People v. Central Pacific Railroad

Action to recover the amount of taxes assessed against the defendant by the state board of equalization for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1888.

1. The underlying question upon this appeal is the validity of sections 3668 to 3670 of the Political Code, the appellant contending that the provisions of these sections contravene the provisions of section 25, article IV, of the constitution, and particularly of subdivision 10 thereof, by which the legislature is prohibited from passing a special law “ for the assessment or collection of taxes”; that as these sections take from the operation of the general law for the collection of taxes a certain class of railroads, and are applicable to these railroads alone, they are a special law within this prohibition. The distinction between a special and a general law may not be capable of being formulated in a definition which will be exhaustive of the subject and applicable to every case; and the question may be better determined upon a *584 consideration of each particular case presented for its application by taking into view the purpose and character of the law, as well as the individuals upon which it is to operate. The legislature, in…

I dissent. Passing other questions it is sufficient to say that, in my opinion, the assessment in question is void under the decisions of the supreme court of the United States in the cases of California v. Central Pac. R. R. Co., and State of California v. Southern Pac. R. R. Co., 127 U. S. 1 , because it includes a federal franchise, and thus attempts to tax “ one of the means or instrumentalities employed by the United States government for carrying into effect its sovereign powers.” That this cannot be done by a state has been the established law ever since the decision of the United States supreme court in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 , which was rendered in 1819. The principle was fully recognized and declared by this court in San Benito County v. Southern Pac. R. R. Co., 77 Cal. 518 , and San Francisco v. Western Union Tel. Co., 96 Cal. 140 .

The only difference between the above-mentioned cases in 127 United States and the case at bar is that in the former the trial court found that the state board of equalization included in the assessment the value of ‘‘ all franchises and corporate powers held and exercised by the defendant”; while in the case at bar the court…