B. W. S. Corp. v. Evangeline Parish Police Jury

• Decision Date: 02 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 4430,4430
• Citation: 293 So.2d 233
• Parties: B.W.S. CORPORATION, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. EVANGELINE PARISH POLICE JURY, Defendant and Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 233

293 So.2d 233

B.W.S. CORPORATION, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. EVANGELINE PARISH POLICE JURY, Defendant and Appellee.

No. 4430.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

April 2, 1974.

Lewis & Lewis, by Seth Lewis, Jr., Opelousas, for plaintiff and appellant.

J. Wm. Pucheu, Dist. Atty., and A. Bruce Rozas, Asst. Dist. Atty., Ville Platte, for defendant and appellee.

Before CULPEPPER, MILLER and DOMENGEAUX, JJ.

DOMENGEAUX, Judge.

This appeal was prosecuted by B.W.S. Corporation from a district court judgment dismissing its suit to have declared null and unconstitutional an ordinance of the Police Jury of Evangeline Parish.

This case¹ was submitted entirely on a stipulation of facts which substantially show the following: The plaintiff, B.W.S. Corporation, a domestic corporation, leased a tract or parcel of land situated in Evangeline Parish and utilized this land as an industrial waste disposal site. On February 22, 1973, in special session, the Evangeline Parish Police Jury passed an ordinance entitled 'An Emergency Ordinance By The Evangeline Parish Police Jury Prohibiting The Storing, Dumping, Burying, Burning Or Otherwise Disposal of Chemical Waste Declared To Be Harmful; Providing For A Penalty For Violation Hereof'. The above practice was declared to be a public nuisance and a penalty of $100.00 per every barrell or drum disposed of was provided. Subsequent to the adoption of the ordinance, the Sheriff of Evangeline Parish, through one of his deputies, served notice of the adoption of the ordinance on the representatives and employees of B.W.S. Corporation to shut down their operations. No further operations have since been conducted although B.W.S. Corporation received a permit to operate the business from the Louisiana State Board of Health. That department reviewed an operational plan submitted by the plaintiff and found it to be in satisfactory compliance with the applicable Sanitary Code provisions.

Plaintiff subsequently filed this suit to have the ordinance declared null and unconstitutional on essentially the following grounds:

(1) First, that the enactment of said ordinance regulating the disposal of chemical and/or industrial wastes was beyond the enumerated powers conferred upon police juries;

(2) Second, that the State Board of Health has exclusive jurisdiction, control, and authority over industrial waste disposal within the state under LSA-R.S. 40:11 and that the police jury has intruded into this exclusive jurisdiction;

(3) Third, that said ordinance is an unreasonable exercise of their police power and is in violation of Article 1 §§ 2, 6 of the Louisiana Constitution in that said ordinance is an attempt at the deprivation of the use and enjoyment of private property without due process of law and without just compensation.

The trial judge dismissed plaintiff's suit on the above allegations and plaintiff subsequently has appealed to this court.

We first address ourselves to the question of the power of the police jury to enact such an ordinance.

Police juries, being creatures and subordinate political subdivisions of the state, have only those powers as are conferred upon them by the constitution and laws of the state. Union Sulphur Co. v. Parish of Calcasieu, 153 La. 857, 96 So. 787 (1923); KAOK-CATV, Inc. v. Louisiana Cable T.V., Inc., 195 So.2d 297 (La.App.3rd Cir. 1967), Washington Parish Police Jury v. Washington Parish Hospital Service District #1 et al., 152 So.2d 362 (La.App.1st Cir. 1963).

LSA R.S. 33:1236 is the primary statute enumerating those powers which the police juries in this state have been granted. Defendant's counsel contends that Section 31 of this statute gives the police jury the right to enact an ordinance prohibiting plaintiff from conducting his business of industrial waste disposal within the parish.

Section 31 gives police juries the power 'To enact ordinances to require, prohibit or regulate the destruction, disposal, or burning of trash, garbage, leaves, limbs, and branches, or Debris of any kind'. (Emphasis added). It is upon the phrase 'debris of any kind' which defendant's counsel relies on as authority.

It is a fundamental principle in the construction of statutes that the meaning of a word or phrase may be ascertained by the meaning of other words or phrases with which it is associated. Under the doctrine of Noscitura sociis and Ejusdem generis general words, such as 'other, etc.', following an enumeration of particular or specific classes or things are to take color from the specific, so that the general words are restricted to a sense analogous to the less general. Thus the general words should be applied only to such classes of things of the same general kind as those specifically mentioned. Hall v. Rosteet, 247 La. 45, 169 So.2d 903 (1964); State v. Hertzog, 241 La. 783, 131 So.2d 788 (1961); Israel v. City of New Orleans, 130 La. 980, 58 So. 850 (1912).

We are also constrained to give the words used in the statute their ordinary and usual signification. Venterella v. Pace, 180 So.2d 240 (La.App.4th Cir. 1965). The meaning of a particular word, clause, or sentence must also be determined in light of the statute as a whole, each being construed with respect to and in light of all other provisions to the ends that the whole be construed in harmony with the purposes and object thereof as announced therein. Washington Parish Police Jury v. Washington Parish Hospital Service District #1 et al., supra.

In light of these general rules of construction and the specific wording found in Section 31 we can come to no other conclusion but that 'debris of any kind' was not contemplated by the Legislature in its adoption of the statute to include industrial waste.

From the foregoing we therefore are of the opinion that the Evangeline Parish Police Jury is not given authority in LSA R.S. 33:1236 to enact ordinances regarding industrial waste disposal. Nor do we find such delegated authority in any other statute.

Plaintiff's second allegation is that the State Board of Health has exclusive jurisdiction, control, and authority over disposal of industrial waste material by reason of LSA R.S. 40:11 which reads in part:

'The board has Exclusive jurisdiction, control, and authority over maritime quarantine and water supplies and Waste disposal within the state . . .' (Emphasis added)

In conformity with the aforementioned rules of statutory construction we feel the proper connotation to be placed on the words 'waste disposal', in the context which they are used and taken in their usual sense, would clearly...