City of Lakeland v. Amos

• Decision Date: 01 October 1932
• Citation: 106 Fla. 873,143 So. 744
• Parties: CITY OF LAKELAND et al. v. AMOS, State Comptroller.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

143 So. 744

106 Fla. 873

CITY OF LAKELAND et al. v. AMOS, State Comptroller.

Florida Supreme Court

October 1, 1932

En Banc.

Suit by the City of Lakeland and others against Ernest Amos, as Comptroller of the State of Florida. From a decree dismissing the bill of complaint, complainants appeal.

Affirmed. Appeal from Circuit Court, Leon County; E. C Love, Judge.

COUNSEL

Austin Miller, Goy Hutchinson, and Emmet Safay, all of Jacksonville J. M. Austin, of Leesburg, M. H. Jones, of Clearwater, Giles & Gurney, of Orlando, Edwards & Harris, of Bartow, Peterson Carver & Langston, of Lakeland, and M. A. Wilson, of Ft. Mead, for appellants.

Cary D. Landis, Atty. Gen., and H. E. Carter, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

OPINION

WHITFIELD J.

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing a bill of complaint in which it is prayed that the state comptroller be enjoined from enforcing chapter 15658, Acts of 1931, Ex. Sess., in so far as it may purport to apply to the complainant municipal corporations, it being in effect contended that the subject expressed in the title of the act, to wit, 'imposing a tax upon all corporations, firms and individuals receiving payment for electricity for light,' etc., does not include municipal corporations, and that even if the provisions of the act may be held to include municipal corporations, such inclusion violates provisions of organic law relating to municipal corporations.

The main question for determination is whether the words 'all corporations,' as used in the act, do include, and may legally include, municipal corporations.

Municipalities are primarily incorporated with authority to perform local governmental functions, including maintenance of streets within designated boundaries, in the interest of the public order, health, safety, and welfare. See Act to Incorporate the City of Pensacola, approved August 23, 1822; Acts of December 22, 1824, December 5, 1825; Acts to Incorporate the City of St. Augustine, approved September 13, 1822 and December 28, 1824; Act to Incorporate the City of Tallahassee, approved December 9, 1825, Act of January 18, 1827; Act to Incorporate the Town of Jacksonville, approved February 11, 1832. See, also, general provisions in chapter 1638, Acts of 1868, and chapter 1688, Acts of 1869; chapter 7024, Acts of 1877; sections 2949(1839) et seq., Comp. Gen. Laws. In the absence of organic prohibitions, municipal corporations have also been authorized by statutes to perform proprietary and business functions for the convenience and benefit of their inhabitants, such as the furnishing of water, light, heat, or power, and other utilities and facilities, for business, health, pleasure, or domestic uses. See present Charter Acts of the City of Jacksonville, chapter 3775, Acts 1887; chapter 7659, Acts of 1917; chapter 11561, Acts of Extra Session of 1925, and amendatory Acts; chapter 4600, Acts of 1897; section 3058 (1925), Comp. Gen. Laws. See, also, the statutory charters of municipal corporations granted in recent years in this state. The governmental functions and the corporate business activities of a municipal corporation are quite different; and each class of such charter powers may be regulated by distinct principles and provisions of law. In general, when a municipality exercises a corporate authority to engage in a permissible business or occupation, as distinguished from the performance of an authorized governmental function, the regulations that are by law applicable to such business activities or occupations when engaged in by private corporations may be made applicable to municipal corporations, when under appropriate authority they engage in such occupations or business activities. See Hamler v. City of Jacksonville et al., 97 Fla. 807, 122 So. 220; Chardkoff Junk Co. v. City of Tampa (Fla.) 135 So. 457; Loeb v. City of Jacksonville, 101 Fla. 429, 134 So. 205, 79 A. L. R. 459; Eliot v. Freeman, 220 U.S. 178, text 179, 31 S.Ct. 360, 55 L.Ed. 424; City of Logansport v. Pub. Service Comm'n, 202 Ind. 523, 177 N.E. 249, 76 A. L. R. 838; 19 R. C. L. p. 697; 43 C.J. 69 et seq.

Section 8, article 8 of the Florida Constitution contains the following:

'The Legislature shall have power to establish, and to abolish, municipalities, to provide for their government, to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers, and to alter or amend the same at any time.'

