be to persons outside of the city and involve the shipment of the goods sold to points outside; but that business consists in its essentials in the sale *713of the goods, and is within the city. I contend, however, that the business of transporting the goods after their sale from the city to points outside the city would not be a business within the city and not subject to taxation.
As I stated before, I believe a test of the question what constitutes a business within the city may be found in the cases relating to interstate commerce. A license tax may not be levied upon a business not within the city, because upon general principles, as well as because of express legislation, the city has no power to impose a tax upon business not “ within the city.” Similarly, a state may not levy a tax upon business not within the state, for the reason that the federal constitution grants to congress the exclusive power of regulating commerce among the states, and therefore prohibits a state from imposing a tax upon commerce extending beyond its borders, that is, not “ within the state.” If, therefore, the business of transmitting telegraphic messages between a city and points without the city is business within the city, then the business of transmitting messages between a point within a state and points without the state is business within the state, and therefore not interstate commerce. If that position be correct, then a tax levied by a state upon the business of a telegraph company, a part of which business consists in transmitting messages between points in the state and points without, is not a burden upon interstate commerce and is valid. The law, however, is otherwise. Many cases in the supreme court of the United States might be cited upon the question. There is one, however, which reviews the prior cases in so clear and forcible a manner that a reference to that case will be made in lieu of here reviewing the prior cases.
By a statute of Alabama a tax was levied “on the gross amount of the receipts by any and every telegraph * * * company derived from the business done by it in this state.” The Western Union Telegraph Company included in its report to the state board of assessments simply its *714receipts from business transacted wholly within the state of Alabama. The board, however, required a report of receipts from all messages, whether carried wholly within or partly without the state. The supreme court of the state affirmed the action of the board of assessments, and the case was brought on a writ of error before the supreme court of the United States. Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the opinion (Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Alabama, 132 U. S., 472), said: “The question on which the jurisdiction of this court depends has been decided in this court so frequently of late years, several of the decisions having been made since the judgment of the supreme court of Alabama was delivered, that but little remains to be said in the present case except to show that it comes within the principle of the cases referred to. That principle is, in regard to telegraph companies which have accepted the provisions of the act of congress of July 24, 1866, sections 5263 to 5268 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, that they shall not be taxed by the authorities of a state for any messages or receipts arising from messages from points within the state to points without, or from points without the state to points within, but that such taxes may be levied upon all messages carried and delivered exclusively within the state. The foundation of this principle is that messages of the former class are elements of commerce between the states and not subject to legislative control of the states, while the latter class are elements of internal commerce solely within the limits and jurisdiction of the state, and therefore subject to its taxing power. The following cases in this court have fully developed and established this proposition: Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U. S., 1; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S., 460; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Massachusetts, 125 U. S., 530; Ratterman v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 127 U. S., 411; Leloup v. Port of Mobile, 127 U. S., 640; Fargo v. Michigan, 121 U. S., *715230; Philadelphia & S. S. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S., 326.” Mr. Justice Miller then-states the case and the conclusion of the supreme court of Alabama to the effect that the statute was valid in including all receipts from business done in the state, although the message may have been delivered at or may have been sent for delivery from some office out of the state. He then reviews the cases cited in the opening paragraph in the opinion, showing that all of them hold that no tax can be imposed upon messages or upon receipts derived from messages where the communication is carried either into the state from without, or from within the state to another state and concludes as follows: “We think these cases are so directly in point on the questions arising in the present case that they must control, and, as the record of the case presents the means by which the receipts arising from commerce wholly within the state, and from that which under these definitions may be called interstate commerce, can be separated, the judgment of the supreme court of Alabama is reversed.” To my mind this case and those therein reviewed conclusively establish the proposition that - the transmission of messages between points within the state and points without constitutes interstate commerce, in other words, business not within the state; and, by a parity of reasoning, that the business óf transmitting messages between a city and points without such city is not business within the city.
The case of Pacific Express Co. v. Seibert, 44 Fed. Rep., 310, cited in the opinion of the court with approval upon another branch of the case, is, I think, equally conclusive. The facts of that case are stated in the opinion of the court. It was there said by Judge Caldwell: “The tax is imposed on the receipts for ‘all sums earned or charged for the business done within this state.’ These words qualify the whole act. They are plain and unambiguous. The words ‘for the business done within the state’ ex vi termini import business begun and ended in the state, and include *716only intrastate commerce and not interstate commerce. The interjection of the intensifying words ‘ wholly ’ or ‘entirely’ would not alter their meaning or change their legal effect. Interstate commerce is not‘business done within ’ the state of Missouri. It is business done between, two or more states. A package carried by the plaintiff from Omaha to St. Louis is not business done within the state of Nebraska, or the state of Missouri, but is business done between those two states. A contract for the carriage of goods from one state to another is an entire contract and is an interstate contract, and the carriage of goods under such contract is interstate commerce and is not ‘ business done within’ any of the states from, through, and to which they are carried on such contract.” That case went to the supreme court of the United States (142 U. S., 339), where it was affirmed. Mr. Justice Lamar said: “The opinion of the court below on this branch of the case is elaborately argued and is conclusive. We concur in the reasoning of it as well as in the language employed, and refer to it as a correct expression of the law upon the subject.”
As stated repeatedly by the supreme court of the United States, the transmission of messages by telegraph is analogous to the transportation of goods by common carriers. The tax in the express company case was valid, because it extended only to goods transported wholly within the state of Missouri, and the case was distinguished from the cases already cited upon the ground that the business taxed lay wholly within the state. It is upon the same ground that the opinion of the court declares that this ordinance is not a burden upon interstate commerce, a conclusion in which I entirely concur; but for the very reason that the whole of the business must be transacted within the state in order to prevent the ordinance from being in violation of the federal constitution, I think that it should be wholly transacted within the city in order to be within the legislative grant.