Burroughs Adding Mach. Co. v. State

• Decision Date: 21 June 1924
• Docket Number: 30,31.
• Citation: 126 A. 127,146 Md. 192
• Parties: BURROUGHS ADDING MACH. CO. v. STATE. NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO. v. STATE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

126 A. 127

146 Md. 192

BURROUGHS ADDING MACH. CO. v. STATE.

NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO. v. STATE.

Nos. 30, 31.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 21, 1924

Appeals from Circuit Court, Washington County; Frank G. Wagaman Judge.

"To be officially reported."

The Burroughs Adding Machine Company and the National Cash Register Company were each convicted of doing business without licenses, and they appeal. Reversed.

Argued before PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, and BOND, JJ.

Robert H. McCauley, of Hagerstown, and George Weems Williams, of Baltimore, for appellants.

Thomas H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., Herbert Levy, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Ellsworth R. Roulette, State's Atty., of Hagerstown, for the State.

ADKINS J.

The appeals in these cases are from judgments of the circuit court for Washington county, whereby the appellants respectively were fined $100 for alleged violations of section 167 of chapter 704 of the Acts of 1916, codified as section 167 of art. 56 of Bagby's Code.

That section reads as follows:

"Each person, firm or corporation, resident or nonresident, having a place of business displaying cash registers or adding machines, or samples, photographs or illustrations from which sales are made, shall first obtain a license therefor, and shall pay an annual license fee of one hundred dollars."

The title of chapter 704 of the Acts of 1916 is as follows:

"An act to repeal and re-enact with amendments section 59 of article 56 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, title 'Licenses,' subtitle 'Traders,' and also sections 108, 109, 110 and 111 of said article 56, title 'Licenses,' subtitle 'Shows and Theatrical Exhibitions,' and to add twenty-five additional sections to said article 56 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, to follow section 163, and to be known as sections 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187 and 188 said new sections providing for the licensing of detective agencies and agents, moving picture shows and carnivals garages, cash registers and adding machines, typewriting machines, commercial, mercantile and mutual protective agencies, intelligence offices and employment agencies, laundries, junk dealers, trading stamp companies, wholesale dealers in farm machinery, soda water fountains, livery stables, bowling saloons, storage warehouses, check rooms, cleaning, dyeing and pressing companies, shoe-shining parlors and hat-cleaning establishments, restaurants or eating places, plumbers and gas fitters, construction firms or companies, nonresident wholesale tobacco dealers and nonresident wholesale liquor dealers."

The indictment in the one case charges:

"That National Cash Register Company, a body corporate, late of Washington county, aforesaid, on the 25th day of January, A. D. 1924, at Washington county, aforesaid, unlawfully did have a place of business wherein cash registers or samples thereof were displayed, and from which sales were made without first taking out a license therefor, as provided by the act of assembly in such case made and provided," etc.

The indictment in the other case was the same except that "Burroughs Adding Machine Company" was substituted for "National Cash Register Company," and "adding machines" for "cash registers."

In each case the traverser demurred to the indictment, and the demurrer was overruled. Whereupon, in each case, a special plea was filed alleging that traverser was a nonresident corporation having three places of business in the state of Maryland, displaying in the one case, cash registers, and in the other, adding machines, or samples, photographs, or illustrations from which sales are made, and that said places of business were on the 1st day of May, 1923, and for some months prior thereto and ever since have been, located in the cities of Baltimore, Hagerstown, and Cumberland, in the state of Maryland, and that on or about the 1st day of May, 1923, the traverser paid to the clerk of the court of common pleas of Baltimore city the sum of $100, and received from him a license authorizing it to transact its business as aforesaid in the state of Maryland for the period of one year from May 1, 1923, and that, in accordance with said license, it has maintained said three places of business in said cities.

To this plea the state demurred, and the demurrer was sustained. Whereupon an agreed statement as to facts was filed in each case admitting all the facts set out in the plea, and the further fact that, since the passage of chapter 704 of the Acts of 1916, the state had not attempted to collect from the companies classified in section 167 of said act more than one license fee of $100 per year.

The one bill of exception in each case is to the refusal by the trial court of the two prayers offered by the traverser. The first prayer asks for an instruction that inasmuch as the facts stated in the agreed stipulation (which are set out in the prayer) are undisputed, the traverser "is not violating any of the laws of the state of Maryland as alleged in the indictment in this case, and the verdict of the court sitting as a jury should be 'not guilty.' " The second prayer is a demurrer to the evidence in a shorter form.

The contentions of appellants are: (1) That chapter 704 of the Acts of 1916 is unconstitutional and void so far as section 167 thereof is involved "because the titling to the act does not set out the purpose of the same as containing any provision for requiring a license for the display for sale of cash registers, adding machines," etc.; (2) that section 167 of said act, properly construed, requires one license fee of $100 to be paid by each of the appellants for the privilege of conducting its business in the state of Maryland, regardless of the number of stores or offices it maintains, and not a separate license for each place of business. Both of these contentions are controverted by the state. As to the first proposition in Painter v. Mattfeldt, 119 Md. 466, 87 A. 413, "Section 29, article 3, of the Constitution is mandatory; but the general disposition of the court has been to give the section a liberal construction, so as not to interfere with or impede legislative action. The purposes of this provision of the Constitution are 'to prevent the Legislature from the enactment of laws surreptitiously; to prevent "log-rolling" legislation; to give the people general notice of the character of the proposed legislation, so they may not be misled; to give all interested an opportunity to appear before committees of the Legislature, and to be heard upon the advisability of the proposed legislation; to advise members of the character of the proposed legislation, and to give each an opportunity to intelligently watch the course of the proposed bill; to guard against fraud in legislation, and against false and deceptive titles. These purposes have been so plainly announced in numerous opinions by this court that a statement of the rule and the citation of cases would seem to be sufficient.' " State v. McKinney, 29 Mont. 375, 74 P. 1095, 1 Ann. Cas. 579; Davis v. State, 7 Md. 160, 61 Am. Dec. 331; Drennen v. Banks, 80 Md. 310, 30 A. 655; Baltimore v. Reitz, 50 Md. 574; County Commissioners v. School Commissioners of Worcester County, 113 Md. 305, 77 A. 605.

It is not apparent that the title of the act in question fails to meet the requirements of the...