FARMERS RICE COOPERATIVE v. COUNTY OF YOLO (1974)

The appeal before us concerns the export-import clause of article I, section 10, clause 2, of the United States Constitution which, as relevant here, provides:

‘No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, . . .’

The action below was tried on stipulated facts which for our purposes may reasonably be condensed to the following.

Plaintiff Farmers' Rice Cooperative (hereafter ‘Cooperative’) is a nonprofit cooperative marketing association. It mills and markets rice grown by its members of northern and central California. The Sactamento-Yolo Port District maintains dockside elevator facilities in Yolo County in which rice may be accumulated and then conveniently loaded in bulk aboard ocean going vessels. In February 1967, Cooperative had contracted for the sale and delivery of more than 11,000,000 pounds of rice to buyers in Okinawa and Puerto Rico. On March 6, 1967 (the county personal property tax assessment date), 8,502,000 pounds of this rice had been delivered by Cooperative to the dockside facilities toward fulfillment of the orders. All of it had been grown and milled in California and no contention is made that it had ever entered the stream of interstate commerce. An agreement with the port district provided that ‘ultimate disposition of the rice is governed by [Cooperative's] instructions.’ The balance of the rice necessary to complete the transactions was delivered after March 6, and all in due course was shiploaded and delivered abroad to its purchasers.

The Yolo County Assessor assessed, as personal property of Cooperative, the 8,502,000 pounds of rice which was resting in the port district's elevators on March 6, 1967. The resulting tax was paid under protest by Cooperative, and the instant action was commenced against Yolo County for its recovery.

Judgment was entered for Cooperative by the superior court. Yolo County's appeal is from that judgment.

The question presented is whether goods originating in California which, while under control of their owner, are accumulated for export under existing contracts of sale in dockside facilities of a public authority, have entered upon the ‘process of exportation.’

At the threshold of our inquiry it seems proper to briefly consider the historical background and purpose of the export-import clause.

A principal purpose of the clause was long ago stated by the United States Supreme Court in Woodruff v. Parham (1868) 8 Wall. 123, 135, 75 U.S. 123, 135, 19 L.Ed. 382 in this manner:

“Some States export the produce of other States. Virginia exports the produce of North Carolina; Pennsylvania those of New Jersey and Delaware; and Rhode Island, those of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The exporting States wished to retain the power of laying duties on exports to enable them to pay expenses incurred. The States whose produce was exported by other States, were extremely jealous lest a contribution should be raised of them by the exporting States, by laying heavy duties on their own commodities. If this clause be fully considered it will be found to be more consistent with justice and equity then any other practicable mode; for, if the States had the exclusive imposition of duties on exports, they might raise a heavy contribution of the other States for their own exclusive emoluments.”

Cook v. Pennsylvania (1878) 97 U.S. 566, 574, 24 L.Ed. 1015 expressed the same thought as follows:

‘If certain States . . . could tax . . . every person who sought the seaboard through the railroads within their jurisdiction, the Constitution would have failed to effect one of the most important purposes for which it was adopted.’

Similar expressions are to be found in Youngstown Co. v. Bowers (1958) 358 U.S. 534, 545, 79 S.Ct. 389, 3 L.Ed.2d 490 and Brown v. Maryland (1827) 12 Wheat. 419, 25 U.S. 419, 439, 6 L.Ed. 678.

But there was an equally strong and sometimes competing constitutional consideration. As stated in Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board (1946) 329 U.S. 69, 75, 67 S.Ct. 156, 160, 91 L.Ed. 80 it was of constitutional importance that:

“[T]he power to lay taxes for the support of state government shall not be unduly curtailed.”

The court in Diamond Match Co. v. Ontonagon (1902) 188 U.S. 82, 95, 23 S.Ct. 266, 271, 47 L.Ed. 394 quoting earlier authority, elaborated on the evil of such curtailment of state sources of taxation. It stated: “If such were the rule in many states there would be nothing but the lands and real estate to bear the taxes. Some of the western states produce very little except wheat and corn, most of which is intended for export; and so of cotton in the southern states. Certainly, as long as these products are on the lands which produce them, they are part of the general property of the state. And so we think they continue to be until they have entered upon their final journey for leaving the state . . ..” (Emphasis added.)

