Kentucky Union Co. v. Kentucky

Citations

• 219 U.S. 140
• 31 S. Ct. 171
• 55 L. Ed. 137
• 1911 U.S. LEXIS 1626

Syllabus

<p>A State may choose its own methods of taxation' and form and method of enforcing payment so far as Federal power is concerned, subject only to the restrictions of the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>Where the highest court of the State has held that provisions that might render an act unconstitutional are inoperative, and the elimination of those provisions do not affect the remainder of the act, this court is bound by such construction and will construe the act as though stripped of such provisions.</p> <p>An ex post facto law and a retroactive law are different things.</p> <p>Laws of a retroactive nature imposing taxes or providing remedies for their assessment and collection and not impairing vested rights' are not forbidden by the Federal Constitution. League v. Texas, 184 U. S. 156.</p> <p>Ex post facto laws prohibited by the Federal Constitution are those relating to criminal punishment and not retrospective laws of'a different nature. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dali. 386; Orr v. Gilman, 183 U. S. 278.</p> <p>As the Kentucky statute involved in this case, as construed by the highest court of that State, does not impose penalties or punishments of a criminal nature, it is not an ex post facto law within the meaning of the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>Summary procedure in the assessment and'collection of taxes, if not arbitrary or unequal, and which allows opportunity to be heard does' not deny the property owner due process of law simply because it is summary.</p> <p>A state statute requiring owners to register lands and pay taxes thereon but which only forfeits them for non-compliance therewith after judicial proceeding and opportunity to be heard, does not deny the property owner due process of law.</p> <p>A time not unreasonably short for beginning actions, fixed, in view of particular conditions, by the legislature, does not deny due process of law, Terry v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 628; and a state statute of limitations as to actions between individuals cannot affect th