Under this organic section, statutes may confer upon a municipality any power or authority that does not conflict with other provisions of organic law. State v. Johns, 92 Fla. 187, 109 So. 228; MacGuyer v. City of Tampa, 89 Fla. 138, 103 So. 418.

The statutes of the state authorize municipal corporations to engage in the business of furnishing electricity and gas to their inhabitants for business or domestic, light, heat, power, or other uses, for compensation paid to the municipalities. There are also private corporations that are likewise engaged in furnishing electricity and gas.

Chapter 15658, Acts of 1931, Ex. Sess., is entitled, 'An Act Imposing a Tax upon all Corporations, Firms and Individuals receiving Payment for Electricity for Light, Heat or Power, and for Natural or Manufactured Gas for Light, Heat or Power,' etc. Section 1 of the act provides that 'all corporations, firms and individuals, including municipalities, receiving payment for electricity for light, heat or power and for natural or manufactured gas for light, heat or power * * *' annually report to the comptroller of the state 'the total amount of gross receipts derived from business done in this State,' and 'shall pay into the Treasurey of the State the sum of One ($1.50) Dollar and Fifty Cents upon each One Hundred ($100.00) Dollars of such gross receipts.'

A municipality is a corporation, and if a municipality is 'receiving payment for electricity for light,' etc., it is included in the words, 'all corporations * * * receiving payment for electricity for light,' etc., as used in the title of the act; therefore the title is sufficiently comprehensive to include municipal corporations receiving payment for electricity for light, etc. The title 'briefly' expresses the single subject of legislative regulation that is embraced in the provisions of the act; and the title expresses the subject in language that is reasonably plain and adequate to put every one upon notice that 'all corporations * * * receiving payment for electricity,' etc., were included in the provisions of the act; and the title is not misleading as to the subject regulated. 'Matter properly connected' with the subject expressed in the title may be included in the act, though not expressed in the title.

The words, 'including municipalities,' appear in the first section of the act, which expressly and specifically shows a legislative intent that the language, 'all corporations * * * receiving payment for electricity for light,' etc., shall include all municipal corporations that are 'receiving payment for electricity for light,' etc. Wherever the word 'corporation' is used in subsequent sections of the act, it by necessary intendment includes every municipal corporation which is engaged in the business that is taxed; and the word 'company,' as used in the act, has reference to any and all corporations that are included in the provisions of the act. The act is not inoperative as to municipal corporations for indefiniteness or ambiguity.

Chapter 6521, Acts of 1913, defined 'the Liability of Persons, Firms and Corporations Engaged in Certain Hazardous Occupations,' and it was held that the word 'corporations,' and used in the title and body of the act, included municipal corporations engaged in the hazardous occupation of 'generating and selling electricity,' one of the occupations named in the act, though municipalities were not mentioned in the title or in the body of the act. City of Sebring v. Avant, 95 Fla. 960, 961, 117 So. 383.

In Tyler v. Akerman, 85 Fla. 485, 96 So. 838, the statute authorized a writ of garnishment to subject any indebtedness due to a defendant 'by a third person,' and it was in accordance with the general rule held that the words 'a third person,' as used, did not include a municipality.

The tax imposed by the statute is a license or excise tax upon all corporations, firms, and individuals, receiving payment for electricity for light, etc., the amount of the tax to be determined by reference to a stated percentage of the 'gross receipts derived from' the stated intrastate business occupations, which occupations are subject to license taxes. See Pullman Co. v. Knott, Comptroller, 70 Fla. 9, 69 So. 703; Afro-American Ind. & Benefit Ass'n v. State, 61 Fla. 85, 54 So. 383; Orange State Oil Co. v. Amos, 100 Fla. 884, 130 So. 707. It is in no sense a 'tax * * * upon the income of residents or citizens of this State' within the terms or the intent of section 11, article 9, adopted in 1924 as a part of the Constitution of Florida. See Educational Films Corp. v. Ward, 282 U.S. 379, 51 S.Ct. 170, 75 L.Ed. 400. See, also, Pullman Co. v. Knott, 235 U.S. 23, 35 S.Ct. 2, 59 L.Ed. 105. The tax is on the corporation, firm, or individual for the privilege of engaging in the business or occupation of selling electricity, etc., and not upon money received for sales, though the excise is measured by reference to gross receipts from such sales. It is imposed without reference to profits or net income. It is not directly or indirectly levied upon any...