Ex Parte Buder

Background

In this case, St. Louis tax officials asked this Court for permission to file a special petition after a federal district judge entered a final decree on December 7, 1925, in a suit brought by the First National Bank in St. Louis. The bank had sued to stop enforcement of a tax on its shareholders; the district court enjoined the tax. The tax officials had already taken an appeal to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and that appeal is pending. They then asked the district judge for a direct appeal here; he refused. The officials moved for leave to seek a writ from this Court to force the judge to allow a direct appeal.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the case could go straight to this Court without first going to the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court explained that Congress changed the appeal rules in 1925, so direct appeals are only available in certain suits that attack the constitutionality of a state statute and that required three judges at the district level. This case did not challenge the constitutionality of a Missouri statute. Instead, the dispute turned on whether federal and state statutes showed that Missouri had chosen a particular method of taxing national banks after a 1923 federal law. Because the case does not fall into the narrow class that permits direct appeals, the Court found no right to a direct appeal and denied the motion.

Real world impact

The ruling means the tax officials must proceed through the federal appeals court before seeking review here. It clarifies that most tax and statutory disputes must follow the normal appellate path unless they specifically attack a state statute’s constitutionality in the three-judge class of cases. The denial was procedural and did not decide the tax issue on its merits.