74 P. 780 | Cal. | 1903
Lead Opinion
Petitioner was taken into custody under a warrant issued upon a complaint filed in the police court of the city of Los Angeles, charging that he, on the seventh day of April, A.D. 1903, in said city, "did willfully and unlawfully conduct, manage, and carry on the business of a wholesale liquor dealer without first having procured a license from the city of Los Angeles so to do, . . . contrary to the forms of the ordinances and resolutions adopted and approved by the municipal authorities of said city." Having been brought before said police court under said warrant, he was committed to the custody of the chief of police of said city pending further proceedings in the case, and being now detained by said chief of police under said warrant and commitment, seeks his discharge on habeas corpus.
The ordinance of the city of Los Angeles upon which the prosecution is based is entitled: "An ordinance providing for licensing and regulating the carrying on of certain professions, trades, callings, and occupations carried on within the limits of the city of Los Angeles," and was enacted February 28, 1903. It is devoid of regulating provisions, being devoted entirely to the imposition of a license-tax upon various trades and occupations and the collection thereof. It imposes a license-tax upon a great majority of callings and occupations, and in several instances the amount of tax is based upon the amount of business transacted. It includes numerous callings which are in no degree subject to regulation. By its terms, a license-tax of sixty dollars per month is imposed on every person, firm, or corporation conducting, managing, or carrying on the business of a wholesale liquor dealer, and a wholesale liquor establishment is defined by the ordinance to be any place where spirituous, vinous, malt, or mixed intoxicating liquors are sold, served, or given away in quantities *206 of not less than one fifth of a gallon, and not to be drunk upon the premises.
Taking into consideration the absence of regulatory provisions, the amounts of the several taxes imposed, and the nature of many of the subjects of taxation named in the ordinance, including the particular business here involved, it is very clear that the license-tax upon the business alleged to be conducted by petitioner was imposed solely for the purpose of raising revenue. (See Town of Santa Monica v. Guidinger,
It is also clear, under the decisions of this court, that the freeholders' charter of the city, which was approved by the legislature in 1889, must be construed as conferring upon the municipality the authority to license all occupations and callings carried on within the city, for the purpose of revenue, as well as regulation. (Charter, sec. 2, subd. 13; Stats. 1889, p. 456.) The case, in this respect, is not distinguishable to petitioner's advantage from that of Ex parte Frank,
It is contended at the outset by petitioner that this question was necessarily involved in the cases of City of Sonora v.Curtin,
The meaning of the term "municipal affairs," as these words are used in the constitutional amendment of 1896, has been considered in several decisions of this court. In discussing the effect of this amendment, this court has always recognized the reason that impelled its adoption. After much public discussion, and upon an exhaustive consideration of the question, it had been decided by this court that the legislature, prior to this amendment, had power, by general laws, to supersede, or take away, without the consent of the municipality, the powers conferred upon it by a special charter. (Thomason v. Ashworth,
The power of cities operating under freeholders' charters to raise money by taxation for municipal purposes does not *212
find its source in any grant by the legislature. There is no enactment of the legislature purporting to vest such authority in such cities. Such power has been directly granted by the people of the state by the provisions of the state constitution. It was held by this court in Security Savings Bank etc. Co. v. Hinton,
We have carefully examined the decisions of this court upon this question of "municipal affairs," and find nothing therein inconsistent with the views herein expressed. Ex parte Pfirrmann,
Our conclusions are, therefore, that the power to collect a license-tax for revenue purposes was actually conferred upon the city of Los Angeles for municipal purposes by the charter framed for its government, under the provisions of section 8 of article XI of the constitution, and that such power is a "municipal affair" within the meaning of those words as used in section 6 of article XI of the constitution, and cannot be withdrawn or abrogated by the legislature. Section 3366 of the Political Code is therefore inapplicable to that city.
It follows that the writ issued must be discharged and the petitioner remanded, and it is so ordered.
Shaw, J., and Henshaw, J., concurred.
Concurrence Opinion
I concur in the judgment remanding the petitioner and discharging the writ, and in most that is said in the opinion of Mr. Justice Angellotti. I am reluctantly constrained to conclude that, by the amendment to the constitution in question, the people of the state, moved by a temporary impulse (not yet entirely abated) to carry the notion of what is called "local self-government" to extremes, have taken away from the state an important part of that peculiar attribute of sovereignty, the taxing power, and given it to all the municipalities, great and small, which are *214 now organized, or which may be hereafter organized, under freeholders' charters. It is difficult to realize that the people of the state, through their legislature, have no longer the power to say that a license-tax — a tax upon the right to do business, a tax upon capacity — is unjust, unequal, and oppressive, and should not be tolerated anywhere within the state; but we think that such is now the law.
1. Section 13 of article II of the charter of Los Angeles, construing all its language together, clearly, it seems to me, gives power to the city to license for revenue.
2. The section of the constitution in question uses the loose, indefinable, wild words "municipal affairs," and imposes upon the courts the almost impossible duty of saying what they mean. This court has not undertaken, and probably will not undertake, to give a general definition of the words, so as to bring all future cases within the two categories of what is and what is not a municipal affair. A few cases involving the question have arisen, and in each of such cases the court has merely determined, as it was compelled to determine, whether the thing there involved was or was not within the indeterminate constitutional words. And, no doubt, in the future each case involving the question will be decided on its own facts, without an attempt at generalization. Now, in the case at bar, the city having the power to impose license taxes for revenue, and the taxes having been levied for the support of a municipal government, and the ordinance applying only to the territory of the city and the inhabitants thereof, and no other person being affected thereby, I cannot see how to hold that the matter is not a municipal affair, and am driven to the conclusion that it would be an usurpation of power to so hold. Of course, whether or not the people of the state were wise in thus yielding up so important a power is not a judicial question.
