Moran v. City of New Orleans

• Decision Date: 03 November 1884
• Citation: 112 U.S. 69,28 L.Ed. 653,5 S.Ct. 38
• Parties: MORAN, Widow in Community, etc., v. CITY OF NEW ORLEANS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

112 U.S. 69

5 S.Ct. 38

28 L.Ed. 653

MORAN, Widow in Community, etc., v. CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

November 3, 1884.

J. R. Beckwith, for plaintiff in error.

C. F. Buck and S. P. Blanc, for defendant in error.

The city of New Orleans was authorized by a law of the state, (Acts Extra Session 1870, p. 37, § 12,) for the purposes of the act, 'to levy, impose, and collect a license upon all persons pursuing any trade, profession, or calling, and to provide for its collection; and said license shall not be constituted to be a tax on property.'

The same act (section 21) provides that 'all licenses imposed by the city, not paid on the thirty-first day of July, shall be seizable, after thirty days' publication in the official journal,' in certain courts of record in the city; 'and upon the prayer of the city, through its proper representatives, any court of competent jurisdiction shall enjoin the said person or persons so liable to pay a license tax, and who shall refuse or neglect to pay the same, from continuing to carry on such business or profession until he shall have paid the same, and all costs and charges for the recovery and enforcement of the claim therefor.'

The council of the city of New Orleans passed an ordinance 'to establish the rate of licenses for professions, callings, and other business for the year 1880,' which assessed and directed to be collected the sums specially set forth; among others: 'Sec. 39. Every member of a firm or company, every agency, person, or corporation, owning and running tow-boats to and from the Gulf of Mexico, five hundred dollars. Every member of a firm or company, every agent, person, or corporation, owning and running job-boats within the corporate limits, fifty dollars.'

Joseph Cooper was the owner of two steam-propellers, each measuring over 100 tons, duly enrolled and licensed at the port of New Orleans, under the laws of the United States, to be employed in the coasting trade, and employed them as tow-boats in taking vessels from the sea up the river to New Orleans, and from that port to the sea. The city of New Orleans brought its action against him in the third district court for the parish of Orleans, to recover the license tax under the ordinance, and obtained a judgment in its favor, which, on appeal, was affirmed by the supreme court of the state.

Mr. J. R. Beckwith for plaintiff in error.

Mr. S.P. Blanc and Mr. C.F. Buck for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 70-71 intentionally omitted]

MATTHEWS, J.

The defense relied on and overruled was that the ordinance imposing the license tax was a regulation of commerce among the states, and therefore contrary to article 1, § 8, par. 3, Const. U. S., and void. Whether the supreme court of Louisiana erred in overruling that defense is the single question presented for our consideration.

In the case of Sinnot v. Davenport, 22 How. 227, it was decided that a law of Alabama requiring owners of steam-boats navigating the waters of the state, before such boat shall leave the port of Mobile, to file a statement in writing in the office of the probate judge of the county, setting forth the name of the vessel, the name, place of residence, and the interest of each owner in the vessel, under a penalty for non-compliance, as applied to a vessel which had taken out a license and was duly enrolled under the act of congress for carrying on the coasting trade, and plied between New Orleans and the cities of Montgomery and Wetumpka, in Alabama, was in conflict with the act of congress, and was, therefore, unconstitutional and void. Mr. Justice NELSON, delivering the opinion of the court, (p. 243,) said: 'The whole commercial marine of the country is placed by the constitution under the regulation of congress, and all laws passed by that body in the regulation of navigation and trade, whether foreign or coastwise, is, therefore, but the exercise of an undisputed power. When, therefore, an act of the legislature of a state prescribes a regulation of the subject repugnant to and inconsistent with the regulation of congress, the state law must give way, and this without regard to the source of power whence the state legislature derived its enactment.' And, repeating what was said in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 210-214, as to the force and effect of the act of congress providing for the enrollment and license of vessels engaged in the coasting trade, and of the license itself when issued, Mr. Justice NELSON said: 'These are the guards and restraints, and the only guards and restraints, which congress has seen fit to annex to the privileges of ships and vessels engaged in the coasting trade, and upon a compliance with which, as we have seen, as full and complete authority is conferred by the license to carry on the trade as congress is capable of conferring.' The act of the legislature of Alabama in that case was declared void on the single and distinct ground that it imposed another and an additional condition to the privilege of carrying on this trade within her waters.

Immediately following that case, argued and decided at the same time, was that of Foster v. Davenport, 22 How. 244. It differed from the former in this respect only: That the vessel seized for non-compliance with the law of Alabama was engaged in lightering goods from and to vessels anchored in the lower bay of Mobile and the wharves of the city, and in towing vessels anchored there to and from the city, and, in some instances, towing the same beyond the outer bar of the bay and into the gulf to the distance of several miles, but was...