Dasch v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 20 February 1936
• Docket Number: 50.
• Parties: DASCH ET AL. v. JACKSON.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

183 A. 534

170 Md. 251

DASCH ET AL. v. JACKSON.

No. 50.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

February 20, 1936

Appeal from Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City; J. Frank Supplee Jr., Judge.

Bill by Charles L. Jackson against C. Hood Dasch and others constituting the Board of Examiners and Supervisors of Paperhangers of Baltimore City, and another. From a decree overuling demurrers to the bill and sustaining demurrers to answers with leave to amend, the Board appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL SHEHAN, and JOHNSON, JJ.

Hilary W. Gans, Deputy Atty. Gen. (Herbert R. O'Conor, Atty Gen., and Charles T. LeViness, 3d, Asst. Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellants.

William Milnes Maloy, of Baltimore (Jack M. Fox and Maloy, Brady & Yost, all of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

OFFUTT Judge.

The General Assembly of Maryland by chapter 377 of the Acts of 1935 for convenience herein called the act, created a board to be known as the board of examiners and supervisors of paper hangers of Baltimore City, herein called the board, consisting of five members, for "the purpose of issuing licenses and examining into the qualifications and capabilities of all persons engaging in, or desiring to engage in the business of paper-hanging in Baltimore City." The Board is authorized to "adopt such rules and regulations for the examinations of paper-hangers as herein defined, and for the carrying on of the business of paper-hanging in such manner as to protect and promote the public health, safety and general welfare, and when so adopted, such rules and regulations shall have the same force and effect as if herein contained, and the rules of said Board shall also provide for the giving of timely notice of such meetings to all persons who shall have made application for a license as herein provided." It is also authorized, directed, and required, to "classify the business of paper-hanging into two classes, to be known as Classes A and B, and to issue a separate license for each class, upon application, examination and the payment of the fees as hereinafter provided. The holders of a Class A license shall be authorized to accept orders or contracts for paper-hanging, and to perform all such work as may be necessary for the fulfilling of such orders or contracts through the employment of holders of a Class B license, or individually, where the holder of a Class A license also holds a Class B license. The holders of a Class B license shall be authorized to hang or lay wall paper, or other similar wall coverings, prepare walls, ceiling, or other portions of buildings, and generally, to do and perform all things necessary to be done in the proper discharge of the duties of a paper-hanger." However, all persons engaged in the business of paper hanging on June 1, 1935, were entitled to receive a license without examination if they applied for it before August 1, 1935, and paid the license fees. The licenses are for one year, the fee for a class A (contractor's) license is $15, and the renewal fee $10, and for a class B (journeyman's) license $5 and the renewal fee $2. The board is given power to revoke or suspend any license for any violation of the act or "for any other cause" which it may "deem sufficient." But before any person failing to apply before August 1, 1935, for a license shall either continue or carry on the business of paper hanging in Baltimore City, such person shall apply for a license, and "all such individuals, members of copartnerships and officers of employees of corporations whose duties shall engage him or her in the performance of the work usually and customarily performed by a paper-hanger, shall present himself, or herself before said Board at a time and place to be fixed by said Board for examination as to his or her qualifications to follow the occupation of a paper-hanger. Every such application shall be accompanied by the payment of a fee of Fifteen ($15.00) Dollars in cases where the application is for a Class A license, and a fee of Five ($5.00) Dollars in cases where the application is for a Class B license, and if said Board shall, upon due examination and the payment of the fee above provided, find that the person examined is qualified as a paper-hanger, then such applicant shall be entitled to a license of the Class applied for without the payment of any additional fee, which said license shall expire on the first day of May next succeeding, and be subject to renewal as hereinabove provided. A Class A license may be issued without examination, but no holder of such license shall be permitted to actually perform the work of a paper-hanger unless he also holds a Class B license, but the holder of a Class A license may carry on his business through the employment of one or more holders of a Class B license, or individually, if he hold a Class A license, but not otherwise." The act further provides that any person who shall carry on the business of paper-hanging without having first obtained a license therefor shall be subject to fine, or imprisonment, or both. It permits the holders of a class B (journeyman's) license to employ unlicensed helpers, and also permits the owner of a building to paper it himself or to employ a class B licensee to do the work, that a householder may act as his own contractor and journeyman paper hanger for his own property without a license. Each member of the board is to be paid $5 a day for his services, and its secretary such further compensation as the board may allow, the compensation together with administration expenses to be paid out of license receipts, and any surplus to be paid over to the state treasurer for the use of the state.

The Governor in due course appointed as members of the board, C. Hood Dasch, Richard G. Bauer, Herman Zapf, Clement Ehoff, and Charles Block, all of whom qualified, and entered upon the administration of the duties imposed upon the board. In the course of its work it published a notice directed to "Paper-Hangers, Interior Decorators, Contracting Paper Hangers, Paper Hangers, Contracting Scrapers and Scrapers" by which they were informed that after August 31, 1935, they would be subject to the penalties prescribed by the act unless they secured the licenses required by it.

Charles L. Jackson, the appellee, for many years has been engaged in business as an operative and contracting paper-hanger in Baltimore City, and is still in that business. But for the act he would have continued to operate it as he has done, without regulation, and without tax, except such as affected uniformly and generally all persons employed in any kind of skilled or unskilled labor. He objected to the license or tax, and he also objected to the necessity which the act imposed, of securing the consent of the board to carrying on the business which he had before carried on as a matter of common right without the consent or approval of any person, board, or agency. He asserted that in so far as the act interfered with his right to engage in a harmless and useful employment by imposing upon him restrictions not imposed upon others employed in other forms of harmless and useful labor it was unconstitutional and void. He therefore filed the bill in this case against the state's attorney of Baltimore City, who is charged with the duty of prosecuting violations of the statute and against the board, for the purpose of having them enjoined from enforcing the act against him. In the bill he alleges that the act is unconstitutional because (1) it violates the Home Rule article of the Maryland Constitution, article 11A; (2) it violates article 3, § 29 of the Maryland Constitution, relating to the titling of acts of the Legislature; (3) it violates article 3, § 33, of that Constitution because it is a "special Act"; (4) it improperly delegates to the board legislative powers; (5) it is an improper exercise of the police power of the state, and violates the fifteenth and twenty-third articles of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and the due process clause of the Federal Constitution, Const.Amend. 14; (6) it violates the fifteenth and twenty-third articles of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and the fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution by depriving the citizens of the equal protection of the law; and (7) it violates article 3, §§ 52 and 53 of the Maryland Constitution, Code, art. 41, §§ 117-124, in requiring license fees to be paid to the board instead of to the state treasurer.

The board and the state's attorney severally filed combined answers and demurrers to the bill. The board denied the appellee's conclusions of law, and defended the act on the ground that it had a direct relation to the public health, because they say the trade requires a knowledge of the elimination and destruction of germs, vermin, and pests, which can only be had from special training and experience, and also a knowledge of the properties of electricity, because the work requires the removal of electrical fixtures, and on the further ground that regulation is needed to protect the public against certain dishonest trade practices, and also to protect it against irresponsible and inefficient workmen. It further states that a substantial surplus will result from the operation of the act which will be turned into the state treasury. The answer of the state's attorney in effect denied the conclusions of law stated in the bill, and asserted the validity of the act. Demurrers were filed to each of those answers and the case heard upon those pleadings.

The court overruled the demurrers to the bill and sustained the demurrers to the answers with leave to amend. From that order, the board appealed.

The principal questions presented by the bill are (1...