Citizens Committee of Anne Arundel County, Inc. v. County Com'rs of Anne Arundel County

• Decision Date: 30 January 1964
• Docket Number: No. 135,135
• Parties: CITIZENS COMMITTEE OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, INC., et al. v. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 398

233 Md. 398

197 A.2d 108

CITIZENS COMMITTEE OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, INC., et al. v. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY et al.

No. 135.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 30, 1964.

Rufus King (Rice & King, on the brief), both of Washington, D. C., and by Malcolm B. Smith (Smith & Wohlgemuth, on the brief), both of Annapolis, for appellants.

Ward B. Coe, Jr. (G. C. A. Anderson and Anderson, Coe & King, on the brief), all of Baltimore, for Southern Maryland Development Co., Inc., part of appellants.

Jerome F. Connell, Special Counsel, Glen Burnie, for Board of County Com'rs of Anne Arundel County, other appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY, and SYBERT, JJ.

HORNEY, Judge.

This action for injunctive relief, instituted by an incorporated citizens committee and a group of individual county residents, citizens and taxpayers against the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County, challenges the constitutionality and validity of such of the local laws, and the ordinances and resolutions passed pursuant thereto, as purport to authorize the operation of gambling devices and activities in the County. The Southern Maryland Development Company, Inc., to which the County Commissioners had issued licenses permitting the operation of slot machines, payoff pinball machines, console devices, commercial bingo, paddle wheels and wheels of fortune, was allowed to intervene as a party defendant. The laws attacked include, among others, Chapter 321 of the Laws of 1941, Chapter 321 of the Laws of 1943, Chapter 1013 of the Laws of 1945, Chapter 625 of the Laws of 1949 and Chapter 3 of the Laws of 1954. All are now codified in the County Code. The chancellor heard the case at length, ruled that the statutes in question were constitutional and valid and dismissed the bill of complaint.

The questions presented on appeal by the appellants include contentions that the legislative acts did not, and were not intended to, authorize the licensing of gambling devices and activities; that the licensing of such devices and activities is unconstitutional in that it authorizes lottery grants in violation of Article III, § 36, of the Constitution of Maryland; that some of the acts are unconstitutional in that they violate Article III, § 29, of the Constitution prohibiting amendment of existing laws by reference to title and section number only; that all of the acts are invalid in that they were insufficiently and deceptively titled; that all constitute an unlawful delegation of authority; and that the acts, as well as the ordinances passed pursuant thereto, are invalid in that they are revenue raising measures in the guise of regulatory measures. The appellees, in addition to claiming that the operation of the licensed devices and activities are lawful, contend that neither the corporation nor the individual plaintiffs, as residents, citizens and taxpayers, had standing to maintain this suit.

We think that only one of the contentions that of the appellees to the effect that the appellants do not have standing to maintain this suit--has to be considered on this appeal. It is not disputed that the corporate plaintiff, the citizens committee, is without standing to sue. And, under the circumstances of this case, we think that the individual plaintiffs, as residents, citizens and taxpayers, did not have the right to maintain this action.

While the appellants claim that the carrying out of the provisions of the alleged unconstitutional and invalid laws, ordinances and resolutions, has resulted in loss and damage to them and all other taxpayers in the county, they have failed to prove or show any special damage or loss which is peculiar to themselves as taxpayers or otherwise.

In Ruark v. International Union of Operating Engineers' etc., 157 Md. 576, 146 A. 797

(1929), wherein taxpayers sought injunctive relief against an alleged violation of a Baltimore City statute, the Court extensively reviewed most of the previous Maryland cases pertaining to the right of an individual taxpayer to restrain a public wrong. Quoting from two earlier decisions, and citing numerous others, it was said 157 Md. at p. 588, 146 A. at p. 802:

"The rule, or principle of law, applicable and controlling in this class of cases, is well settled, that private citizens cannot restrain public wrongs, unless they allege and prove damage to themselves different in character from that sustained by the public generally, nor can taxpayers restrain official acts upon the mere ground that they are ultra vires. * * *"

"* * * Public wrongs are not to be redressed at the suit of individuals who have no other interest in the matter than the rest of the public. To give them a standing in a court of equity, they must allege and show that by the wrong committed they suffer some special damage, or that they have a special interest in the subject-matter distinct from that of the general public."

It was further said 157 Md. at p. 589, 146 A. at p. 802:

'The special damage which the taxpayer of the political division sustains in a public wrong is the prospective pecuniary loss incident to the increase in the amount of taxes he will be constrained to pay by reason of the illegal or ultra vires act of the municipality or other political unit.'

The subsequent decisions of this Court have consistently followed the same rule and have allowed the taxpayer to have injunctive or mandatory relief against public wrongs only when he had alleged and proven some special damage, or shown that he has a special interest, which is distinct from those of the general public. See, for example, Sun Cab Co. v. Cloud, 162 Md. 419, 159 A. 922 (1932); Baltimore Retail Liquor Package Stores Association v. Board of License Commissioners, 171 Md. 426, 189 A. 209, 109 A.L.R. 1253 (1937); Green v. Garrett, 192 Md 52, 63 A.2d 326 (1949); Masson v. Reindollar, 193 Md. 683, 69 A.2d 482 (1949); Hammond v. Lancaster, 194 Md. 462, 71 A.2d 474, 483 (1950); Funk v. Mullan Contracting Co., 197 Md. 192, 78 A.2d 632, 79 A.2d 152 (1951); McKaig v. Mayor and City Council of Cumberland, 208 Md. 95, 116 A.2d 384 (1955); and Dutton v. Tawes, 225 Md. 484, 171 A.2d 688 (1961).

The cases on which the individual appellants rely to justify their contention that where the suit raises a serious issue of the constitutionality of a statute, which is of great public importance, equity should 'consider the entire case without questioning the right of appellants to bring any phase of it,' we think are clearly distinguishable from the case at bar. We will consider such of them as might seem to support the appellants. In Killey, Piet & Co. v. Baltimore, 53 Md. 134 (1880), it was said at p. 139 that '[i]n exceptional cases, where great principles or large public interests are involved, citizens or corporations may sue in behalf of themselves, and their fellow-citizens to arrest some projected violation of constitutional law or abuse of corporate authority.' This suit, however, was not instituted by a taxpayer as such but was brought by an unsuccessful bidder on a city contract to enjoin its award to a competitor on the ground of fraud. Even if the statement is something more than the dictum it appears to be, it has no bearing on the case at bar. Moreover, it appears that in the Kelley case the Court had no intention of nullifying the rule it had enunciated in Baltimore v....