Union Refrigerator Transit Company v. Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 federal appellate · 21 district · 260 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 583 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is also essential to the validity of a tax that the property shall be within the territorial jurisdiction of the taxing power. Not only is the operation of state laws limited to persons and property within the boundaries of the state, but property which is wholly and exclusively within the jurisdiction of another state receives none of the protection for which the tax is supposed to be the compensation. This rule receives its most familiar illustration in the cases of land, which, to be taxable, must be within the limits of the state.””

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Graves v. Elliott · Sancho v. Humacao Shipping Corp.

2. ““The .power of taxation, indispensable to the existence of every civilized government, is exercised upon the assumption of an equivalent rendered to the taxpayer in the protection of his person and property, in adding to the value of such property, or in the creation and maintenance of public conveniences in which he shares, such, for instance, as roads, bridges, sidewalks, pavements, and schools for the education of his children. If the taxing power be in no position to render these services or otherwise to benefit the person or property taxed, and such property be wholly within the taxing power of another state, to which it may be said to owe an allegiance, and to which it looks for protection, the taxation of such property within the domicile of the owner partakes rather of the nature of an extortion than a tax, and has been repeatedly held by this court to be beyond the power of the Legislature and a taking of property without due process of law. * * * “It is also essential to the validity of a tax that the property shall be within the territorial jurisdiction of the taxing power. , Not only is the operation of state laws limited' to persons and property within the boundaries of the state, but property, which is wholly and exclusively within the jurisdiction of another state, receives none of the protection for which the tax is supposed to he the compensation.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Billings · Superior Oil Co. v. City of Port Arthur, Tex.

3. ““Respecting this, there is an obvious distinction between tangible and intangible property, in the fact that the latter is held secretly; that there is no method by which its existence or ownership can be ascertained in the state of its situs except, -perhaps, in the case of mortgages or shares of stojjk. So if the owner be discovered, there is no way by which he can be reached by process in a state other than that of his domicile, or the collection of the tax otherwise enforced. In this class of cases the tendency of modern authorities is to apply the maxim mobilia sequuntur personam, and to hold that the property may be taxed at the domicile of the owner as the real situs of the debt, and also, more particularly in the case of mortgages, in the state where the property is retained. Such have been the repeated rulings of this court. (Citations.) “If this occasionally results in double taxation, it much of tener happens that this class of property escapes altogether. In the case of intangible property, the law does not look for absolute equality, but to the much more practical consideration of collecting the tax upon such property, either in the state of the domicile or the situs.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. France & New York Medicine Co. v. Reily · Board of County Com'rs v. Johnson Oil Refining Co.