“The true construction of the constitutional provision is that no burden by way of tax or duty can be cast upon the exportation of articles, and does not mean that articles exported are relieved from the prior ordinary burdens of taxation which rest upon all property similarly situated. The exemption attaches to the export and not to the article before its exportation.” (Emphasis added; Peck & Co. v. Lowe (1917) 247 U.S. 165, 174, 38 S.Ct. 432, 433, 62 L.Ed. 1049; Cornell v. Coyne (1903) 192 U.S. 418, 427, 24 S.Ct. 383, 48 L.Ed. 504.) A broadening of such an interpretation ‘would be to depart from both the spirit and letter’ of the export-import clause. (Peck & Co. v. Lowe, supra, p. 174, 38 S.Ct. p. 434.)

This principle was most recently reiterated in Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co. (1974) 417 U.S. 62, 70, 94 S.Ct. 2108, 2113, [40 L.Ed.2d 660, 667] where, quoting earlier authority, the court said: “The Export-Import Clause was meant to confer immunity from local taxation upon property being exported, not to relieve property eventually to be exported from its share of the cost of local services.”

It will be seen that a dominant constitutional concern is that no tidewater state shall disadvantage the state of production or manufacture of goods destined for export, by a charge of ‘imposts or duties' not also levied upon such goods of the tidewater state. But where goods originating in the tidewater state and destined for exportation therefrom, are taxed in the same manner as all other similarly situated property of that state, that constitutional concern is greatly quieted. Once goods are actually in the process of exportation their immunity from state taxation is absolute. But in determining whether such goods are in the process of exportation, courts will pay proper respect to the competing constitutional demand that a state's right to tax goods produced within its borders, and benefited by its tax supported services, shall not be unduly curtailed.

On the issue at hand we are offered a mass of seemingly relevant authority by the parties, much of which appears mutually inconsistent. But on closer examination must of the contradiction disappears. The subject cases are often based upon different factual contexts to which different constitutional principles apply. For a better understanding, we shall endeavor to place this divergent authority in its appropriate and logical categories.

The first category consists of cases where the movement of goods, conceded or found to have been in the stream of interstate commerce, had ended. They embrace situations where there had been, for one cause or another, a temporary cessation of such travel, or where the goods had reached their ultimate destination. The issue is whether the goods were still in the stream of interstate commerce, and therefore exempt from state taxation under the commerce clause, article I, section 8, paragraph 3, of the Constitution. These cases, arising under factual contexts wholly dissimilar to that of the case at bench, and under inapposite constitutional edicts and principles, are found to be of little value to our inquiry whether the rice at hand had entered upon the process of exportation.¹

The second grouping of cases found to be of scant relevance to our problem concerns goods produced in one state, from which state they have commenced their export journey toward another state's deep water harbor for shipment abroad. Here it is the tidewater state that seeks to tax goods already in the process of exportation, the state of affairs feared by the Constitution's framers, and decried in Woodruff v. Parham, supra, 8 Wall. 123, 135, 75 U.S. 123, 125, 19 L.Ed. 382, and Cook v. Pennsylvania, supra, 97 U.S. 566, 574, 24 L.Ed. 1015. The tax is usually sought when the subject goods lie on the dock, or in dockside tanks, awaiting shiploading and transportation abroad. At that point, taxation of the goods already in the process of exportation would obviously do violence to the export-import clause and it is uniformly so held. It is notable in such cases that the goods, merely passing through the state from which they will be shipped abroad, have benefited little from that state's tax supported services and facilities.²

It is only the third category of such cases that we find to be of substantial aid to us. Some of these relate to the commerce clause and concern the question whether goods had entered the stream of interstate commerce, and were therefore nontaxable by a state. The remainder concern the export-import clause; the issue there is whether goods were in the process of exportation and accordingly beyond reach of a state's tax process. The tests as to each of these classifications are identical. (See Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co., supra, 417 U.S. 62, 67, 94 S.Ct. 2108, 2111, [40 L.E.2d 660, 665, fn. 5]; Empresa Siderurgica v. Merced Co. (1948) 337 U.S. 154, 156, 69 S.Ct. 995, 93 L.Ed. 1276; Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, supra, 329 U.S. 69, 79, 67 S.Ct. 156, 91 L.Ed. 80; Shell Oil Co. v. State Bd. of Equal. (1966) 64 Cal.2d 713, 723, 51 Cal.Rptr. 524, 414 P.2d 820; Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. of Japan v. Thurston County, Washington, 504 F.2d 604, 608–609 (9th Cir.), 1974.

