State v. Lanasa

• Citation: 92 So. 306,151 La. 706
• Decision Date: 29 May 1922
• Docket Number: 24972
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. LANASA

92 So. 306

151 La. 706

STATE v. LANASA

No. 24972

Supreme Court of Louisiana

May 29, 1922

Appeal from First City Court, Parish of Orleans; Val J. Stentz Judge.

Action by the State against Joseph D. Lanasa. From a judgment for defendant, the Tax Collector appeals.

Affirmed.

H. G McCall, of New Orleans, for appellant.

J. K D'Avricourt, of New Orleans (Harold A. Moise and Arthur B. Hammond, both of New Orleans, of counsel), for appellee.

OPINION

O'NIELL, J.

The question is whether defendant's business of making and baking bread, in an establishment in which the various processes and manipulations were conducted by machinery, was that of a manufacturer, and therefore exempt from a license tax, under article 229 of the Constitution of 1913. The tax collector has appealed from a judgment maintaining the exemption.

The mechanical process of sifting, mixing, and manipulating the flour and other ingredients, all of which was done by electrically driven machinery, and the conversion of the combined ingredients into the finished product, is described, substantially, like the process that was declared "manufacturing" in the case of State v. American Biscuit Manufacturing Co., 47 La.Ann. 160, 16 So. 750. The only difference is that the American Biscuit Manufacturing Company manufactured various kinds of biscuits, crackers, and Italian paste; whereas, the defendant in this case manufactured only bread. In State v. Eckendorf, 46 La.Ann. 131, 14 So. 518, it was held that one who baked and sold bread, on a comparatively small scale, was not a manufacturer. And so, in City of New Orleans v. Mannessier, 32 La.Ann. 1075, it was held that one who made and sold ice cream was not a manufacturer. But, 36 years later, in State Tax Collector v. Brown, 140 La. 928, 74 So. 253, we held that one who made ice cream on a large scale and by machinery was a manufacturer.

Without observing a distinction in law between the making of bread and the making of biscuits, we cannot distinguish this case from that of the American Biscuit Manufacturing Company. Such a distinction does not result from the fact -- if it is a fact -- that biscuit making is a more complex process than bread making, or that the biscuit manufacturers make more and the bread manufacturers make less, than 57 varieties. For we have decided that coopers, making only such simple articles as barrels and hogsheads, are manufacturers. See City of New Orleans v. LeBlanc, 34 La.Ann. 596. And we have decided that the making of burlap...