Sanford Service Co. v. City of Andalusia

55 So. 2d 856, 256 Ala. 507, 1951 Ala. LEXIS 167
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMay 24, 1951
Docket4 Div. 653
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 55 So. 2d 856 (Sanford Service Co. v. City of Andalusia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sanford Service Co. v. City of Andalusia, 55 So. 2d 856, 256 Ala. 507, 1951 Ala. LEXIS 167 (Ala. 1951).

Opinions

[508]*508FOSTER, Justice.

This suit is to test the legal right of a city to levy an excise tax on the act of delivering by the seller in the consummation of a sale of petroleum products in the City of Andalusia, after transporting the same in one act from without the city and state through a portion of the city directly to the place of business of a customer in the city and unloading same directly from the taxpayer’s tank trucks, so engaged, into the tanks of its said customer within said city (the taxpayer not being at the time a carrier), under an ordinance of the city. The pertinent provisions of which ordinance are as follows:

“Freight or Produce Delivery: Each person, firm, corporation or motor transportation company who unloads, delivers, distributes or disposes of any goods, wares, merchandise or produce, including fuel oil, lubricating oil, gasoline, kerosene or other hydrocarbons, in the City of Andalusia, Alabama, which said goods, wares, merchandise or produce, including fuel oil, lubricating oil, gasoline, kerosene or other hj'dro carbons were transported from a point without the City of Andalusia, Alabama, to a point within the City of Andalusia, Alabama.
“Per year ............... $112.50
Per week............... 10.00
Per day............... 2.00”

It will be observed that, for all practical purposes, the ordinance is the same and the question as to it is likewise the same as that considered in Sanford v. City of Clanton, 31 Ala.App. 253, 15 So.2d 303, certiorari denied 244 Ala. 671, 15 So.2d 309: also our case of City of Enterprise v. Fleming, 240 Ala. 460, 199 So. 691, and State v. Coca Cola Bottling Works, 29 Ala.App. 508, 198 So. 363.

It is not materially affected by the case of Dorsky v. Brown, 255 Ala. 238, 51 So.2d 360, which was also controlled by the principles declared in the Sanford case, supra.

The Sanford case was decided in 1943, before the decisions in Joseph v. Carter & Weekes Stevedoring Co., 330 U.S. 422, 67 S.Ct. 815, 91 L.Ed. 993, and Spector Motor Service v. O’Connor, 340 U.S. 602, 71 S.Ct. 508. It is contended that those cases modify the rule on which the Sanford case was based. In that case the Court of Appeals, in which this Court concurred on certiorari, tried to interpret the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, which were thought to have application, leading to a holding that the tax was not on interstate commerce as there applied, or an undue burden on interstate commerce. McGoldrick v. Berwind-White, 309 U.S. 33, 60 S.Ct. 388, 84 L.Ed. 565, 128 A.L.R. 876.

It seems now that those Ibroad principles have not been limited or modified, but open a wide avenue for difference of opinion in their application. It has been said that the levy must not impede the free flow of trade between the states, nor be laid on interstate commerce directly. Freeman v. Hewit, 329 U.S. 249, 67 S.Ct. 274, 91 L.Ed. 265; Morgan v. Com. of Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 66 S.Ct. 1050, 90 L.Ed. 1317; Interstate Transit, Inc., v. Lindsey, 283 U.S. 183, 51 S.Ct. 380, 75 L.Ed. 953; Spector Motor Service v. O’Connor, supra. It is not controlling that local commerce is subjected to a similar incumbrance. Freeman v. Hewit, supra.

The question here is whether those principles serve to support the tax in question as applied to plaintiff. As to plaintiff, that tax contains all of those elements of a permissible tax without question, except that of whether it is laid on interstate commerce or impedes its free flow. We do not think that it is accurate to hold that it' is laid on such commerce as applied to plaintiff in hauling his own goods and delivering them pursuant to a contract of sale made by. him. It is more properly laid upon a feature of such contract of sale.

The case of McGoldrick v. Berwind-White, supra, was based on a sales tax imposed by the City of New York on the sale of goods delivered within the city, purchased for shipment from outside the city and transported in interstate commerce as a part of their delivery in the city. We can see no difference between such a situation and one where the seller himself transports the goods as a part of the delivery rather than to have them transported by an independent transportation com[509]*509pany. In neither case is there any tax or other burden upon commerce. The burden falls, and the tax is laid, not upon the transportation, but upon the delivery as an act in consummating a sale between persons who may or may not have an interest in the transportation, but whose relationship is exclusive of transportation, although transportation is necessary to its consummation. We do not think the Berwind-White case, supra, followed by our Sanford case, supra, has been modified by any later cases, to which we have been referred. See Annotation 128 A.L.R. 901 et seq. The case of Freeman v. Hewit, supra, manifests no purpose to reflect upon it as an authority. The other cases relied on are not in point, as we will show.

We of course concede that, when such unloading is at the end of a continuous movement in interstate commerce, it is a feature of such commerce. Puget Sound Stevedoring Co. v. Tax Commission of Washington, 302 U.S. 90, 58 S.Ct. 72, 82 L.Ed. 68. But this tax was not laid, as respects this plaintiff, on delivery as a feature of such commerce, but as a feature of a sale made by the taxpayer to his purchaser as in the Berwind-White case, supra, and as in Caskey Baking Co. v. Com. of Virginia, 313 U.S. 117, 61 S.Ct. 881, 85 L.Ed. 1223.

In the Joseph case, supra, the business of the taxpayer was that of stevedoring, serving vessels in interstate commerce. The court struck down the tax declaring that stevedoring is an essential part of the commerce, and the tax was upon the privilege of conducting that business measured by a percentage of the gross receipts and was an interference by the state with the freedom of interstate commerce. It was a burden primarily on interstate commerce. It demonstrates that the principles we relied on in the Sanford case, supra, have not been modified, and so our duty now is to apply them again.

In the Spector case, supra, the court was dealing with a state tax measured by the income received from business transacted within the state during the tax year upon each corporation or association carrying on business of a certain sort in the state. The tax was to be an excise upon its franchise for the privilege of carrying on or doing business within the state. The taxpayer in that case was engaged solely in the interstate transportation of freight by motor truck and was doing such business within the taxing state.

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Sanford Service Co. v. City of Andalusia
55 So. 2d 856 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1951)

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Bluebook (online)
55 So. 2d 856, 256 Ala. 507, 1951 Ala. LEXIS 167, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanford-service-co-v-city-of-andalusia-ala-1951.