Bozeman v. State
| Decision Date | 11 February 1913 |
| Citation | 61 So. 604,7 Ala.App. 151 |
| Parties | BOZEMAN v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Appeals |
Rehearing Denied April 8, 1913
Appeal from City Court of Montgomery; Armstead Brown, Judge.
Robert H. Bozeman was convicted of an offense, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Arrington & Houghton, of Montgomery, for appellant.
R.C Brickell, Atty. Gen., and T.H. Seay, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The appellant, a resident of the city and county of Montgomery in the state of Alabama, being the owner of a motor vehicle which he operated on the public highways of the state without paying a license tax or registration fee, as required by the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Law, was convicted on an indictment charging this offense under the provisions of the act of the Legislature approved April 22, 1911, known as the Motor Vehicle Law (Acts 1911, pp. 634-650), and in prosecuting this appeal the appellant contends that the act is void, in that it offends certain constitutional requirements.
The principal argument and attack seem to be based on the contention that section 7 of the Motor Vehicle Law offends section 221 of the Constitution of the state. These sections read as follows:
This section of the Constitution means, as we read the plain language employed by the framers of the Constitution to express the meaning and purpose of the provision, that the Legislature is prohibited from enacting a law that would require the payment of one privilege tax or license fee for the benefit of the state alone, to the exclusion of the counties and municipalities; and a statute or legislative act providing for the payment of a state license tax and relieving the person, firm, corporation, or association so taxed from the payment of any and all other privilege and license taxes to the county or municipality would be repugnant to the said section 221 of the Constitution. The language of this section is plain and unambiguous, and its import may be easily be gathered from the diction, and it does not mean, and cannot fairly be construed to mean, that the Legislature is inhibited from enacting a law providing for the payment of a privilege tax or license fee to the state, counties, and municipalities in fair and reasonable proportions, and make such privilege tax or license fee the only privilege tax or license fee that can be levied or collected by the state, counties, and municipalities. The plain and evident purpose of section 221 to be gathered from a fair and reasonable interpretation of the language employed is to prevent the Legislature from discriminating against counties and municipalities by levying one privilege tax or license fee for the sole benefit of the state, to the exclusion and prejudice of the counties and municipalities. While the act in question (section 7) does not expressly in so many words designate the assessment or charge a state, county and municipal privilege tax, yet this is its evident purpose and effect, and it is in fact and effect a charge made for a state, county, and municipal privilege tax, and does not provide for the payment of a state tax only, to the exclusion and in lieu of the payment of privilege and license taxes for the benefit of counties and municipalities, but, on the contrary, this statute includes and provides for the payment of a privilege tax in fair and reasonable proportion for the benefit of the counties and municipalities as well as for the state.
The license or privilege tax assessed against express companies (Code 1907,§ 2086) is similar to the act in question, in that it provides for the collection of a state privilege tax and a graduated municipal privilege tax based on population, in lieu of all other taxes of whatever nature except an ad valorem tax. This section (2086) was upheld in the attack made against it in the case of City of Birmingham v. Southern Ex. Co., 164 Ala. 529, 51 So. 159. In rendering the opinion of the court in that case Mayfield, J., specifically stated that it was not necessary to pass upon the question of whether or not the statute was valid as opposed to the provisions of section 221 of the Constitution, but the learned justice said in effect in that case, however, that this constitutional provision was no doubt adopted because of the various general and local statutes (and the construction that had been placed upon them) authorizing the assessment of different and conflicting license or privilege taxes on express companies, and that a statute attempting to deal with the whole subject and definitely fixing the state and municipal license taxes in lieu of all other such taxes assessable against said companies was, no doubt, called forth to comply with this constitutional requirement. And as the Legislature is not inhibited by any constitutional restraint from levying such a privilege or license tax for the benefit of the state so long as it is not the sole tax and in lieu of all other license taxes, and as the Legislature at the same time can limit and fix the amount that shall be received by the counties and municipalities, there would seem to be no good reason that could be urged or sound logic advanced why both of these requirements for the payment of license fees or privilege taxes could not be embraced in the same act, as is done in the statutes providing for the payment of license taxes by express companies, and is done by the act in question with respect to motor vehicles.
The meaning and intention of section 221 of the Constitution, we think, are plain, and need no extrinsic aid as an assistance to its construction, but only interpretation of the language used, to arrive at its...
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...50 S. Ct. 64, 74 L. Ed. 178;Smith v. Commonwealth, 175 Ky. 286, 194 S. W. 367;Jackson v. Neff, 64 Fla. 326, 60 So. 350;Bozeman v. State, 7 Ala. App. 151, 61 So. 604;State v. Ingalls, 18 N. M. 211, 135 P. 1177; Berry on Automobiles (6th Ed.) vol. 1, 115-116. [13] Aside from what has been sai......
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