Cooper v. Town of Greenwood

• Decision Date: 01 November 1937
• Docket Number: No. 4064.,4064.
• Citation: 111 S.W.2d 452
• Parties: COOPER et al. v. TOWN OF GREENWOOD.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 452

111 S.W.2d 452

COOPER et al. v. TOWN OF GREENWOOD.

No. 4064.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

November 1, 1937.

Rehearing Denied January 10, 1938.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sebastian County, Greenwood District; J. Sam Wood, Judge.

Jack Cooper and others were convicted for violating an ordinance of the Town of Greenwood providing for the collection of a motor vehicle tax, and they appeal.

Affirmed.

Festus Gillam, of Greenwood, and Holland & Holland, of Fort Smith, for appellants.

George W. Johnson and Thomas Harper, both of Greenwood, for appellee.

MEHAFFY, Justice.

The appellants were convicted in the Sebastian circuit court, Greenwood district, for violating Ordinance No. 103 of the Town of Greenwood, providing for the collection of motor vehicle tax. The ordinance provided for a tax of $2.50 per annum payable by every person, firm or corporation residing within the Town of Greenwood, Ark., for each and every vehicle of whatsoever kind or description owned and operated by any such person, firm, or corporation, etc. The ordinance provided that it should be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to operate any such motor vehicle within said town without first paying said tax thereon, and provided that any person failing to comply with the provisions of the ordinance, or any person who shall operate any motor vehicle without paying said tax, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be fined in any sum not more than $5 for each violation.

Each of the appellants was fined $1, and was given 20 days to file motion for new trial. Within the time appellants filed their motion for new trial, which was overruled, and the case is here on appeal.

There is no dispute about the facts. The ordinance, it is conceded, was properly passed, and it is also conceded that the appellants violated it; but it is contended that Act No. 154 (page 786) of the Acts of 1929 is void, and that for that reason the ordinance is void, and no conviction could be had under it.

Section 1 of Act No. 154 of the Acts of 1929 reads as follows: "That hereafter any town incorporated under the laws of Arkansas shall have the authority through the agency of its town council to assess a tax on all motor vehicles owned or operated for pleasure by any resident of such town, or on any motor vehicle operated for hire or profit on the streets of such incorporated town by any person, persons, firm or corporations, who may reside elsewhere in a sum to be mentioned on a ballot to be used as a special election hereinafter provided for to determine final action on same."

It is contended that said act is void because it gives authority to tax motor vehicles operated for hire or profit on the streets of the incorporated town by persons residing elsewhere, and does not provide for a tax on those motor vehicles operated for hire or profit by residents of the Town of Greenwood. We think the intention of the Legislature clearly appears, from the act itself, from the language used, to be that any motor vehicle operated for hire or profit by any person, firm, or corporation, whether he resides in the Town of Greenwood or elsewhere, shall be taxed.

A reasonable construction would be that it applies to any person, persons, firm, or corporation, although they might reside without the limits of the town.

While the meaning of the Legislature must be determined primarily, from the language of the statute itself, that means a consideration not only of the entire act, but of all acts or statutes in pari materia.

"In construing a statute, the intention of the legislature is to be ascertained not merely from the language of the act taken as a whole, but, where the language is not free from ambiguity, from the application of the act to existing circumstances and necessities. When the words of a statute are not explicit, the intention of the legislature is to be collected from the context, by considering the subject matter, by looking to the occasion and necessity for the law and the circumstances under which it was enacted, to the mischief to be remedied, the object to be obtained and the remedy in view, by comparing one part with the other, and giving effect to the whole, by looking to the old law upon the subject, if any, and other statutes upon the same or similar subjects, by considering the effects and consequences of a particular construction, and by looking to contemporaneous legislative history and contemporaneous construction of the statute." 25 R.C.L. 1012, 1013.

The obvious intention of the Legislature was to authorize cities and incorporated towns to tax all motor vehicles owned or operated for pleasure by any resident of such...