TAXATION - OVERVALUATION AS DEPRIVATION OF DUE PROCESS

Authors

Abstract

From 1929 through 1933 the valuation placed by the North Dakota Board of Equalization upon the property of the Great Northern Railway within the state declined less than six per cent. Relying upon evidence as to the value of its property in North Dakota as well as the common knowledge that the decline in values had been many times six per cent during this period, the Railway claimed that it had been deprived of its property in contravention of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its contention was confined to the charge of overvaluation; discrimination, either in rates or valuation, was not alleged. The majority of the Court held that overvaluation alone is sufficient to work a denial of due process. Justice Stone, with whom Justice Brandeis and Justice Cardozo joined, dissented upon the ground that the factor of discrimination is needed to constitute a violation of due process in taxation cases. Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Weeks, 297 U.S. 135, 56 S. Ct. 426 (1936).

Recommended Citation

TAXATION - OVERVALUATION AS DEPRIVATION OF DUE PROCESS, 35 Mich. L. Rev. 174 (1936).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol35/iss1/31