Chapter 15624 of the Laws of Florida, 1931 (Ex. Sess.), declares it unlawful for any person, firm, corporation, association, or copartnership, foreign or domestic, to operate any store within the state without first having obtained a license, designates the officer to whom application shall be made, regulates the procedure for issurance of licenses, and provides for annual renewal. The act requires the payment of a filing fee, and by section 5, which is copied in the margin, fixes the amount of the license fee. A tax greater than that exacted for a single store is fixed for each store in excess of one, but not exceeding fifteen, owned or operated by the same person or corporation. The fee for each store is stepped up in amount as the number constituting the chain reaches certain specified limits. This graduated scale applies to stores all of which are within a single county; but, if the same number of stores is located in more than one county, the license fee for each is materially increased.)
The act imposes the tax only on retail stores and excludes from the definition of a store filling stations engaged exclusively in the sale of gasoline and other petroleum products. It provides for a separate county license tax equal to 25 per cent. of the state license fee, and authorizes a municipal tax of the same amount, measuring the graduated tax in the case of counties and municipalities by the number of stores situate in the county or municipality, notwithstanding the applicant may own other stores beyond the limits of the governmental subdivision.
In addition to the described license taxes the act imposes a levy of $3 for each $1,000 of value of stock carried in each store, or for sale in such store, and this is defined to include merchandise owned by the taxpayer and held in storage to be sold in or through such store.
Three chain store owners filed in the circuit court of Leon county, Fla., a class bill, in which twelve others intervened and became coplaintiffs, praying that the tax officials be enjoined from enforcing the act. The complainants are corporations of Florida and other states. They challenge the statute as violative of various provisions of the Constitution of Florida, of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. The bill sets forth in great detail facts claimed to assimilate the operation of chain stores to that of stores individually owned and operated in the state of Florida. So-called voluntary chains of retail stores are described at length and their methods of operation compared with those of chain stores; the purpose being to demonstrate that there is no essential difference between the two methods of conducting business. On the basis of the facts recited, the bill charges that to tax a store operated in the one manner and exempt an establishment conducted in the other is arbitrary and unreasonable. The difference in the amount of tax laid upon the operator of a given number of stores in a single county and another conducting the same number in two or more counties is challenged as an unconstitutional discrimination. The imposition of a tax of $3 per $1,000 on retail merchants, not only as respects the stock actually contained in their stores, but also on goods in warehouse intended for sale in such stores, is attacked as discriminatory, for the reason that under another statute wholesale merchants are taxed only $1.50 per $1,000 of merchandise carried in their stores or warehouses. The exemption of filling stations is alleged to discriminate against the appellants in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The bill further avers that certain of the plaintiffs receive their goods from warehouses maintained outside the state of Florida, or order shipments to their stores from wholesale houses situate without the state, whereas many operators of single stores who are members of voluntary chains obtain their supplies from wholesalers in Florida, or from a warehouse in the state conducted by a voluntary chain corporation. The unequal effect of the act on these transactions is charged to be an unconstitutional burden upon interstate commerce.
The defendants moved to dismiss. The cause was heard upon this motion and a decree entered dismissing the bill at complainants' costs. The Supreme Court of Florida affirmed the decree. The present appeal presents only the questions arising under the Federal Constitution.