Cain's Coffee Co. v. City of Muskogee
| Decision Date | 23 April 1935 |
| Docket Number | 24943. |
| Citation | 44 P.2d 50,171 Okla. 635,1935 OK 450 |
| Parties | CAIN'S COFFEE CO. et al. v. CITY OF MUSKOGEE et al. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Equity will restrain by injunction the enforcement of a municipal ordinance which is void as being unconstitutional and in violation of the statutes of this state, where it appears that valuable property rights are invaded and irreparable injury will result from its enforcement.
2. Municipal corporations can exercise only such powers of legislation as are given them by the lawmaking power of the state, and grants of such powers are strictly construed against the corporations, and, when any fairly reasonable doubt exists as to the grant of the power, such doubt is resolved by the courts against the corporation, and the existence of the power is denied.
3. A city council has no power to enact an ordinance exceeding its delegated statutory powers by making a definition which would include persons or principles not clearly within the terms of the act granting such power.
4. Cities, unless expressly granted authority by statute, cannot prescribe definitions and meaning to words and terms set forth in the statute which are different from their usual ordinary general acceptation, and thereby extend the meaning of such terms, and a court of equity, upon proper and timely application, may be invoked to enjoin the enforcement of void legislation based thereon which would menace and deprive another of valuable contract or property rights.
5. Record examined; held, that the ordinance in question is invalid and void, in that it exceeds the delegated statutory powers, that it attempts to include persons and principals not clearly within the power granted and that it attempts to prescribe meaning for statutory terms different from their usual, ordinary acceptation and thereby extend their meaning.
Appeal from District Court, Muskogee County; E. A. Summers, Judge.
Action by Cain's Coffee Company and another against the City of Muskogee and others. From an adverse judgment, plaintiffs appeal.
Judgment reversed, and cause remanded, with directions.
Gotwals Gibson, Killey & Gibson, of Muskogee, for plaintiffs in error.
Forrester Brewster, of Muskogee, for defendants in error.
This was an action commenced in the district court of Muskogee county, Okl., wherein the plaintiffs in error were plaintiffs and the defendants in error were defendants. The parties will be referred to as they appeared in the trial court.
The action was brought to enjoin the enforcement of ordinance No 1447 of the city of Muskogee, which was an ordinance relating to the distribution, delivery, offering for sale, or sale at wholesale of any fruits, groceries, and/or vegetables within the city of Muskogee without first obtaining a license therefor. The pertinent portion of the ordinance involved was as follows:
"Be It Ordained by the Council of the City of Muskogee:
Section 1. License Required. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to distribute, deliver, offer for sale or sell at wholesale any fruits, groceries, and/or vegetables within the City of Muskogee, Oklahoma, without first obtaining a license therefor.
Section 2. License, Amount of. Before any person, firm or corporation shall be licensed as provided in Section One hereof, there shall be paid a fee of $100.00, which license shall be in force one year from the date of issuance.
Section 3. Inspection Required. All commodities for sale as specified in Section One hereof shall be at all times subject to the inspection of the health department of the City of Muskogee.
Section 4. Exemption of Farmers. Nothing herein shall be construed to prevent any farmer, gardener, grower or producer from personally selling the products of his farm, orchard, garden, grown or raised, produced, slaughtered or caught by himself, provided; That such exemption shall be shown by sworn affidavit, if requested."
Section 5 provides the penalty and section 6 is the emergency.
The plaintiff, Cain's Coffee Company, owned and operated an establishment in Oklahoma City, which, according to the evidence, acquired raw materials such as green and unprepared teas, spices, coffee, and other materials; that it there treated, milled, worked on them, by human labor and mechanical devices and appliances in its factory; that said plaintiff sold and distributed the products of said factory through the state of Oklahoma by means of automobile trucks owned and operated by it, which trucks had regular and established routes over which they traveled, carrying the products of the plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company through the various counties of the state and into the city of Muskogee; that the other plaintiff, Robert F. Smith, was an employee of the Cain's Coffee Company, having charge of the sale and distribution of said products in the city of Muskogee and surrounding territory; that the Cain's Coffee Company did not own and maintain any store, warehouse, or other building in the city of Muskogee; that Robert F. Smith, its salesman, secured orders and solicited business from restaurants, hotel operators, and other institutions; that said orders were placed with the plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company, and thereafter said purchases were delivered to the said customers by truck; that neither the Cain's Coffee Company nor Robert F. Smith maintained any warehouse or fixed place of business in the city of Muskogee. It was admitted that the plaintiffs had not paid the license fee required by said Ordinance No. 1447, and plaintiffs claimed that they were not covered by said ordinance; that the city, through its officers, who were made defendants, were about to and were threatening the arrest and imprisonment of the employees of plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company, and that the officers had arrested and threatened to fine and imprison the plaintiff Robert F. Smith, an employee of the Cain's Coffee Company, for noncompliance with said ordinance; that the plaintiffs refused to pay said tax on the theory that they were not governed or controlled by said ordinance, claiming that they were a manufacturer of said products and that said ordinance did not control them; that said ordinance was illegal, unconstitutional, discriminatory; that said city of Muskogee did not have the authority under the general laws of the state of Oklahoma to pass such an ordinance; that said ordinance denied to the plaintiffs the rights guaranteed to them under and by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, and the Fourteenth Amendment thereto, as well as the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma, and particularly article 2, §§ 2, 7, and 15; that the enforcement of said ordinance would destroy plaintiff's business in and about the city of Muskogee, would impair the obligation of plaintiff Robert F. Smith's contract with plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company; that it was an attempt to prohibit the plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company from doing business in the city of Muskogee except upon payment of an illegal and unlawful license fee; that it deprived the plaintiff of its property without due process of law; that it imposed an excessive, exorbitant, prohibitive, and confiscatory license amounting to confiscation; that irreparable injury would result to the property of the plaintiff if an injunction were not issued.
A temporary injunction was granted; upon a final hearing, the temporary injunction was dissolved and judgment rendered for the defendants. Motion for new trial was filed and overruled, and the cause was brought to this court for review.
The applicable portion of the Oklahoma statute is as follows: "The city council shall have authority to levy and collect a license tax on * * * merchants of all kinds, grocers. * * *" Section 6389, O. S. 1931.
It is contended by the city of Muskogee that the plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company is a merchant or grocer, while the contention of the plaintiff is that it is a manufacturer and neither a merchant nor grocer.
The undisputed evidence discloses that the plaintiff Cain's Coffee Company does not maintain a place of business within the city of Muskogee; that it takes orders through its salesmen from the various merchants for its coffee, teas, spices, and extracts, and delivers them by truck to said purchasers; that it acquires raw materials such as green and unprepared coffee, teas, spices, and other materials which are unfit for human consumption, and can be used only after the same have been treated, milled, worked upon, and processed by human skill and ingenuity and mechanical devices and appliances of the plaintiff corporation; that said processes can be accomplished only by specially constructed, scientific machinery and by skilled manipulation; that all of said materials are purchased in bulk; that none is sold or disposed of by the plaintiff in the natural form as acquired; that no part of plaintiff's profit is made or acquired through the sale of such commodities; that it is only after the same have passed through the factory of the plaintiff that they are fit for human consumption.
In passing upon an ordinance similar to the ordinance involved in this case, this court in the case of Grantham v. City of Chickasha, 156 Okl. 56, 9 P.2d 747, 751, in a quotation from State v. Fleming, 24 N.D. 593, 140 N.W. 674, said:
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