127 Mass. 138 | Mass. | 1879
The plaintiffs paid the money which they sue for with a full knowledge of all the facts in the case. They recognize the well-established principle that money voluntarily paid
We are of opinion, however, that the action cannot be maintained. The statute authorizing the licensing of the sale of intoxicating liquors is a police regulation intended to regulate trade, prevent injurious practices, and promote the good order of the community. The license when granted is not a contract between the licensee and the city or town by the officers of which it is granted. Municipal officers in acting under the statute are merely exercising the police authority which the statute gives, as public officers. Calder v. Kurby, 5 Gray, 597. The statute expressly says that nothing in it shall be construed to compel city or town officers to grant licenses. St. 1875, c. 99, § 5. The whole subject of the granting of licenses, of determining whether a particular individual should or should not be licensed, and of fixing the fees for the several classes, is within the control of the municipal officers, until a license has been issued. Undoubtedly all licenses of a particular class for any year must be issued at one rate of license fee, but that fee may be fixed at any time before licenses are issued. The plaintiffs, therefore, had not acquired a right, as against the defendant, to a license for the fee of two hundred dollars, before the vote was passed fixing the fee at one thousand dollars.
Even if this were not so, the payment was a voluntary one. We do not regard it as changing the character of a payment from voluntary to involuntary or compulsory, that it is important to the party paying to get what he gets by the payment, in other words, that there should be an urgent need on his part. It is ordinarily and almost necessarily true that one pays what he regards as extravagant, only for what seems to him an important
Judgment affirmed.