Greene v. Louisville & Interurban Railroad

Citations

• 244 U.S. 499
• 37 S. Ct. 673
• 61 L. Ed. 1280
• 1917 U.S. LEXIS 1660

Syllabus

<p>Equity has jurisdiction to enjoin unlawful tax proceedings, which cloud the plaintiff’s title and threaten irreparable injury and a multiplicity of suits.</p> <p>The principle settled in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, to the effect that a suit to restrain state officials from enforcing an unconstitutional state statute in violation of plaintiff’s rights and to his irreparable damage is not a suit against the State, applies also when the statute itself is constitutional but the attempted administration of it is not.</p> <p>In a case in which the jurisdiction of the District Court is properly invoked upon a substantial controversy arising under the Constitution of the United States, the jurisdiction of that court, and of this court on appeal, extends to the determination of all questions involved, including questions of state law, irrespective of the disposition that may be made of the federal question and of whether it be found necessary to decide it at all.</p> <p>Where the relief to which plaintiff might be entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment is the same as that allowed him by the federal court upon a proper construction and application of the state constitution and laws, the question whether the acts complained of violate the Amendment need not be decided.</p> <p>Under the so-called franchise tax provisions of Kentucky (Ky. Stats., §§ 4077-4079) relating to railroad and other corporations exercising special or exclusive privileges or franchises, what is termed the “capital stock of the corporation” (§ 4079) includes its entire property, tangible and intangible, and what is termed a “franchise tax” is nothing else than a tax upon the intangible property of the corporation in Kentucky.</p> <p>Semble, that no provision is made by the Kentucky statu fces for taxing franchises under §§ 174 and 181 of the state constitution.</p> <p>The provision in § 182 of the Kentucky Constitution, permitting the General Assembly to provide by law “how railroads and railroad pr