Bennett v. The Borough of Birmingham
| Decision Date | 01 October 1854 |
| Citation | 31 Pa. 15 |
| Parties | Bennett <I>versus</I> The Borough of Birmingham. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
This action is for a penalty for a breach of a borough ordinance, said to be founded on an Act of Assembly. As a penal ordinance, and as a mode of taxation that is out of the course of the ordinary laws of taxation, it requires a strict construction.
The statute authorizes the borough council to require, under a penalty, all vehicles "using the paved streets of the borough, to be registered, and a moderate license to be paid for them." The ordinance, without noticing the form of registry and license, imposes a specific tax on all vehicles "passing through the streets, to be paid on or before the 1st of May in each year," and adds a penalty of five dollars for disobedience, and excepts travellers and also farmers "bringing" their own produce to market; and then further declares that it shall apply to all "vehicles passing through the borough on their way to Pittsburgh or elsewhere, on their ordinary business."
The borough council seem to have thought they were authorized to tax travellers and farmers going to market, but as a matter of grace or expediency, they except them, and them only, without noticing the improbability of their being permitted to require such persons to register their vehicles and obtain a license. But the fact of this exception indicates that they suppose themselves entitled to tax all persons otherwise situated who pass through the borough.
Then it includes all other carriers of goods and persons, and all empty vehicles; and any man driving through the town without stopping to pay his two or three dollars, is in danger of having an officer sent after him in the next May, and a fine of five dollars, besides the tax imposed on him. It includes every man who drives his cart into the town to get a wheel mended, and every farmer who goes there to get a bar of iron, a box of glass, or a keg of sugar. And more especially and plainly it includes all who do not stop in the town, but pass through it to other places; and if the word "bringing" be taken strictly, it includes even farmers carrying their produce to another market.
Let us regard this as it affects the social relations of the borough with neighbouring political divisions. Some of the clauses above referred to make it doubtful whether the people...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Western Auto Transports, Inc. v. City of Cheyenne
...regarded as localizing the business there so as to bring it within the taxing power granted by the statute now in question." In Bennett v. Birmingham, 31 Pa. 15, a borough undertook collect a license tax from those who carried goods through the borough. The court held that this could not be......
-
City of St. Louis v. Liessing
... ... to the will of any officers of the corporation. Bennet v ... Birmingham, 31 Pa. 15; Baltimore v. Radecke, 49 ... Md. 217. (4) Duties and powers imposed by charter upon ... ...
-
Barr v. City of Philadelphia
... ... debt is not within the terms of the act of 1874 and of the ... act of 1891. In Millvale Borough, 162 Pa. 374, the question ... of increasing the borough indebtedness was submitted to the ... State v. Hauser, 63 Ind. 155; Rushville Gas Co ... v. City of Rushville, 121 Ind. 206; Bennett v ... Borough of Birmingham, 31 Pa. 15; Wandsworth Board ... of Works v. United Telephone Co., ... ...
-
City of Carterville v. Blystone
...county on a mission of business or pleasure, even occasionally or once in a year, he is required to obtain the license." In Bennett v. Birmingham, 31 Pa. 15, the court held that the city was not authorized to impose a tax on drays and wagons owned by nonresidents of Birmingham, and used in ......