City of St. Louis v. Spiegel

• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Sherwood
• Citation: City of St. Louis v. Spiegel, 2 S.W. 839, 90 Mo. 587 (Mo. 1887)
• Decision Date: 31 January 1887
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. SPIEGEL.

2 S.W. 839

90 Mo. 587

CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. SPIEGEL.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January 31, 1887.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — LICENSES — EQUALITY OF TAX ORDINANCE ST. LOUIS No. 12,508, § 4.

A license fee is a tax, within the meaning of section 3, art. 10, Const. Mo., providing that taxes "shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the same;" and section 4, ordinance city St. Louis No. 12,508, imposing a license fee of $50 for the privilege of keeping a meat-shop, and providing, further, that the keepers of shops may deliver meats, in wagons or otherwise, and that owners of shops in the new limits added to the city, may send out their wagons to sell meats, is void, as discriminating against dealers in the old limits.

Appeal from St. Louis court of appeals.

A. C. Clover and L. Bell, for respondent. R. Hinzel and J. O. McGinnis, for appellant.

SHERWOOD, J.

The defendant was prosecuted in the First district police court of St. Louis for violating sections 1 and 4 of article 3 of chapter 23 of the Revised Ordinances of the City, approved March 29, 1881, as amended by ordinance 12,508, approved July 21, 1883, by keeping a meat-shop without a license. The case was tried in the police court on November 6, 1883, and the defendant was found guilty, and adjudged to pay a fine of $50 and costs. He appealed to the St. Louis court of criminal correction, where the case was tried anew, and the defendant was discharged. The city appealed to the St. Louis court of appeals, where judgment was rendered in its favor. 16 Mo. App. 210. The case is here by appeal.

On a former occasion, when the defendant was prosecuted under ordinance 10,384, known as the "Meat-shop Ordinance," for a violation thereof, and appealed to this court, we held that the license fee was a tax within the meaning of section 3, art. 10, of our state constitution, — a section which provides that taxes "shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax;" and because that ordinance imposed a tax of $25 on meat-shops in one portion of the city, and a tax of $100 on meat-shops in another portion of the city, we held that the ordinance discriminated in favor of one class of meat-shops, and against the other, and was therefore obnoxious to the constitutional provisions above noted.

The sections 1 and 4 of ordinance 12,508, under the provisions of which the defendant was convicted, are as follows:

"Section 1. No person, persons, or copartnership of persons shall open or keep a meat-shop in the city of St. Louis without having first obtained from the collector a license therefor; and any person, persons, or copartnership of persons, doing business as a meat-shop keeper or keepers, shall pay an annual license of fifty dollars in advance, which license shall authorize and empower such person,...