Court Opinion

ID: 94375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:22:26+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:48.514807
License: Public Domain

161 U.S. 193 (1896)
PLANTERS' INSURANCE COMPANY
v.
TENNESSEE FOR THE USE OF MEMPHIS.
No. 678.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued January 20, 21, 22, 1896.
Decided March 2, 1896.
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE.
*196 Mr. T.B. Turley, (with whom was Mr. L.E. Wright on the brief,) for plaintiffs in error.
Mr. S.P. Walker, (with whom were Mr. C.W. Metcalf and Mr. F.T. Edmondson on the brief,) for defendants in error.
MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
The claim set up by plaintiffs in error is that the insurance company was duly incorporated as the Energetic Insurance Company of Nashville, under the act passed March 24, 1860; that it is the same company as therein incorporated, and entitled to all the benefits and immunities, among them that of exemption from taxation granted by that charter.
The defendants in error deny that claim, and assert the right to tax by virtue of the general revenue laws of the State. They assert that by reason of the failure to accept the charter and organize thereunder until after the lapse of 24 years the corporation did not acquire the right of exemption provided for in the sixtieth section of the charter, because at the time the company was organized in 1884 the constitution of the State of Tennessee, adopted in 1870, was in full force, and by that constitution any exemption of the property of the corporation, its capital stock or its shares of stock, was prohibited.
The plaintiffs in error answer that they are either a corporation organized under that charter or else there is no corporation, and the individuals assuming to act as such should be sued in their individual capacity, and if liable at all for any taxes whatever, they must be liable as individuals only. They further say that the State by its action herein recognizes them as a corporation, and if a corporation at all, they are such under the original charter above mentioned, and if they be a corporation under such charter, they are entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities granted by that charter as a whole, and that they cannot be prosecuted as a corporation under that charter for the purpose of compelling them to *197 pay taxes, and, at the same time, be denied the right of exemption from such payment granted by that sixtieth section. They also allege that this action of the State is a collateral attack upon their charter by denying their immunity from taxation given by its sixtieth section, and therefore calling in question its existence as a corporation, and an action of that kind can only be maintained by the State by means of a quo warranto, either against the corporation itself for the exercise of powers not granted it, or against the individuals for assuming to exercise the corporate powers.
For the purpose of effecting a dissolution of a corporation grounded upon some alleged forfeiture of its rights and powers, the State must act through its attorney general and by action in the nature of quo warranto. This is not such an action, and the dissolution of the corporation is not its object. The State in effect so far recognizes it as a corporation as to demand payment of taxes on its capital stock, or on its shares of stock, and when as a defence to that action the corporation plaintiff in error, or its stockholders, set up its alleged right of exemption under the sixtieth section of the charter, the answer of the State is, you are not entitled to that exemption, because at the time your charter was accepted, 24 years after it was granted by the legislature, the constitution of the State prevented the grant of any exemption such as is claimed by you, to which the plaintiffs in error rejoin, that in this action you cannot look at the time when the charter was accepted, but as the corporation is acting under the original charter, the sixtieth section remains in full force.
We think that even in this action it is proper for the State to inquire as to the time of the acceptance of the charter for the purpose of determining what powers were actually granted. If the charter had been accepted and the individuals organized under it prior to the adoption of the constitution of 1870, then the exemption might have gone with it; but we think it entirely possible to hold that by the acceptance of the charter, assuming it to have been within a reasonable time, but after the constitution was adopted, such acceptance (while subsequently recognized by the legislature in permitting it to *198 change its situs) must be taken in connection with the provisions of the constitution existing at the time, and that while the incorporators might take all the other rights, powers and privileges granted by the charter, so far as to give them the franchise to be a corporation and exercise the powers therein granted, the immunity of exemption would not pass under the grant. It might possibly have been held, in a direct attack of the State upon the charter, that there had been an unreasonable delay in accepting it, and that consequently there was in law no corporation under the charter. That course was not taken, and the legislature, after the assumed organization under the charter in 1884, passed an act changing the name of the corporation and permitting it to change its situs. It might, therefore, be claimed that it thereby recognized the existence of the corporation under the charter, but in subordination to the constitution and laws existing at the time when the charter was accepted.
We think upon these facts the exemption from taxation did not pass to the corporation, and the assessments were in consequence legal and valid.
The judgment is, therefore,
Affirmed.