The uniform test whether goods have entered the ‘stream of interstate commerce’ or the ‘process of exportation’ was early stated by the United States Supreme Court in Coe v. Errol (1885) 116 U.S. 517, 527, 6 S.Ct. 475, 478, 29 L.Ed. 715 as follows:

‘[G]oods do not cease to be part of the general mass of property in the state, subject, as such, to its jurisdiction, and to taxation in the usual way, until [1] they have been shipped, or entered with a common carrier for transportation to another state or country, or [2] have been started upon such transportation in a continuous route or journey.'³ (Emphasis added.)

The rule of Coe v. Errol remains the law today. Referring to that decision the Supreme Court has recently said: ‘This Court has adhered to that principle in the almost 90 years since Coe was decided.’ (Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co., supra, 417 U.S. 62, 67, 94 S.Ct. 2108, 2111, [40 L.Ed.2d 660, 665].) It is regularly applied, as against state attempts to tax, in determining whether a state's goods have entered the ‘stream of interstate commerce’ (see Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co., supra, 260 U.S. 245, 260–261, 43 S.Ct. 83, 67 L.Ed. 237; Bacon v. Illinois, supra, 227 U.S. 504, 512–514, 33 S.Ct. 299, 57 L.Ed. 615; Diamond Match Co. v. Ontonagon, supra, 188 U.S. 82, 93–95, 23 S.Ct. 266, 47 L.Ed. 394; Von Hamm-Young Co. v. San Francisco, supra, 29 Cal.2d 798, 805, 178 P. 745), or are in the ‘process of exportation’ (see Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co., supra, 417 U.S. 62, 67, 94 S.Ct. 2108, 40 L.Ed.2d 660, 664–666; Empresa Siderurgica v. Merced Co., supra, 337 U.S. 154, 156, 69 S.Ct. 995, 93 L.Ed. 1276; Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, supra, 329 U.S. 69, 79, 67 S.Ct. 156, 91 L.Ed. 80; Shell Oil Co. v. State Bd. of Equal., supra, 64 Cal.2d 713, 720–721, 51 Cal.Rptr. 524, 414 P.2d 820).

The application of the several rules and constitutional considerations we have discussed, is well pointed up in Coe v. Errol, supra, 116 U.S. 517, 6 S.Ct. 475, 29 L.Ed. 715. There one Coe had gathered logs in the Town of Errol, New Hampshire, on the banks of, or upon, the Androscoggin River. The logs were destined for ‘export’ downstream to the State of Maine. Some had originated upstream in a sister state, while the remainder were produced in New Hampshire. The town sought to tax the logs, bringing about litigation which reached the high court. Giving effect to the constitutional concern against taxation of goods in the process of exportation by a state through which the goods must pass, the court held the logs from the upstream state to be immune from the Town of Errol's taxation efforts. But since the reason for that principle did not apply to the logs produced in the taxing state, the town's assessment of taxes against those logs was sustained.

Referring to the locally produced logs the high court had asked the question (116 U.S. pp. 524–525, 6 S.Ct. p. 477): ‘Are the products of a state, though intended for exportation to another state, and partially prepared for that purpose by being deposited at a place or port of shipment within the state, liable to be taxed like other property within the state?’ (Emphasis added.) (The question would seem equally appropriate to the issue of the case at bench.)

The court then answered its question in this manner (116 U.S. p. 525, 6 S.Ct. p. 477): The process of exportation and thus freedom from state taxation commenced when the logs were ‘actually started in the course of transportation to another state, or delivered to a carrier for such transportation,’ or at the moment ‘in which they commence their final movement for transportation from the state of their origin [New Hampshire] to that of their destination. When the products of the . . . forest are collected, and brought in from the surrounding country to a town or station serving as an entrepôt for that particular region, whether on a river or a line of railroad, such products are not yet exports; nor are they in process of exportation; nor is exportation begun until they are committed to the common carrier for transportation out of the state to the state of their destination, or have started on their ultimate passage to that state. Until then it is reasonable to regard them as not only within the state of their origin, but as a part of the general mass of property of that state, subject to its jurisdiction, and liable to taxation there, if not taxed by reason of their being intended for exportation, but taxed, without any discrimination, in the usual way and manner in which such property is taxed in the state.’ (Emphasis added.)

The high court has since stated the same rule in different ways. We refer to a few such decisions.

