 Relying heavily on "Hans Rees' Sons, Inc. v. North Carolina", 283 U.S. 123 (1931), Hughes concluded that the tax must be prorated to cover only that work performed within the borders of West Virginia.Whether the company had done work on land owned by the federal government was a critical issue, because in 1930 the Supreme Court had held in "Surplus Trading Co. v. Cook", 281 U.S. 647 (1930), that private personal property on federal land cannot be taxed by the state.Citing numerous Court precedents, Hughes noted that title to the river bed lay with the state even though the Constitution granted the federal government the power to use the river bed "for any structure which the interest of navigation, in its judgment, may require."