Bode v. Barrett

344 U.S. 583, 73 S. Ct. 468, 97 L. Ed. 2d 567, 1953 U.S. LEXIS 2394

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 6, 1953
• Docket: NO. 187
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases challenge the constitutionality of §§ 9, 11, and 20 of the Illinois Motor Vehicle Law, as amended. Ill. Rev. Stat., 1951, c. 95%. The statute imposes a tax for the use of the public highways and measures the tax exclusively by gross weight of the vehicle. Appellants, most of whom are interstate carriers, challenged the tax as violating the Commerce Clause (Art. I, § 8) of the Constitution and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court of Illinois sustained the statute. 412 Ill. 204, 321, 106 N. E. 2d 521, 510. The cases are here by appeal. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2).

The main emphasis of the argument is on the Commerce Clause. The argument starts from the premise found in our opinions that a state may levy a tax on an interstate motor vehicle that is “measured by or has some fair relationship to the use of the highways for which the charge is made.” McCarroll v. Dixie Lines, 309 U. S. 176, 181. It is contended that the present tax is not so measured but has the same infirmities as the tax on motor vehicles which the Court invalidated in Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey, 283 U. S. 183. An elaborate argument is advanced to the effect that a large fraction of the costs of installing and maintaining highways has no relation to the weight of the vehicles that pass over them. Therefore, a tax such as this one, which is determined solely with reference to weight, is a tax part of which is exacted for a purpose other than the use of the highways.

We do not stop to analyze the evidence tendered by appellants. For we do not reach the issue in this case. It is true that some of the appellants are interstate carriers. But it is also true that each of the interstate carriers does an intrastate business as well. The tax is required from any motor vehicle that moves on the highways. It is, indeed, a tax for the privilege of using the highways of Illinois. Clearly it is within the police power of Illinois to exact such a tax at least from intrastate operators. Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610. No showing has been made by any of the appellants that the tax bears no reasonable relation to the use he makes of the highways in his intrastate operations. No effort is made to show that in that way or in some other manner the tax is increased by reason of the interstate operations of any appellant. In short appellants have failed to carry the burden of showing that the tax deprives them of rights which the Commerce Clause protects. Cf. Southern R. Co. v. King, 217 U. S. 524, 534. The case is therefore to be distinguished from those situations where by nature of the tax or its incidence (Sprout v. South Bend, 277 U. S. 163, 170, 171; Spector Motor Service v. O’Connor, 340 U. S. 602, 609) an issue of unreasonable burden on interstate commerce is presented.

The objections under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment are without substance. The power of a state to tax, basic to its sovereignty, is limited only if in substance and effect it is the exertion of a different and a forbidden power (Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40, 44), as for example the taxation of a privilege protected by the First Amendment. See Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 112. No such problem is even remotely involved here. Complaint is made that private carriers are taxed at the same rate as carriers for hire. Yet so far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, that objection is frivolous, since neither private nor public carriers have the right to use the highways without payment of a fee (see Hendrick v. Maryland, supra); and we cannot say that the exaction of the same fee from each is out of bounds. Appellants make other arguments to the effect that the statute is so inconsistent, vague, and uncertain in its classification as to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But even if we assume that the vagaries of the law reach that dignity, no showing is made that any of the appellants is the victim of an invidious classification. Cf. Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U. S. 251, 277.

We need notice only one other argument and that is that the statute requires Illinois residents to pay the tax, whereas nonresidents are exempted provided the states of their residence reciprocate and grant like exemptions to Illinois residents. That objection, so far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, was adequately answered in Storaasli v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 57, 62. And contrary to appellants’ suggestions, that kind of reciprocal arrangement between states has never been thought to violate the Compact Clause of Art. I, § 10 of the Constitution. See St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. v. James, 161 U. S. 545, 562; Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160, 168.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Burton concurs in the result. Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.