Cornell v. Coyne, supra, 192 U.S. 418, 427, 24 S.Ct. 383, 384, 48 L.Ed. 504: ‘The true construction of the constitutional provision is that no burden by way of tax or duty can be cast upon the exportation of articles, and does not mean that articles exported are relieved from the prior ordinary burdens of taxation which rest upon all property similarly situated. The exemption attaches to the export, and not to to the article before its exportation. Such has been the ruling of this court.’ (Emphasis added.)

Empresa Siderurgica v. Merced Co., supra, 337 U.S. 154, 156–157, 69 S.Ct. 995, 997, 93 L.Ed. 1276: ‘Under that test [of Coe v. Errol] it is not enough that there is an intent to export, or a plan which contemplates exportation, or an integrated series of events which will end with it. . . . Delivery of packages to an exporting carrier for shipment abroad . . . and the deliver of oil into the hold of the ship furnished by the foreign purchaser to carry the oil abroad . . . have been held sufficient. It is the entrance of the articles into the export stream that marks the start of the process of exportation. Then there is certainty that the goods are headed for their foreign destination and will not be diverted to domestic use. Nothing less will suffice. [¶] So in this case it is not enough that on the tax date there was a purpose and plan to export this property. Nor is it sufficient that in due course that plan was fully executed.’ (Emphasis added.)

Canton R. Co. v. Rogan (1950) 340 U.S. 511, 515, 71 S.Ct. 447, 449, 95 L.Ed. 488: ‘To export means to carry or send abroad; to import means to bring into the country. Those acts begin and end at water's edge. The broader definition which appellant tenders distorts the ordinary meaning of the terms. It would lead back to every forest, mine, and factory in the land and create a zone of tax immunity never before imagined. For if the handling of the goods at the port were part of the export process, so would hauling them to or from distant points or perhaps mining them or manufacturing them. The phase of the process would make no difference so long as the goods were in fact committed to export or had arrived as imports.’ (Emphasis added.)

Shell Oil Co. v. State Bd. of Equal., supra, 64 Cal.2d 713, 718, 720–721, 51 Cal.Rptr. 524, 527, 414 P.2d 820, 823: ‘Under the import-export clause, a state may not impose a tax against and article of export if the article has commenced its movement abroad and the ‘certainty of the foreign destination is plain.’ . . . The process of exportation . . . begins when goods are ‘committed to the common carrier for transportation out of the state to the state of their destination, or have started on their ultimate passage to that state.’ (Coe v. Errol (1886) 116 U.S. 517, 525, 6 S.Ct. 475, 29 L.Ed. 715.)' (Emphasis added.)

Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co., supra, 417 U.S. 62, 94 S.Ct. 2108, 2112, 40 L.Ed.2d 660 (decided May 20, 1974) must be deemed the final authoritative word on the subject. Reviewing earlier authority, that case tells us that ‘it is not enough that there is an intent to export, or a plan which contemplates exportation, or an integrated series of events which will end with it.’ The process of exportation does not begin ‘until the article at issue begins its physical entry into the stream of exportation.’ (Emphasis added.) There is such a ‘physical entry’ when the goods have been delivered on shipboard for their delivery abroad, or have been delivered to a common carrier for such foreign transportation ‘in a continuous route or journey.’ And commencement of transportation to, or storage of goods in, a warehouse or entrepôt, or other collection point within the state of the goods' production, does not constitute a physical entry into the stream of exportation.

From the foregoing authority it will be seen that Cooperative's delivery of California grown rice to, and its storage in, the port district's elevators were no part of the process of exportation. That process would have begun when the goods had crossed the ‘water's edge,’ or had been committed to a common carrier for the ‘continuous route or journey’ abroad. The ‘handling of the [rice] at the port [was no] part of the export process.’

