Broadfoot v. City of Fayetteville

• Decision Date: 21 December 1897
• Citation: 28 S.E. 515,121 N.C. 418
• Parties: BROADFOOT v. CITY OF FAYETTEVILLE.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

28 S.E. 515

121 N.C. 418

BROADFOOT v. CITY OF FAYETTEVILLE.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 21, 1897

Appeal from superior court, Cumberland county; Coble, Judge.

Action by C. W. Broadfoot against the city of Fayetteville. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Acts 1895, cc. 141, 154, giving unequal rights to residents and nonresidents of cities in relation to poundage of their live stock, are not in violation of Const.U.S. Amend. 14 providing that no state shall deny to persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.

II. McD. Robinson, for appellant.

G. M Rose, for appellee.

CLARK J.

It was admitted by both parties that the result of this appeal depended upon the constitutionality of chapters 141 and 154 of the Acts of 1895. These two acts are substantially identical, save that the first applies to the whole state while the latter is applicable to Cumberland county only. The first section is aimed at the offense of driving live stock into a city, town, or other territory in which stock is forbidden to run at large, with intent to secure the penalty or to injure the owner, or for hire or reward. Violation of this statute is made a misdemeanor. The second section--presumably with the object of discouraging the perpetration of the offense denounced in the first section--provides that the poundage or penalty upon the stock of nonresidents of a town or city, which is authorized to impound stock running at large therein, shall not be more than one-fourth that levied upon residents, and, further that when nonresident owners of cattle taken up in said town live more than a mile from said city limits, there shall be no poundage charged. Chapter 141 differs from chapter 154 in that it exempts such last-named owners of stock, not altogether, but only for the first three times that the same cattle are impounded. But chapter 154, which applies to Cumberland county only, governs in this case, as it was ratified later. It was seriously argued to us that these acts are unconstitutional, because in violation of article 1, § 7, of the constitution of North Carolina, which forbids exclusive privileges and emoluments to be granted to any set of men. Then it was further urged that the acts were obnoxious to the inhibition of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, which provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws. We find in the statute, however, no violation by the legislature of the organic law of the state or the United States, but simply a police regulation. The act is based upon the idea that residents of the town, who know that stock are not allowed to run at large therein, are more blamable for permitting them to do so than nonresidents whose stock (turned out where it is permissible) by chance, or perhaps driven by some one who wishes to make a profit thereby or injure the owner (as is indicated by the first section of the act), get into the town limits and violate the majesty of its ordinances. The statute further takes cognizance of the ordinary things of life in proceeding upon the assumption that the stock of owners living more than a mile from town are so little disposed to leave their native meadows and ranges in order to tramp the barren streets and sidewalks of the distant town, that their, doing so is not attributable to negligence in their owners, and is more likely to be caused by designing persons. Hence, in the county of Cumberland, such distant owners are not punishable at all, and, under the general act (chapter 141), only when the same stock have developed such fondness for the town as to have been caught parading its streets three time before. In these provisions we see no "exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges" to any set of men. It was once contended that nonresidents, not being subject to town regulations, were not liable at all when their stock invaded the town limits. But it was held that they were, as legislation then stood. State v. Tweedy, 115 N.C. 704, 20 S.E. 183; Rose v. Hardie, 98 N.C. 44, 4 S.E. 41; Whitfield v. Longest, 28 N.C. 268; Hellen v. Noe, 25 N.C. 493. But in this there was no denial of the power of the legislature to provide that owners of cattle which should stray a mile or more to get into the town limits (which they were so little likely to do of their own volition, or by that of their owners) should be exempt from the penalty visited upon residents of the town, who should negligently or intentionally let their cattle roam the streets, and that those living outside the town limits, but within a mile, should be punished less than residents of the town. The latter know that their stock must roam the town if turned out at all. Nonresidents do not. It has never been held that the special privileges and advantages given the residents of towns by town charters come within the constitutional inhibition against special privileges, and neither can it be justly contended that an exemption, partial or entire, of nonresidents from the penalty for violation of a town ordinance...