Chain Belt Co. v. City of Milwaukee
| Decision Date | 19 November 1912 |
| Citation | 138 N.W. 621,151 Wis. 188 |
| Parties | CHAIN BELT CO. v. CITY OF MILWAUKEE. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Municipal Court of Milwaukee; O. T. Williams, Judge.
The Chain Belt Company was convicted of violating a city ordinance, and it brings writ of error. Reversed and remanded, with directions to dismiss prosecution.Glicksman, Gold & Corrigan, of Milwaukee, for plaintiff in error.
Daniel W. Hoan, City Atty., and E. L. McIntyre, Asst. City Atty., both of Milwaukee, for defendant in error.
On December 5, 1910, the city of Milwaukee, by amendment of section 11 of an ordinance relating to elevators, forbade the operation of any elevator in the city of Milwaukee except by a person duly licensed for that purpose, and provided for the payment of a fee and issue of a license to persons possessing the qualifications of sobriety, industry, and efficiency. The plaintiff in error was convicted of having violated this ordinance. This writ of error to the judgment of the municipal court challenges the power of the city to enact such an ordinance on the ground that it is not within any ordinance power delegated by the Legislature to the city. Section 3 of chapter 4 of the city charter, containing what is popularly known as the “general welfare clause,” provides that the common council shall have power to enact, etc., all such ordinances, etc., as they shall deem expedient for the government and good conduct of the city for the benefit of the trade, commerce, and health thereof, for the suppression of vice, for the prevention of crime, and for carrying into effect the powers vested in said common council. “For these purposes the common council shall have authority--anything in a general law of this state to the contrary notwithstanding--by ordinances, resolutions, by-laws, rules or regulations” (1) to regulate groceries, etc.; (2) to license, tax, regulate, suppress, and prohibit billiard tables, etc.; (3) to license, tax, regulate, suppress, or prohibit all exhibitions of common showmen, etc.; (4) to restrain or prohibit all descriptions of gaming, etc.; and so on in this form for 64 subsections covering a variety of subjects, none of which includes the licensing of elevator operators by any stretch of construction unless it be subsection 62, which reads: “To control and regulate the construction of buildings, chimneys and stacks, and to prevent and prohibit the erection or maintenance of any insecure or unsafe buildings, stack, wall or chimney, in said city, and to declare them to be nuisances, and to provide for their summary abatement”--or subsection 63, which authorizes the common council to declare by ordinance that it shall be unlawful for any hall, theater, opera house, church, schoolhouse, or building of any kind whatsoever to be used for the assemblage of people or for any building exceeding three stories in height to be used as a manufactory, hotel, or boarding house or for any other purpose unless the same is provided with ample means for the safe and speedy egress of the persons therein assembled in case of alarm, and may require and regulate the erection of ladders, fire escapes, standpipes, or other appliances for the escape of persons from such buildings. In chapter 14 of the charter, relating to the fire department, authority is given to the common council to prevent the dangerous construction and condition of chimneys, fire places, hearths, stoves, stovepipes, ovens, boilers, and apparatus used in and about any building, and to cause the same to be removed or placed in a safe and secure condition when considered dangerous. Also to compel the owners and occupants of buildings to have scuttles in the roofs and stairs or ladders leading to the same; also to authorize the mayor, aldermen, and other officers of the city to keep away from the vicinity of any fire all idle and suspected persons, and to compel all bystanders to aid in the extinguishment of fires and in the preservation of property exposed to danger thereat; and generally to establish such regulations for the prevention and extinguishment of fires and for the safety and protection of persons from injury thereby as the common council may deem expedient. No other provision of the charter or of any general law of the state under which this power to license elevator operators is claimed has been brought to our attention.
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