Cooperative suggests that the rice was delivered to the port district's facilities by ‘common carrier,’ thus commencing the exportation process. The record does not support the statement; it shows no more than that a small part of the rice at issue was so delivered by a ‘common carrier,’ a railroad. But were we to assume, arguendo, such a common carrier delivery, the argument must nevertheless fail. Coe v. Errol, and its numerous progeny, make it clear that it is only entry with a common carrier for transportation to the goods' ultimate destination, that will suffice. Use of such a common carrier to carry the goods from one resting place to another within the state, and prior to movement abroad, is insufficient. Illustrations where delivery to a common carrier for transportation abroad has been found to commence the process of exportation are found in Spalding & Bros. v. Edwards (1922) 262 U.S. 66, 69, 43 S.Ct. 485, 67 L.Ed. 865 (goods committed ‘to the carrier that was to take them across the sea’), Louisiana R. R. Comm. v. Tex. & Pac. Ry. (1912) 229 U.S. 336, 338, 33 S.Ct. 837, 838, 57 L.Ed. 1215 (carrier ordered to deliver the freight to certain steamships where it is ‘loaded on board . . . and transported to foreign ports and countries'), and Gough Industries v. State Board of Equal. (1959) 51 Cal.2d 746, 747, 336 P.2d 161 (cert. den. 359 U.S. 1011, 79 S.Ct. 1151, 3 L.Ed.2d 1037) (goods delivered ‘directly to a carrier or a forwarding agent for shipment to a point outside the United States'). We find no high authority where delivery to a common carrier for purely intrastate transportation has, as here suggested, been held to trigger the process of exportation.

Cooperative next argues that the true indicator that the process of exportation has commenced is ‘certainty that the goods are headed to sea.’ Relied upon is Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, supra, 329 U.S. 69, 82, 67 S.Ct. 156, 163, 91 L.Ed. 80. (That case also states (p. 82, 67 S.Ct. p. 56) that the required ‘degree of certainty may exist though no common carrier is involved.’ But the only exception pointed out by the court was where the goods (there oil) were delivered into the hold of the ocean going vessel.)

Here again we are unable to find ultimate authority that intrastate delivery and accumulation of goods at dockside by their owner, with the intent to ship them abroad, creates the necessary certainty. Indeed, as we have pointed out, a long line of United States Supreme Court cases clings to the rule of Coe v. Errol, supra, 116 U.S. 517, 6 S.Ct. 475, 29 L.Ed. 715, that under such circumstances the required certainty has not been reached. As said in Empresa Siderurgica v. Merced Co., supra, 337 U.S. 154, 157, 69 S.Ct. 995, 997, 93 L.Ed. 1276, certainty is acquired upon ‘the entrance of the articles into the export stream’; and that ‘[n]othing less will suffice.’ Examples of such certainty expressed by that court were where delivery was made ‘to an exporting carrier for shipment abroad,’ and ‘into the hold of the ship.’

Referring to the concept of ‘certainty’ of export it was said in Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. of Japan v. Thurston County, Washington, supra, 504 F.2d 604, 608: ‘The reliance on the certainty of export in Richfield was, however, used merely to excuse the fact that the ship was not a common carrier. Certainty of export evidenced by financial and contractual relationships does not by itself render goods ‘exports' before the commencement of their journey abroad. Empresa Siderurgica, S.A. v. Merced County, supra at 156–157, 69 S.Ct. 995. Thus even if we ‘accept as fact the [appellee's] assurances that the prospect of eventual exportation here was virtually certain,’ the immunities of the Import-Export Clause are unavailable absent an actual entrance of the appellee's logs into the export stream. Kosydar v. National Cash Register Co., supra, at 4770, 94 S.Ct. 2108. Since nothing in Richfield undermines Coe on the question of when the journey begins, the fact that diversion to the domestic market was unlikely does not remove Sumitomo's logs from the ‘entrepôt’ standard Coe announced.' (Fns. omitted.)

Moreover, although not essential to our disposition of the appeal, we observe that in the instant case the exact amount of Cooperative's dockside rice to be exported was unknown, creating ‘the possibility of rice remaining in the Port bins after the ship sails,’ and further, that: ‘It is possible that rice delivered to the Port may be made available to another supplier to enable that supplier to meet a commitment. An arrangement, then, is made for replacement.’ These considerations further reduce the certainty that Cooperative's ‘goods [were] headed to sea.’

We now advert to a conflict on the subject at hand appearing from decisions of the Court of Appeal of this state.

Rice Growers' Association of California v. County of Yolo (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 227, 94 Cal.Rptr. 847 (cert. den. 404 U.S. 941, 92 S.Ct. 286, 30 L.Ed.2d 255), Hugo Neu Corp. v. County of Los Angeles (1970) 7 Cal.App.3d 21, 86 Cal.Rptr. 332, and Hugo Neu Corp. v. County of Los Angeles (1966) 241 Cal.App.2d 703, 50 Cal.Rptr. 916, have closely followed the rule of Coe. v. Errol and its adherent cases. They hold that goods originating in California, collected by their owner at a California seaport for the purpose of transportation abroad, were not in the process of exportation and were therefore taxable by the county in which they awaited exportation.

