State v. Paramount Publix Corporation

O’NIELL, Chief Justice.

This is a suit to collect from the Paramount Publix Corporation, domiciled in New York, a license tax for the business of leasing and distributing motion picture films, at a branch office, called an exchange, in New Orleans, during the years 1930, 1931 and 1932. The defendant pleaded that the business which the state was seeking to tax was interstate commerce, and therefore exempt from state taxation, by the commerce clause in the Constitution of the United States, article 1, § 8, cl. 3, reserving to the Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several states.…