The city of New Orleans brought this action in a Louisiana state court to recover from defendant (plaintiff in error here) a license tax of $400, imposed for the year 1922, upon its business of steamship agent. The demand was resisted on the ground that the tax was in contravention of the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States (article 1, § 8, cl. 3), in that it was an interference with and tax upon interstate and foreign commerce. Defendant was regularly employed as agent for four steamship lines, under a contract fixing its compensation on the basis of commissions, calculated upon the gross amount of freight charges collected by it for each company. In addition, defendant occasionally represented other shipowners. All were exclusively engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, and defendant's business was confined solely to representing principals so engaged in such commerce. The service rendered consisted of soliciting and engaging cargo, nominating ships for carrying it, arranging for its delivery on the wharf, issuing bills of lading under the name of shipowner or charterer, arranging for stevedores for loading and discharging cargo, collecting freight charges, paying ships' disbursements, attending to immigration service, and assisting generally in matters of local customs and regulations. Freight moneys collected, after deducting commissions, were remitted to the owners or charterers. As such agent, defendant was authorized to solicit cargo and quote freight rates and to issue receipts in the name of its principal for cargo delivered on the wharf.
Upon these facts the trial court held that defendant's business was local in character and subject to the tax. Upon appeal, this judgment was affirmed by the state Supreme Court. 152 La. 498, 93 South. 751.
The state Supreme Court thus stated the necessity and character of the agent's duties:
'The business of steamship agents is an extensive business in New Orleans, as it is in every large seaport. As a separate or an independent business, it is a result of the development of the country's commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. In the early days, when time was not so much the object or subject of economy as it is to-day, every ship's captain, for his own ship, discharged the duties and rendered the services for which local steamship agents are employed nowadays. But it would be impracticable now for a ship's captain to remain with his ship in port long enough to attend to the many matters which the local steamship agents can and do attend to for a ship at sea or in a foreign port. The business of steamship agents is therefore a necessary adjunct to commerce on the high seas.'
This court has had frequent occasion to consider and determine the effect of taxes of the same general character as that here involved, and for present purposes we find it unnecessary to do more than refer to the general and well-established rule, which is that a state or state municipality is powerless to impose a tax upon persons for selling or seeking to sell the goods of a nonresident within the state prior to their introduction therein, Stockard v. Morgan, 185 U.S. 27, 22 Sup. Ct. 576, 46 L. Ed. 785; or to impose a tax upon persons for securing or seeking to secure the trans portation of freight or passengers in interstate or foreign commerce, McCall v. California, 136 U.S. 104, 10 Sup. Ct. 881, 34 L. Ed. 391. The latter decision controls the present case. There the agent of a railroad company was engaged in San Francisco in the business of soliciting and inducing persons to travel from the state of California into and through other states to New York City, over the line of railroad which he represented. It was held that the business of the agent constituted a method of securing passenger traffic for the company, and therefore (136 U.S. 109, 10 Sup. Ct. 882, 34 L. Ed. 391) the tax was one 'upon a means or an occupation of carrying on interstate commerce, pure and simple.' The only difference between that case and this is that there the agent was engaged in seeking interstate passenger business, while here the agent was engaged in seeking interstate and foreign freight business. Plainly, as pointed out in the McCall (136 U.S. 109, 10 Sup. Ct. 882, 34 L. Ed. 391), the principle is the same.