YAZOO AND MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY
v.
BOARD OF LEVEE COMMISSIONERS OF THE YAZOO MISSISSIPPI DELTA
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The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad Company challenged the collection of taxes levied by a Board of Levee Commissioners to fund levee construction and bond payments, arguing that a contractual tax exemption protected it from such taxation and that the tax law violated the Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court's dismissal of the railroad's complaint, relying on its decision in a companion case involving the same parties and legal issue.
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Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court.
This is an appeal, by plaintiff in the suit, from the decree of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, dismissing its bill of complaint filed in that court against the appellees, the Board of Levee Commissioners,, and certain sheriffs and tax-collectors, to enjoin the collection of taxes levied under an act of the legislature, creating such Board of Commissioners, for the purpose of providing for the payment of the principal and interest of bonds authorized to be issued by the board, the proceeds of which were to be applied to the construction and repair of levees on the Mississippi Eiver. The bill set up the same exemption relied on in Yazoo dc Mississippi Valley Railroad Compcmy v. Thomas, ante, 174, and it was insisted that' the taxes sought to be collected were unauthorized and illegal by reason of such exemption; and that the law imposing the taxes impaired the obligation of the alleged contract of exemption and thus violated the Constitution of the Hnited States; the litigation, therefore, making a controversy arising under that Constitution. Without considering whether any other ground for affirming the decree exists, it is sufficient to say that this case is disposed of by the decision which has just been announced in that referred to.
Decree affirmed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
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Ford v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 164 U.S. 662 (U.S. 1897)…ess letter or the necessary, scope of the exempting clause. Vicksburg &c. Railroad v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665, 668; Chicago &c. Railroad v. Guffey, 120 U. S. 569 ; Yazoo &c. Railroad v. Thomas, 132 U. S. 174; Yazoo &c. Railroad v. Delta Commissioners, 132 U. S. 190; N. O. & Lake Railroad v. New Orleans, 143 U. S. 192; Schurz v. Cook, 148 U. S. 397, 409; Keokuk &c. Railroad v. Missouri, 152 U. S. 301, 306 ; Winona &c. Land Company v. Minnesota, 159 U. S. 526. Indeed, there has been strong judicial dissent from…