Great Northern Railway Co. v. Minnesota

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case is hére both by writ of error and appeal. Appeal being the proper method, the writ of error (No. 106) will be dismissed.

The action was brought by the state to recover taxes for the years 1901 to 1912, inclusive. Judgment against the company was rendered by the trial court for the years 1903 to 1912, no recovery being allowed for 1901 or 1902. Upon appeal the state supreme court affirmed the judgment. 160 Minn. 515 . A writ of error from this Court was-dismissed for want of jurisdiction resulting from an insufficient setting forth and waiver of claim of a substantial federal constitutional question. 273 U. S. 658 . Thereafter, . the state supreme court vacated its judgment, granted a reargument upon the constitutional question, and again affirmed the trial court. 174 Minn.-3. The present appeal is from the judgment of the court below last described..

In Minnesota, by statute amended from time to time but substantially in effect since 1871 (see 1 Mason’s Minnesota Statutes, 1927, §i§ 2246, 2247), a tax, measured by gross earnings, is laid upon all railway companies, in lieu of all taxes Upon alhof their property within the state. As a basis for computing the tax, each railway company is required to report annually its gross earnings upon business done upon its linés wholly'within the state and upon

The attack upon the statute is not that it is bad upon its face, but that, as applied to the specific facts upon which the liability of the company in the present action. was sustained, it imposes a tax in respect of earnings wholly referable to certain docks in Wisconsin and a short stretch of track immediately connected therewith, and, therefore, results in laying a tax upon property outside the State of Minnesota. The.contention is that the statute as thus construed and’ applied constitutes a burden upon interstate commerce and also violates the due process of law and equal protection of the laws clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The facts follow.

Among the lines owned and operated by the railway company, directly or through its subsidiaries, amounting in all to more than 2,000 miles within the state, is a road 107 miles in length running from the Mesaba Iron Range in Minnesota to, and including as part thereof, the Wisconsin docks. Eighty-seven miles of the road are in Minnesota, and 20 miles including the docks are in Wisconsin. The principal business of the road is that of hauling ore from the mines .at Mesaba to the docks. For this service the tariff provides a single charge per ton of ore transported, in which the dock service is absorbed without being separately specified. For the years in question, the railway company, in reporting the gross earnings assignable to the Minnesota part of the line as proportioned to. the foregoing division of the mileage, first allocated to the docks and deducted, as compensation for dock services, amounts

The constitutional contention was not pressed in the trial court. No finding pertinent to that inquiry was either asked or made. The question was raised by the answer, but waived in both courts below; and we so held. But for the action of the state supreme court in granting a iéárgument, it would not be here now. We agree with that court that it fairly cannot be found from the evidence that the mileage value of the Wisconsin part of the line,, including the docks, was in fact greater than the Minnesota part of the line. The record contains some statements in respect of the cost of the docks and in respect of expenditures in road construction, but the showing is incomplete and leaves even the question of cost in large degree a subject for conjecture.

The evidence does not show the actual use value of either the Minnesota or the Wisconsin part of the road, or their relative values. If all the facts bearing upon the matter were revealed, they well might demonstrate not only that cost, even if proved, would not be a fair measure of the use value, but that the Minnesota part of the line, mile for mile, was equal in value to that of the Wisconsin portion with the docks included. Such evidence as the record contains tends to that conclusion rather than the contrary. The road, including the docks, is a unit. The •charge for transportation of ore, including dock services, is a single charge. The entire ore traffic originates and

Under.these circumstances, upon principles established' by numerous decisions of this Court, the tax is not open to challenge as an exaction in violation of the federal Constitution. Pullman Co. v. Richardson, supra, pp. 338-339 ; U. S. Express Co. v. Minnesota, 223 U. S. 335 , 345; Cudahy Packing Co. v. Minnesota, supra, pp. 453-455, and cases cited.

Judgment affirmed.