United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill, 281 U.S. 673 (1930)

Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill

No. 464

Argued May 1, 1930

Decided June 2, 1930

281 U.S. 673

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF MISSOURI

1. A federal claim first raised by petition for rehearing in a state court is in time for purposes of review here if it was raised at the first opportunity, even though the petition was denied without opinion. P. 281 U. S. 677.

2. Where, under repeated constructions of laws of a state, consistently acted upon in administrative practice, a suit in equity to enjoin collection was the appropriate and the only remedy against a discriminating state tax violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the state court, overruling its earlier decisions, denies this remedy not for want of power, but upon the ground that the party seeking it should first have exhausted an administrative remedy, which, under the decisions overruled, was never open to him, and which, under the overruling decision, it is too late for him to invoke, the judgment violates due process of law, in its primary sense of an opportunity to be heard and to defend one's substantive right. P. 281 U. S. 678.

3. The federal guaranty of due process extends to state action through its judicial, as well as through its legislative, executive or administrative, branch of government. P. 281 U. S. 679.

4. Whether acting through its judiciary or through its legislature, a state may not deprive a person of all existing remedies for the enforcement of a right, which the state has no power to destroy, unless there is, or was, afforded to him some real opportunity to protect it. P. 281 U. S. 682.