Fishback v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

Citations

• 161 U.S. 96
• 16 S. Ct. 506
• 40 L. Ed. 630
• 1896 U.S. LEXIS 2142

Syllabus

<p>A Circuit Court of the United States has no jurisdiction of a bill to enjoin the collection of separate county taxes by separate county officers, in the State of Arkansas, against the Western Union Telegraph Company, (a corporation which has accepted the provisions of the Statute now codified in the Revised Statutes as Section 5263 to Section 5269,) on its line in each of said counties in that State, when the amount of the tax in no one of the counties reaches the sum of two thousand dollars ; and this result is not affected by -tbe fact that if the county assessments were aggregated they would exceed two thousand dollars, as the several county clerks or tax collectors cannot be joined in a single suit in a Federal court, and the jurisdiction sustained on the ground that the total amount involved exceeds the jurisdictional limitation ; nor by the fact that the railroad commissioners of the State, who had already acted in the matter, were made parties defendant to the suit.</p>