Miller Bros. Company v. Maryland/Dissent Douglas

by William O. Douglas

United States Supreme Court

347 U.S. 340

Miller Bros. Company  v.  Maryland

 Argued: Jan. 5, 1954. --- Decided: April 5, 1954

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice CLARK, concur, dissenting.

The States have been increasingly turning to sales and use taxes to raise the revenues they need to educate, protect, and serve their growing number of citizens. Unless the States can collect a sales or use tax upon goods being purchased out-of-state, there is a fertile opportunity for the citizen who wants state benefits without paying taxes to buy out-of-state. And there are just-across-the-state-line merchants who capitalize upon this opportunity. After today's decision there will be more.

I see no constitutional difficulty in making appellant a tax collector for Maryland under the general principles announced in General Trading Co. v. Tax Commission, 322 U.S. 335, 64 S.Ct. 1028, 88 L.Ed. 1309. When appellant's sales clerks make out the sales slips and arrange for the shipment of the purchased goods, they surely will know which are destined for Maryland, which for some other State. Hence to make appellant add the Maryland use tax to the bill when the purchaser requests that the goods be shipped to Maryland is only a minimal burden. Appellant will be paid for its trouble. ^[1] If liability were sought to be imposed under circumstances indicating that appellant had been taken by surprise or treated unfairly, different considerations would come into play. But appellant in this case pleads immunity, not ignorance of the Maryland law nor harshness in its application.

This is not a case of a minimal contact between a vendor and the collecting State. Appellant did not sell cash-and-carry without knowledge of the destination of the goods; and its delivery truck was not in Maryland upon a casual, non-recurring visit. Rather there has been a course of conduct in which the appellant has regularly injected advertising into media reaching Maryland consumers and regularly effected deliveries within Maryland by its own delivery trucks and by common carriers. ^[2]

Jurisdiction over appellant in this suit was obtained when its motor vehicle was attached while it was being used in Maryland. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565; Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94, 41 S.Ct. 433, 65 L.Ed. 837. If appellant chooses to keep out of Maryland entirely, then the Maryland courts will of course have no jurisdiction over it. But as long as appellant chooses to do some business there, I see nothing in the Due Process Clause which would prevent Maryland from making it a collector for taxes on sales which appellant knows are destined for Maryland homes.

Notes

1. The Maryland statute provides that the vendor-collector may retain 3 percent of the gross tax as compensation for collection and remittance expenses. Flack's Md.Ann.Code, 1951, Art. 81, § 384.
2. The parties stipulated that appellant advertises in Maryland, both by Delaware newspapers which circulate across the state line and by direct mail to Maryland customers. It was also stipulated that, over a four-and-a-half year period, at least $12,000 worth of merchandise was sold by appellant to Maryland purchasers for Maryland use. Approximately two-thirds of this merchandise was delivered by appellant to its Maryland customers in a motor vehicle owned and operated by appellant.