United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Haavik v. Alaska Packers Assn., 263 U.S. 510 (1924)

Haavik v. Alaska Packers Association

No. 128

Argued November 15, 1923

Decided January 7, 1924

263 U.S. 510

Syllabus

1. An annual poll tax, and an annual license imposed only on nonresident fishermen within Alaska, are within the power delegated to the Alaska Legislature by the Organic Act. P. 263 U. S. 514.

2. These taxes, as applied to a citizen of California who went to Alaska to engage in the business of fishing and remained there, so engaged, for four months, are not in conflict with the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Id.

3. Nor doe the license tax, confined to nonresident, violate the "privileges and immunities" provision (Const., Art. IV, § 2), nor was it arbitrary or unreasonable to favor local residents by exempting them from it. P. 263 U. S. 515.

Affirmed.

Appeal from a decree of the district court dismissing a libel brought by the appellant to recover the sum of ten dollars, claimed to be due him from the appellee as part of his wages as a fisherman. The appellee had paid that sum to discharge the taxes laid on the appellant in Alaska, the constitutionality of which the appellant disputed.

Page 263 U. S. 513