FORBES PIONEER BOAT LINE
v.
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF EVERGLADES DRAINAGE DISTRICT

U.S. | 1922-04-10
No. 188
258 U.S. 338 Supreme Court of the United States (1922) Negative Treatment
Also reported at: 66 L. Ed. 647 · 42 S. Ct. 325 · 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2277 · SCDB 1921-088
Cited by 150 cases

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Synopsis

Forbes Pioneer Boat Line sought to recover tolls that were unlawfully collected by the Everglades Drainage District for passage through a canal lock, but after the Florida Supreme Court initially ruled in the plaintiff's favor, the state legislature passed an act purporting to retroactively validate the collection. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that a state legislature cannot retroactively ratify an unlawful exaction of money by validating a past wrong that it could not have lawfully imposed at the time of the legislature's action, as such ratification violates the constitutional guarantee against taking property without due process.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Justice Holmes

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the-opinion of the court.

This is a suit, begun in 1917, to recover tolls unlawfully collected from the plaintiff, the plaintiff in error, for passage through the lock of a canal. The Supreme-Court of Florida sustained the declaration, 77 Fla. 742, but on the day of the decision the Legislature passed an act, c. 7865, Acts of 1919, that purported to validate the collection. The act was pleaded. The plaintiff demurred setting up Article I, § 10, and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, but the Supreme Court rendered judgment for the defendant on the ground that the plea was good. 80 Fla. 252.

Stripped of conciliatory phrases the question is whether a state legislature can take away from a private party a right to recover money that is due when the act is passed. The argument that prevailed below was based on the supposed analogy of United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370, (Rafferty v. Smith, Bell & Co., 257 U. S. 226,) which held that Congress could ratify the collection of a tax that had been made without authority of law. That analogy, however, fails. A tax may be imposed in respect of past benefits, so that if instead of calling it a ratification Congress had purported to impose the tax for the first time the enactment would have been within its power. Wagner v. Baltimore, 239 U. S. 207, 216, 217. Stockdale v. Atlantic Insurance Co., 20 Wall.

323. But generally ratification of an act is not good if attempted at a time when the ratifying authority could not lawfully do the act. Bird v. Brown, 4 Exch. 786, 799. If wé apply that principle this statute is invalid. For if the Legislature of Florida had attempted to make .the plaintiff pay in 1919 for passages through the lock of a canal, that took place before 1-917, without any promise of reward, there is nothing in the case as it stands to indicate that it could have done so any more' effectively than'it could have made a man pay a baker for a gratuitous deposit of rolls.'

It is true that the doctrine of. ratification has been carried somewhat beyond the point that we indicate, in regard to acts done in the name' of the Government by those who assume to represent it. Tiaco v. Forbes, 228 U. S. 549 556. It is true also-that when rights are asserted on the ground of some slight technical defect or. contrary to some strongly prevailing view of justice, Courts have allowed them to be defeated by subsequent legislation and have used various circumlocutions, some of which are collected in Danforth v. Groton Water. Co., 178 Mass. 472, 477. Dunbar v. Boston & Providence R. R. Co., 181 Mass. 383, 385. In those cases it is suggested that the meaning simply is that constitutional principles must leave some play to the joints of the machine.

ButCourts can not go very far against .the literal meaning and plain Intent of a constitutional text. Defendant owed the plaintiff a definite sum of money that it had extorted from the plaintiff without right. It is hard to find any ground for saying that the promise of the law that the public force shall be at the plaintiff’s disposal is less absolute than it is when the claim is for goods sold. Yet no one would say that a claim for-goods sold could be abolished without compensation. It would seem from the first decision of the Court below that the transaction was not one for which payment naturally could have been expected. To say that the legislature simply was establishing the situation as both parties knew from the beginning it ought to be would be putting something of a gloss upon the facts. We must. assume that the plaintiff went through the canal relying upon its legal rights and it is not to be deprived of them because the Legislature-forgot.

Judpment reversed.

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Citator

Cited By (44 total)

  • State v. Knowles, 402 So. 2d 1155 (Fla. 1981)
    …to his full tort recovery,11 not merely a procedural adjustment of his remedies.12 That abrogation clearly outweighs the public’s interest in the 1980 legislation.13 Quoting Mr. Justice Holmes in Forbes Pioneer Boat Line v. Board of Commissioners, 258 U.S. 338, 339, 42 S.Ct. 325, 66 L.Ed. 647 (1922): Stripped of conciliatory phrases the question is whether a state legislature can take away from a private party a [*1159] right to recover money that is due when the act is* passed. We hold, as in Forbes, t…
    1 / 3
  • New Smyrna Inlet Dist. v. Esch, 103 Fla. 24 (Fla. 1931)
    …, such levy cannot in general be ratified by a statute. A void tax levy cannot be legalized by statutory ratification when substantial property rights would thereby be violated. See Forbes Pioneer Boat Line v. Bd. Comm. of Everglades Drainage Dist., 258 U. S. 338, 42 Sup. Ct. 325, 66 L. Ed. 647; 12 C. J. 968-9, 1095. Where a special tax levy in a district for a public improvement is illegal, and the statute authorizing the improvement becomes inoperative and no benefits can accrue to the taxpayers under the…
    1 / 2
  • Parker v. Town oe Callahan, 115 Fla. 266 (Fla. 1934)
    …Acts of 1911, as amended, without reference to the effect of the 1929 validating Act, if indeed the Legislature is vested with power to validate penalties retroactively. (See Forbes Pioneer Boat Line v. Board of Com’rs of Everglades Drainage Dist., 258 U. S. 338, 42 Sup. Ct. Rep. 325, 66 L. Ed. 647). Hence, insofar as enforcement in the present suits of the taxes as validated is concerned, the amounts for which liens' exist and are enforceable, are the accrued amounts of the validated taxes only as shown up…
    1 / 2

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