Harlan F. Stone

“ It is plain that the Fourteenth Amendment does not preclude a state from placing notes and receivables in a different class from personal property used in agriculture and the products of agriculture, including livestock, and taxing the two classes differently, even though the state places them in a single class for other purposes of taxation. ”

“ No one species of property from which a tax may be collected shall be taxed higher than any other species of property of equal value.' This section of the constitution also provides for the division of all taxable property into four classes, with a prescribed limitation on the amount of tax which may be levied upon each class. ”

“ Appellants in their assignment of errors in this Court have failed to attack the state statute as repugnant to the Constitution, stating only that the finding and judgment below sustaining the assessment violate the equal protection clause. Even where the federal question has been properly raised below, an appeal under § 237 (a) may be dismissed where appellants fail to attack a statute explicitly in their assignments of error here. ”

“ They filed petitions with the county court of Kanawha County, West Virginia, seeking a review and reduction of the 1941 assessment of their property for taxation by the county assessor. They alleged that their property was assessed at a proportionately higher assessment valuation than the property of other taxpayers and that such assessment was unequal and discriminatory, in contravention of the state constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. ”

“ Nor does the equal protection clause prohibit inequality in taxation which results from mere mistake or error in judgment of tax officials, Pittsburgh, etc., Ry. Co. v. Backus, 154 U.S. 421, 435, 14 S.Ct. ”

“ I think the evidence is not only without contradiction but is persuasive that persons and corporations whose circumstances are precisely similar to those of the complaining taxpayers, and persons competing in the investment field with them and holding similar security, have been benefited by assessments purposely intended to discriminate in their favor, and against the complainants. ”

“ Notes
↑ The President of the Supreme Court of Appeals, in allowing the appeal to this Court, wrote a memorandum opinion to the effect that the question of the validity of the statute under the Constitution was raised and decided there. Appellants urge that this indicates that the appeal is proper. While a certificate of the state court, made part of the record, to the effect that the federal question in issue was decided there is generally sufficient to sustain our jurisdiction, when it is consistent with the record, Capital City Dairy v. ”