Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
581
TRENT, J.:
The judgment appealed from in this case perpetually
restrains and prohibits the defendant and his deputies
from collecting and enforcing against the plaintiffs and
their
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any court' (Rev. Stat., sec. 3224.) And though this was
intended to apply alone to taxes levied by the United
States, it shows the sense of Congress of the evils to be f
eared if courts of justice could. in any case, interfere with
the process of collecting taxes on which the government
depends for its continued existence. It is a wise policy. It is
founded in the simple philosophy derived from the
experience of ages, that the payment of taxes has to be
enforced by summary and stringent means against a
reluctant and often adverse sentiment; and to do this
successfully, other instrumentalities and other modes of
procedure are necessary, than those which belong to courts
of justice."
And again, in Snyder vs. Marks (109 U. S., 189), the
court said: "The remedy of a suit to recover back the tax
after it is paid is provided by statute, and a suit to restrain
its collection is forbidden. The remedy so given is exclusive,
and no other remedy can be substituted for it. Such has
been the current of decisions in the Circuit Courts of the
United States, and we are satisfied it is a correct view of
the law."
In the consideration of the plaintiffs' second proposition,
we will attempt to show (1) that the Philippine courts never
have had, since the American occupation, the power to
restrain by injunction the collection of any tax imposed by
the Insular Government for its own purpose and benefit,
and (2) that assuming that our courts had or have such
power, this power has not been diminished or curtailed by
sections 139 and 140.
We will first review briefly the former and present
systems of taxation. Upon the American occupation of the
Philippines, there was found a fairly complete system of
taxation. This system was continued in force by the
military authorities, with but few changes, until the Civil
Government assumed charge of the subject. The principal
sources of revenue under the Spanish regime were derived
from customs receipts, the so-called industrial taxes, the
urbana taxes, the stamp tax, the personal cedula tax, and
the sale of the public domain. The industrial and urbana
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"2. In all civil actions which involve the * * * legality of any tax,
impost, or assessment, * * *
* * * * * * *
"7. Said courts and their judges, or any of them, shall have
power to issue writs of injunction, mandamus, certiorary,
prohibition, quo warranto, and habeas corpus in their respective
provinces and districts, in the manner provided in the Code of
Civil Procedure."
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for the curing of all the ills to which the flesh is heir, etc.,
etc. It is quite natural for people to protest against this
indiscriminate and wholesale use of the landscape by
advertisers and the intrusion of tradesmen upon their
hours of leisure and relaxation from work. Outdoor life
must lose much of its charm and pleasure if this form of
advertising is permitted to continue unhampered until it
converts the streets and highways into veritable canyons
through which the world must travel in going to work or in
search of outdoor pleasure.
The success of billboard advertising depends not so
much upon the use of private property as it does upon the
use of the channels of travel used by the general public.
Suppose that the owner of private property, who so
vigorously objects to the restriction of this form of
advertising, should require the advertiser to paste his
posters upon the billboards so that they would f ace the
interior of the property instead of the exterior. Billboard
advertising would die a natural death if this were done,
and its real dependency not upon the unrestricted use of
private property but upon the unrestricted use of the public
highways is at once apparent. Ostensibly located on private
property, the real and sole value of the billboard is its
proximity to the public thoroughfares. Hence, we conceive
that the regulation of billboards and their restriction is not
so much a regulation of private property as it is a
regulation of the use of the streets and other public
thoroughfares,
We would not be understood as saying that billboard
advertising is not a legitimate business any more than we
would say that a livery stable or an automobile garage is
not. Even a billboard is more sightly than piles of rubbish
or an open sewer. But all these businesses are offensive to
the senses under certain conditions.
It has been urged against ministering to the sense of
sight that tastes are so diversified that there is no safe
standard of legislation in this direction. We answer in the
language of the Supreme Court in Noble State Bank vs.
Haskell (219 U. S., 104),. and which has already been
610
TRENT, J.:
Ex parte Young (209 U. S., 123); and say that they are of
the opinion that this case "is the absolutely determinative
of the question of jurisdiction in injunctions of this kind."
We did not refer to this case in our former opinion because
we were satisfied that the reasoning of the case is not
applicable to sections 100(6), 139 and 140 of Act No. 2339.
The principles announced in the Young case are stated as
follows: "It may therefore be said that when the penalties
for disobedience are by fines so enormous and
imprisonment so severe as to intimidate the company and
its officers from resorting to the courts to test the validity
of the legislation, the result is the same as if the law in
terms prohibited the company from seeking judicial
construction of laws which deeply affect its rights.
"It is urged that there is no principle upon which to base
the claim that a person is entitled to disobey a statute at
least once, for the purpose of testing its validity without
subjecting himself to the penalties for disobedience
provided by the statute in case it is valid. This is not an
accurate statement of the case. Ordinarily a law creating
offenses in the nature of misdemeanors or felonies relates
to subject over which the jurisdiction of the legislature is
complete in any event. In the case, however, of the
establishment of certain rates without any hearing,. the
validity of such rates necessarily depends upon whether
they are high enough to permit at least some return upon
the investment (how much it is not now necessary to state),
and an inquiry as to that fact is a proper subject of judicial
investigation. If it turns out that the rates are too low for
that purpose, then they are illegal. Now, to impose upon a
party interested the burden of obtaining a judicial decision
of such a question (no prior hearing having ever been
given) only upon the condition that, if unsuccessful, be
must suffer imprisonment and pay fines as provided in
these acts, is, in effect, to close up all approaches to the
courts, and thus prevent any hearing upon the question
whether the rates as provided by the acts are not too low,
and therefore invalid The distinction is obvious between a
case where the validity of
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Motion denied.
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