D'Emden v Pedder

D'Emden v Pedder
Court	High Court of Australia
Full case name	D'Emden v Pedder
Decided	26 April 1904
Citation(s)	[1904] HCA 1, (1904) 1 CLR 91.
Case history
Prior action(s)	Pedder v D'Emden [1903] TasLawRp 8 [1903] TASLawRp 8; (1903) 2 Tas LR 146 (Supreme Court of Tasmania appeal)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Griffith CJ, Barton & O'Connor JJ
Case opinions
(3:0) attempts by the states to exercise legislative or executive power, in a way that would interfere with the legislative or executive power of the federal government, are, unless expressly authorised by the Constitution, invalid (per curiam)

D'Emden v Pedder^[1] was a significant Australian court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 26 April 1904. It directly concerned the question of whether salary receipts of federal government employees were subject to state stamp duty, but it touched on the broader issue within Australian constitutional law of the degree to which the two levels of Australian government were subject to each other's laws.

The case was the first of several in which the High Court applied the implied intergovernmental immunities doctrine, relied on in the Supreme Court of the United States case of McCulloch v. Maryland,^[2] which held that the state and Commonwealth governments were normally immune from each other's laws, and which, along with the reserved State powers doctrine, would be a significant feature of Australian constitutional law until both doctrines were rejected in the landmark Engineers' case in 1920.^[3]

The case is also significant as the first case decided by the High Court involving the interpretation of the Constitution of Australia.^[4]