Van Dyke, J., being disqualified, did not participate.
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent. The decision of the court is rested, and necessarily depends, upon the construction given to the phrase "municipal affairs," which by the amendment of 1896 was added to section 6 of article XI of the constitution. *215 That construction is thus stated in the principal opinion: "When a power is conferred upon a municipality for municipal purposes, that power becomes a municipal affair." It is to be observed of this construction that until it can be shown that any power is ever conferred upon, or exercised by, a municipality for other than municipal purposes the definition of a municipal affair gains nothing in point of clarity or precision by the inclusion of the words "for municipal purposes." We have no concern with powers that cannot be exercised, and since the powers of a municipality, if exercised at all, must be exercised exclusively "for municipal purposes," these words do not qualify the rest of the definition. With or without them, it means the same thing, — viz., that a power once conferred upon a municipality becomes,ipso facto, a municipal affair within the meaning of this section of the constitution, and is for all future time exempt from any control by act of the legislature, no matter how general in its intended operation upon all persons in every part of the state.
The conclusion which results from this view is aptly stated in the concurring opinion of Justice McFarland, who is "reluctantly constrained to conclude that, by the amendment of the constitution in question, the people of the state, moved by temporary impulse (not yet entirely abated) to carry the notion of what is called `local self-government' to extremes, have taken away from the state an important part of that popular attribute of sovereignty, the taxing power, and given it to all the municipalities, great and small, which are now organized, or which may be hereafter organized, under freeholders' charters. It is difficult to realize that the people of the state, through their legislature, have no longer the power to say that a license-tax — a tax upon the right to do business, a tax upon capacity — is unjust, unequal, and oppressive, and should not be tolerated anywhere within the state; but we think that such is now the law." I should arrive at the same conclusion with the same reluctance if I felt constrained to adopt it. But I do not. The sole purpose of the amendment to section 6 of article XI of the constitution was to restore to the fundamental law what had been construed out of it by this court in a series of decisions of which Thomason v. Ashworth, *216
This was the mischief, and the whole mischief, which the people intended to remedy when they inserted in the constitution the ambiguous and ill-chosen phrase "except in municipal affairs." Their desire was, as above stated, to put back into the constitution what had been construed out of it in Thomason v.Ashworth,
It is thought to be a conclusive argument against this view that it involves the possible extinguishment of all municipal privileges; for it is said if the legislature by exempting what was formerly a subject of taxation by a general law can invalidate local ordinances imposing taxes on the subject so exempted, they could invalidate all local regulations touching matters universally conceded to be of peculiar municipal concern. The validity of this argument depends upon the assumption either that the legislature can regulate all such *218 matters by general laws uniformly operating throughout the state, or that, while that is impossible, they will pass laws which in terms purport to make such general regulations, although they are in fact impracticable or oppressive. The argument that because power may be abused therefore it cannot exist is one that has been repudiated by this and all other courts times without number, and it is not to be supposed that because the legislature may enact oppressive and unreasonable general laws it has no power so to legislate. It unquestionably has the power, and the only remedy for its abuse is the ballot-box. Ordinarily, this is a fairly effective remedy, and at all events it is no help to the construction of a doubtful clause of the constitution to say that if it is construed in a particular way the legislature may do something absurd and unheard of. The alternative assumption that all matters now regarded as peculiarly the subject of local regulation under the powers conferred by special charters may in course of time be found susceptible of reasonable and proper regulation by general laws operative on the same subjects throughout the state is opposed to all experience and all probability; but conceding that it might be so, the only result would be, that as such legislation was discovered to be possible with respect to one matter after another now deemed a municipal affair, we should simply find ourselves governed throughout the state by good general regulations, instead of good special regulations in particular localities. Such a prospect should have no terrors for any one imbued with the spirit of a constitution which above all other things insists upon general laws wherever they can be made applicable, and requires all laws of a general nature to have a uniform operation. It is this pervading spirit of the constitution which demands that acts of the legislature establishing and defining the general policy of the state with respect to such a matter as subjects of taxation, should be supreme over all local regulations, and that such a subject so regulated should pass from the category of "municipal affairs."
But whatever may be thought of these views it is at least certain that there must be some criterion other than the mere fact of its inclusion in a charter by which to determine whether a particular provision is a municipal affair. If the mere fact *219 that a provision is in a charter (necessarily for municipal purposes) stamps it as a municipal affair, there is nothing left for that clause of the constitution to operate upon which plainly declares that except in municipal affairs the provisions of all charters are controlled by general laws.
It is said in the principal opinion that a contention of counsel similar to that which I have endeavored to enforce would deprive the amendment of 1896 of any meaning or effect whatever. It seems to me to be giving the amendment a very potent and beneficial effect to hold that it prevents the legislature from impairing the provisions of special charters by laws like the Vrooman Act, which apply only to municipal corporations, and which are in substance mere amendments to the Municipal Corporation Act. This was the effect which Justice McKinstry strove to give to the original section, and this is the effect which the court refused to give it. To reverse that ruling, and restore the constitution to what it was intended to be, is something achieved, so that to give the amendment some effect it is not necessary to go to the extreme of holding that it has rendered local charters supreme over laws that are general in the broadest sense of the word. The legislature has, in effect, declared that no man in the state, in city or county, shall be taxed upon his occupation. If this is a just principle of taxation, — and of that the legislature is the final judge, — it holds good in cities as in counties, each of which requires local revenues for local purposes, and since the law is equally applicable to all the people, and was designed for all, it should bind all alike.
Lorigan, J., concurred in the dissenting opinion.
Rehearing denied. *220