Michelin Tire Corp. v. County of San Mateo

Opinion

SIMS, J.

Plaintiff, an importer of tires from Europe, has appealed from a judgment which denied it recovery of personal property taxes of $28,035.49 paid to defendant county under protest for the fiscal year 1972-1973. On appeal it contended that the goods assessed enjoyed an immunity from taxation under article I, section 10, clause 2 of the United States Constitution,

1

as interpreted in

Brown

v.

Maryland

(1827) 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 419 [6 L.Ed. 678], and

Low

v.

Austin

(1871) 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 29 [20 L.Ed. 517], and that such immunity was not lost because the tires were unloaded from the seavans in which they were shipped and were stored in the importer’s warehouse. The trial court concluded that by placing the tires in different pallets according to size and then placing the pallets in separate rows in the warehouse by size the plaintiff had broken the unit of importation required for the import tax immunity—the “original package doctrine”—as it was recognized at the time of trial.

Submission of the case was delayed pending a decision in

Michelin Tire Corp.

v.

Wages,

then pending in the United States Supreme Court,

[334]

to review a decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia (233 Ga. 712 [214 S.E.2d 349]). That matter has now been decided as follows: “The only question presented is whether the Georgia Supreme Court was correct in holding that the tires were subject to the ad valorem property tax. We affirm without addressing the question whether'the Georgia Supreme Court was correct in holding that the tires had lost their status as imports. We hold that, in any event, Georgia’s assessment of a nondiscriminatory ad valorem property tax against the imported tires is not within the constitutional prohibition against laying ‘any Imposts or Duties on Imports . . .’ and that insofar as