Craddock v. City of San Antonio

• Decision Date: 07 November 1917
• Docket Number: (No. 6010.)
• Parties: CRADDOCK v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

198 S.W. 634

CRADDOCK v. CITY OF SAN ANTONIO.

(No. 6010.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. San Antonio.

November 7, 1917.

Rehearing Denied November 28, 1917.

Appeal from District Court, Bexar County; S. G. Tayloe, Judge.

Injunction by Frank Craddock, Jr., against the City of San Antonio. From interlocutory judgment denying the writ, petitioner appeals. Affirmed.

Chambers & Watson, of San Antonio, for appellant. R. J. McMillan, of San Antonio, for appellee.

FLY, C. J.

This is an appeal from an interlocutory judgment denying an injunction sought to restrain the enforcement of a certain traffic ordinance enacted by the city of San Antonio. Appellant describes himself as being "engaged in the business of operating automobiles for hire, known as special car service" in the city of San Antonio, under an ordinance dated March 8, 1915; alleges that he had paid his license fee of $25, required by the ordinance, from June 1, 1917, to and including May 31, 1918; that on August 27, 1917, the board of commissioners of San Antonio had passed an ordinance or amendment by which it was "attempted to license automobiles for hire except such automobiles as may be used in local street transportation, as defined by an ordinance of the city approved March 8, 1915; that said ordinance attempts to prohibit this plaintiff and those similarly situated from operating automobiles for local street transportation, or to operate said automobiles as special car service within the limits of the city of San Antonio, Bexar county, Tex." The court granted a temporary restraining order, but, on hearing the application on the date fixed for the same, denied the temporary injunction.

The ordinance is assailed by appellant on 19 grounds, the main ones being as follows: In that it does not express the subjects contained in it in its title; in that it seeks to amend an ordinance by reference to its title; in that it fails to state an emergency in the preamble or body of the ordinance; in that it is in conflict with the State Highway Department Act passed by the Thirty-Fifth Legislature in 1917; in that it is obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that the penalties and conditions required are different from the laws of the state; in that it is class legislation; "in that it deprives a party of the right of trial by jury" and because it was in conflict with the Texas Employers' Liability Act.

The ordinance is not unconstitutional. The provision as to acts expressing the subject in the title does not apply to municipal ordinances. Morris v. State, 62 Tex. 728; Dillon, Mun. Corp. §§ 72, 577; McQuillin, Mun. Corp. § 681.

The ordinance of which complaint is made was passed for the purpose of regulating the use of the streets of the city by corporations or individuals with public service automobiles, not operating under the jitney ordinance, which prescribes the streets on which they shall or shall not operate, and is not open to any of the objections urged against it. The city seeks to regulate this class of automobiles just as it regulates the class known as jitneys, and it has the same right over its...