Subscribe to the Tax Headline RSS feed | Subscribe to the Tax Headline feed via EmailSupreme Court Finds Federal Court Challenge to Ohio Tax Benefit Is Barred by Comity
June 2, 2010 in Daily Tax Report · Leave a Comment
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 1 that, under the comity doctrine, a federal lawsuit brought by retail natural gas suppliers that challenges Ohio’s natural gas taxation scheme as unconstitutional must be dismissed because the action should have first been brought in state court (Levin v. Commerce Energy Inc., U.S., No. 09-223, 6/1/10).
“The comity doctrine, we hold, requires that a claim of the kind here presented proceed originally in state court,” wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the six-justice majority. “In so ruling, we distinguish Hibbs v. Winn, 542 U.S. 88 (2004), in which the Court held that neither the [Tax Injunction Act] nor the comity doctrine barred a federal district court from adjudicating an Establishment Clause challenge to a state tax credit that allegedly funneled public funds to parochial schools.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito filed opinions concurring in the judgment, with Justice Antonin Scalia joining Thomas’s opinion.
