[157] Fleming v. Rhodes, 331 U.S. 100, 104 (1947). See also Blackmer v. United States, 284 U.S. 421, 442 (1932); Virginian R. Co. v. System Federation, 300 U.S. 515 (1937); Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.S. 495, 513 (1937).
[158] 157 U.S. 429 (1895). The first injunction suit by a stockholder to restrain a corporation from paying the tax appears to be Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331 (1856) which involved the validity of an Ohio tax. The suit was entertained on the basis of English precedents. A case similar to the Pollock Case is Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916). Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U.S. 450 (1881) is cited in the Pollock Case, although it in fact threw out a stockholder's suit.
[159] Cf. Cheatham et al. v. United States, 92 U.S. 85 (1875); and Snyder v. Marks, 109 U.S. 189 (1883).
[160] Smith v. Kansas City Title Co., 255 U.S. 180, 201, 202 (1921).
[161] Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288 (1936). Although the holdings of the plaintiffs amounted to only one-three hundred and fortieth of the preferred stock, the Court ruled that the right to maintain the suit was not affected by the smallness of the holdings.
[162] 298 U.S. 238 (1936).
[163] Robert L. Stern, in The Commerce Clause and the National Economy, 59 Harv. L. Rev. 645, 667-668 (1948), gives the following account of the litigation in the first bituminous coal case: On the same day that the Bituminous Coal Act became law, the directors of the Carter Coal Company met in New York. James Carter presented a letter saying the Coal Act was unconstitutional and that the company should not join the Code. His father agreed that the act was invalid, but thought the company should not take the risk of paying the tax required of nonmembers in the event the act should be sustained. The third director agreed with the elder Carter, and the board passed a resolution rejecting James Carter's proposals. This action was subsequently approved by a majority of the voting stock held by James Carter's father and mother who outvoted him and his wife.
[164] Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 487 (1923). See also Williams v. Riley, 280 U.S. 78 (1929).
[165] Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126 (1922).
[166] Ex parte Levitt, 302 U.S. 633 (1937). See, however, Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton, 272 U.S. 525 (1926), where the Supreme Court, though affirming the dismissal of a suit to enjoin a day-light-saving statute, nonetheless, sustained the jurisdiction of the district court to entertain the suit.