# Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company v. Public Service Commission of Tennessee and the State Board of Equalization of Tennessee

> Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · February 14, 1968 · 389 F.2d 247

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9453310

## Case

- **Full name:** LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE RAILROAD COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF TENNESSEE and the State Board of Equalization of Tennessee, Defendants-Appellants
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- **Decided:** February 14, 1968
- **Citations:** 389 F.2d 247; 1968 U.S. App. LEXIS 8054
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by McCREE
- **Judges:** McCree, Peck, McAllister
- **Cited by:** 16 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9453310

## Opinion text

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting.)
I respectfully dissent because I believe that Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway v. Browning, et al., 310 U.S. 362 , 60 S.Ct. 968 , 84 L.Ed. 1254 (1939), is controlling and that the District Court has failed to distinguish it. I understand that case to hold that
“" * * The states may classify property for taxation * * * and in making all these differentiations may treat railroads and other utilities with that separateness which their distinctive characteristics and functions in society make appropriate.” 310 U.S. at 368 , 60 S.Ct. at 972 .
That Tennessee has accomplished this by long established practice is even clearer now than it was when Browning was decided, and as Mr. Justice Frankfurter wrote then for the unanimous court,
“And if the state supreme court chooses to cover up under a formal veneer of uniformity the established system of differentiation between two classes of property, an exposure of the fiction is not enough to establish its unconstitutionality.” 310 U.S. at 369 , 60 S.Ct. at 972 .
Even if, as appellee contends, the assessment by appellant of appellee’s property at a different level of value from the assessment of locally-assessed properties violates the law of Tennessee, Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1 , 64 S.Ct. 397 , 88 L.Ed. 497 (1943), establishes that “state action, even though illegal under state law, can be no more or less constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment than if it were sanctioned by the state legislature.” 321 U.S. at 11 , 64 S.Ct. at 402 .
I would reverse.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9453310. Public record. Not legal advice.