D. H. Holmes Co., LTD. v. Mcnamara, Secretary of Revenue and Taxation of Louisiana (486 U.S. 24)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 16, 1988 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 486 U.S. 24 · 108 S. Ct. 1619
- Decided
- May 16, 1988
- Term
- October Term 1987
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant, a Louisiana corporation, challenges the State’s imposition of a use tax on catalogs printed at appellant’s direction outside Louisiana and shipped to prospective customers within the State. The Louisiana Court of Appeal found that this application of the use tax did not violate the Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. We affirm. HH Appellant D. H. Holmes Company, Ltd., is a Louisiana corporation with its principal place of business and registered office in New Orleans. Holmes owns and operates 13 department stores in various locations throughout Louisiana that employ about 5,000 workers. It has approximately 500,000 credit card customers and an estimated 1,000,000 other customers within the State. In 1979-1981, Holmes contracted with several New York companies for the design and printing of merchandise catalogs. The catalogs were designed in New York, but were actually printed in Atlanta, Boston, and Oklahoma City. From these locations, 82% of the catalogs were directly mailed to residents of Louisiana; the remainder of the catalogs were mailed to customers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, or were sent to Holmes for distribution at its flagship store on Canal Street in New Orleans. The catalogs were shipped free of charge to the addressee, and their entire cost (about $2 million for the 3-year…
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