QUILL CORPORATION, PETITIONER v. NORTH DAKOTA BY AND THROUGH ITS TAX COMMISSIONER, HEIDI HEITKAMP, 504 U.S. 298

Summary

Petitioner was a mail-order house with no outlets or representatives in respondent's state. Nevertheless, respondent brought suit to collect use taxes from petitioner pursuant to N.D. Cent. Code § 57-40.2-01(6). The trial court ruled in petitioner's favor, but the state supreme court reversed, overruling National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753, 87 S.Ct. 1389 (1967). Petitioner appealed. The court found petitioner purposefully directed sufficient activities at respondent's residents to satisfy due process minimum contacts, but nevertheless fell within the safe harbor provisions of the Commerce Clause "substantial nexus" requirement proffered by Bellas Hess. The court held that stare decisis and the differences between the controlling principles of the Due Process and Commerce Clauses mandated that the Bellas Hess rule remain good law. Accordingly, the judgment of the court was reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with the ...