A contrary result was reached in Montrose Chemical Corp. v. County of Los Angeles (1966) 243 Cal.App.2d 300, 52 Cal.Rptr. 209 (cert. den. 386 U.S. 1004, 87 S.Ct. 1346, 18 L.Ed.2d 432). The authority of that case was questioned in Hugo Neu Corp. v. County of Los Angeles, supra, 7 Cal.App.3d 21, 29, 86 Cal.Rptr. 332 and found irreconcilable with other federal and state authority in Rice Growers' Association of California v. County of Yolo, supra, 17 Cal.App.3d 277, 234, 94 Cal.Rptr. 847. We also find it to be irreconcilable with the great weight of established law on the subject.

The remaining discordant Court of Appeal decision is Cargill of California, Inc. v. County of Yolo, 26 Cal.App.3d 704, 103 Cal.Rptr. 257. It is this case upon which Cooperative principally relies. It dealt with a factual context closely identical to that of the cases at bench. The court concluded that the accumulation, from sources in California, of alfalfa pellets in a Yolo County dockside elevator for future export to Japan, was but a ‘temporary interruption’ of the export journey rendering the pellets nontaxable by the county. The court concluded that the process of exportation had started with the pellets' nonpublic carrier transportation to the dockside elevator. The authority relied upon was Minnesota v. Blasius, supra, 290 U.S. 1, 54 S.Ct. 34, 78 L.Ed. 131, Carson Petroleum Co. v. Vial, supra, 279 U.S. 95, 49 S.Ct. 292, 73 L.Ed. 626, and Von Hamm-Young Co. v. San Francisco, supra, 29 Cal.2d 798, 178 P.2d 745. Each of these cases, as we have earlier indicated, dealt with the interstate commerce clause; each concluded that goods, already in the stream of interstate commerce, could not be taxed because of a temporary cessation of movement within a state. The rice of our case, and the alfalfa pellets of Cargill of California, Inc. v. County of Yolo, supra, were concededly not in the stream of interstate commerce. The case is of little authority here.

From the foregoing we have concluded that the judgment of the superior court must be reversed.

It becomes unnecessary in our determination of the appeal to rule upon Yolo County's contention that, in any event, Puerto Rico not being a foreign country, the rice held for transportation to that commonwealth was not in the process of exportation.

The judgment is reversed.

FOOTNOTES

1.  The proffered authorities are: McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Co. (1939) 309 U.S. 33, 60 S.Ct. 388, 84 L.Ed. 565; Minnesota v. Blasius (1933) 290 U.S. 1, 54 S.Ct. 34, 78 L.Ed. 131; Hughes Bros. Co. v. Minnesota (1926) 272 U.S. 469, 47 S.Ct. 170, 71 L.Ed. 359; Heisler v. Thomas Colliery Co. (1922) 260 U.S. 245, 43 S.Ct. 83, 67 L.Ed. 237; Susquehanna Coal Co. v. South Amboy (1912) 228 U.S. 665, 33 S.Ct. 712, 57 L.Ed. 1015; Bacon v. Illinois (1912) 227 U.S. 504, 33 S.Ct. 299, 57 L.Ed. 615; General Oil Co. v. Crain (1907) 209 U.S. 211, 28 S.Ct. 475, 52 L.Ed. 754; Von Hamm-Young Co. v. San Francisco (1947) 29 Cal.2d 798, 178 P.2d 745.

2.  Among such cases are: Carson Petroleum Co. v. Vial (1928) 279 U.S. 95, 49 S.Ct. 292, 73 L.Ed. 626; So. Pac. Terminal Co. v. Int. Commerce Comm. (1910) 219 U.S. 498, 31 S.Ct. 279, 55 L.Ed. 310.

3.  ‘Although Coe dealt with the Interstate Commerce Clause, its standard for the point at which goods commence an interstate journey has been explicitly adopted to determine the point at which goods commence a foreign journey and thereby become ‘exports' under Article I, Section 10, Clause 2.’ (Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. of Japan v. Thurston County, Washington, supra, 564 F.2d 604, 606; and see the authority there cited.)

ELKINGTON, Associate Justice.

MOLINARI, P. J., and SIMS, J., concur.