STEWART DRY GOODS CO.
v.
LEWIS ET AL.
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Stewart Dry Goods Company challenged the dismissal of its bills of complaint against Kentucky state officials on the ground that it had an adequate remedy at law under a 1930 Kentucky statute providing for payment warrants from the state general fund. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a full hearing on the merits, holding that dismissal was improper without evidence and findings regarding whether the statutory remedy was truly adequate given allegations that millions in outstanding warrants remained unpaid due to depleted state funds.
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Per Curiam.
After interlocutory injunction had been granted, these cases went respectively to final hearing upon motions to dismiss the bills of complaint, and these were dismissed solely upon the ground that plaintiffs had an adequate remedy at law. The Court is of the opinion that the decision cannot be sustained merely upon the face of the statute invoked (Kentucky Acts of 1930, c. 149, § 10) in view of the allegations of the bills of complaint that the only remedy provided is to obtain warrants upon the General Fund of the State in the hands of the State Treasurer to be paid if and when funds are available for the payment of such warrants in the usual and orderly course; that there are now outstanding many such warrants drawn by the Auditor of Public Accounts upon the General Fund in the hands of the State Treasurer, which have been outstanding since June, 1927, and cannot be collected by the owners or holders for lack of funds in the Treasury; and that there were at the time of the beginning of these suits outstanding warrants aggregating $9,880,502.76 drawn by the Auditor of Public Accounts upon the State Treasurer, presented for payment, but not paid for lack of funds. (See State Budget Commn. v. Lebus, 244 Ky. 700, 703, 714; 51 S. W. (2d) 965, as to warrants outstanding.) Defendants’ answers denied the above-mentioned allegations, but it does not appear that there has been a hearing upon evidence of the issue tendered and no findings of fact upon the subject have been made by the courts below.
The decrees are reversed and the causes remanded to the District Courts, of three judges, for final hearing upon the merits, without prejudice to a determination upon evidence with respect to the questions of the status of outstanding warrants upon the General Fund in the State Treasury, and whether warrants of the sort contemplated by § 10 of the Act in question are accorded preference in payment over other warrants, and the basis, if any, for the assurance that such preference will be continued so that in the event of actions by the plaintiffs at law under § 10 they would be afforded a certain, reasonably prompt and efficacious remedy. Davis v. Wakelee, 156 U. S. 680, 688; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Daughton, 262 U. S. 413, 426.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
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Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis, 294 U.S. 550 (U.S. 1935)…be the subject taxed. It exacts from two persons different amounts for the privilege of doing exactly similar acts because the one has performed the act oftener than the other. We hold the act unconstitutional, and reverse the judgment. Reversed. 287 U. S. 9. 7 F. Supp. 438; 8 F. Supp. 396. Chapter 149, Acts of 1930, p. 475. “An Act relating to revenue and taxation, imposing an excise or license tax on retail merchants, as the words ‘ retail merchants ’ are used in this act; providing for the collect…
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Adams Cnty. v. N. Pac. Ry. Co., 115 F.2d 768 (9th Cir. 1940)…sult only in the issuance of uncollectible warrants. That the statutory remedy would be inadequate and certainly therefore not “efficient” in such a factual situation is a conclusion supported by the Supreme Court. In Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis, 287 U.S. 9, 53 S.Ct. 68, 77 L.Ed. 135, the plaintiff had sought an injunction in a federal district court to restrain the collection of a tax on sales on the ground of conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The complaint was…
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Denton v. City of Carrollton, 235 F.2d 481 (5th Cir. 1956)…since the liability for repayment is apparently personal and not official, Dennison Mfg. Co. v. Wright, supra, a factor of possible dominant importance since right of recovery requires actual collectibility in money, Stewart Dry Goods Co. v. Lewis, 287 U.S. 9, 53 S.Ct. 68, 77 L.Ed. 1135. . The ease is reversed as to both Denton and IDE. The Court on remand may have to determine whether the Ordinance applies to the Union as such or would entitle it, as distinguished from an individual employee of these l…
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- Davis v. Wakelee, 156 U.S. 680 (U.S. 1895)
- Atl. Coast Line R.R. Co. v. Daughton, 262 U.S. 413 (U.S. 1923)