97 Ga. App. 357 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1958
To the levy of a fi. fa. issued by the City of East Point for the collection of a sewer assessment, the defendant filed an affidavit of illegality in which it contended, among other things, that the charter of the City of East Point and the ordinance adopted pursuant thereto requiring abutting land owners to pay the cost of sewers “are violative of Article I, Section 1, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of this State, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law”; that said charter and ordinance “violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal
It is the duty of this court to inquire into its jurisdiction in any case in which there may be a doubt as to the existence of jurisdiction. Cuttino v. Mimms, 87 Ga. App. 643 (75 S. E. 2d 212); Scott v. Minnix, 95 Ga. App. 589, 590 (98 S. E. 2d 196). The Supreme Court of this State has held that, “In order to raise a question as to the constitutionality of a ‘law’, at least three things must be shown: (1) the statute or the particular part or parts of a statute which the party would challenge must be stated or pointed out with fair precision; (2) the provision of the Constitution which it is claimed has been violated must be clearly designated; and (3) it must be shown wherein the statute, or some designated part of it, violated such constitutional provision.” Flynn v. State, 209 Ga. 519, 521 (74 S. E. 2d 461). This court in Staub v. City of Baxley, 94 Ga. App. 18 (93 S. E. 2d 375), following the reasoning of cases like the Flynn case, held that an attack on the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance must be made with similar particularity, but this case on appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was reversed, that court holding, among other things, that a mere general attack upon the ordinance as a whole as being unconstitutional without
Transferred to the Supreme Court.
