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Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis

U.S.
Oct 24, 1932
287 U.S. 9 (1932)

Summary

recognizing that despite formal remedy available under Kentucky law, taxpayers could not actually collect, “for lack of funds in the Treasury”

Summary of this case from Wal-Mart Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Zaragoza-Gomez

Opinion

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.

No. 27.

Argued October 21, 1932. Decided October 24, 1932.

A bill in equity to restrain the collection of state taxes under a statute alleged to violate the Federal Constitution should not be dismissed on bill and answer upon the ground that the statute affords an adequate legal remedy by payment under protest and action to recover, when the allegations of the bill put in doubt whether, if that remedy were pursued and the claim allowed, satisfaction of it could be secured certainly and within a reasonable time out of the fund designated by statute as the source of such payments. P. 10. Reversed.

These were four suits by retail merchants seeking to enjoin collection of taxes on gross sales, measured by progressively increasing rates. All the bills invoked the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and in two of them it was claimed, also, that the tax operated as a direct burden on interstate commerce. By stipulation the cases were heard together and disposed of by one opinion of the three-judge District Court. The cases were treated as submitted upon bill and answer as well as upon plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctions and defendants' motions to dismiss; and all suits were dismissed. The tenth section of the Kentucky statute, referred to in the court's opinion, is copied below.

Mr. Robert S. Marx, with whom Messrs. John C. Doolan, Frank E. Wood, Harry Kasfir, and James W. Stites were on the brief, for appellants.

Mr. S.H. Brown, Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky, with whom Messrs. Bailey P. Wootton, Attorney General, Francis M. Burke, Assistant Attorney General, and Leslie W. Morris were on the brief, for appellees.



After interlocutory injunction had been granted, these cases went respectively to final hearing upon motions to dismiss the bills of complaint, and these were dismissed solely upon the ground that plaintiffs had an adequate remedy at law. The Court is of the opinion that the decision cannot be sustained merely upon the face of the statute invoked (Kentucky Acts of 1930, c. 149, § 10) in view of the allegations of the bills of complaint that the only remedy provided is to obtain warrants upon the General Fund of the State in the hands of the State Treasurer to be paid if and when funds are available for the payment of such warrants in the usual and orderly course; that there are now outstanding many such warrants drawn by the Auditor of Public Accounts upon the General Fund in the hands of the State Treasurer, which have been outstanding since June, 1927, and cannot be collected by the owners or holders for lack of funds in the Treasury; and that there were at the time of the beginning of these suits outstanding warrants aggregating $9,880,502.76 drawn by the Auditor of Public Accounts upon the State Treasurer, presented for payment, but not paid for lack of funds. (See State Budget Commn. v. Lebus, 244 Ky. 700, 703, 714; 51 S.W.2d 965, as to warrants outstanding.) Defendants' answers denied the above-mentioned allegations, but it does not appear that there has been a hearing upon evidence of the issue tendered and no findings of fact upon the subject have been made by the courts below.

The decrees are reversed and the causes remanded to the District Courts, of three judges, for final hearing upon the merits, without prejudice to a determination upon evidence with respect to the questions of the status of outstanding warrants upon the General Fund in the State Treasury, and whether warrants of the sort contemplated by § 10 of the Act in question are accorded preference in payment over other warrants, and the basis, if any, for the assurance that such preference will be continued so that in the event of actions by the plaintiffs at law under § 10 they would be afforded a certain, reasonably prompt and efficacious remedy. Davis v. Wakelee, 156 U.S. 680, 688; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Daughton, 262 U.S. 413, 426.


Summaries of

Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis

U.S.
Oct 24, 1932
287 U.S. 9 (1932)

recognizing that despite formal remedy available under Kentucky law, taxpayers could not actually collect, “for lack of funds in the Treasury”

Summary of this case from Wal-Mart Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Zaragoza-Gomez

In Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis. 287 U.S. 9, 53 S. Ct. 68, 77 L. Ed. 135 (1932), the United States Supreme Court addressed a similar argument.

Summary of this case from Great Bay Condo. Owners Ass'n, Inc. v. Gov't of the Virgin Islands

In Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis, 287 U.S. 9 (1932), the Supreme Court held that a federal-court challenge to a state tax could not be dismissed on the ground that the state court provides an adequate remedy at law when a tax-refund action is available, because the complaint alleged that the state treasury lacked sufficient funds to honor existing refunds.

Summary of this case from Wal-Mart P.R., Inc. v. Zaragoza-Gomez
Case details for

Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis

Case Details

Full title:STEWART DRY GOODS CO. v . LEWIS ET AL

Court:U.S.

Date published: Oct 24, 1932

Citations

287 U.S. 9 (1932)
53 S. Ct. 68

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