U.S. Supreme Court CARPENTER v. SHAW, 280 U.S. 363 (1930)

[Page 280 U.S. 363, 369]

460, 462, 166 P. 792; Macdonough v. Starbird, 104 Cal. 15, 19, 38 P. 510. Compare Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Tr. Co., 157 U.S. 429, 15 S. Ct. 673.

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma also rested its denial to petitioners of the right to recover the 1926 tax upon the ground that, having failed to pay the tax for the year when due, they were barred by the provisions of sections 9971 and 9973 of the Compiled Oklahoma Statutes for 1921. Under these sections, relief by injunction against the collection of any tax is forbidden and a suit to recover a tax alleged to be illegally assessed is allowed only if paid 'at the time and in the manner provided by law.' But the petitioners' allegations, admitted on demurrer, are that the tax was paid under duress and compulsion to prevent the issue of respondent's warrant for its collection, to prevent the stopping by respondent of further royalty payments to them, and to prevent the accumulation of statutory penalties. These allegations are sufficient to bring the case within the ruling of this court in Ward v. Board of Com'rs of Love County, supra, that a denial by a state court of a recovery of taxes exacted in violation of the laws or Constitution of the United States by compulsion is itself in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The judgment below will be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed.