CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-INTERSTATE COMMERCE--VALIDITY OF STATUTE REQUIRING COLLECTION OF USE TAX BY OUT-OF-STATE VENDOR ENGAGED SOLELY IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

Plaintiff, a Tennessee corporation, sued to recover taxes paid under protest pursuant to the Mississippi Use Tax Act. The act required collection by retailers "maintaining a place of business" in the state, which phrase was defined as including any retailer having any agent operating within the state. Plaintiff's salesmen, nonresidents of Mississippi, solicited orders for goods within that state. Acceptance of the orders and delivery to an interstate carrier were at plaintiff's home office in Tennessee.

Held, insofar as the act requires a nonresident vendor to collect the tax, it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two justices dissented. Reichman-Crosby Co. v. Stone, (Miss. 1948) 37 s. (2d) 22.