Davis v. Hailey

• Decision Date: 19 February 1921
• Citation: 227 S.W. 1021
• Parties: DAVIS et al. v. HAILEY.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 1021

227 S.W. 1021

DAVIS et al. v. HAILEY.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

February 19, 1921.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Davidson County; Jas. B. Newman, Chancellor.

Action by L. H. Davis and others against Romans Hailey, clerk. From a decree sustaining a demurrer to the complaint, complainant appeals. Affirmed.

F. M. Bass and W. E. Norvell, Jr., both of Nashville, for appellant.

Horace Osment and Smith & Berry, all of Nashville, for appellees.

GREEN, J.

This suit attacks the constitutionality of chapter 182 of the Acts of 1919. The case was heard on demurrer before the chancellor, and he sustained the demurrer and upheld the act. The complainant has appealed to this court.

The act is assailed on several grounds, the first of which is that it contains two subjects in violation of section 17 of article 2 of the Constitution. The caption of the act is as follows:

"An act to regulate the licensing of real estate agents and real estate salesmen in the state of Tennessee, and the various counties thereof, and to define and punish offenses committed in violation of this act, and to repeal that part of an act passed April 5, 1917, and approved April 7, 1917, and being chapter 70, Senate Bill 1157, of the Acts of 1917, which was an act to amend chapter 101, House Bill 1195 of the Public Acts of 1915, and to amend certain provisions of the latter acts in so far as both acts, or either of them pertain to the licensing of real estate agents. The said acts being for the purpose of providing revenue for the state of Tennessee, and the counties and municipalities thereof, by providing for the imposition of privileges."

We may say at once that we think the last sentence in the caption was only intended to give the substance of the various acts proposed to be repealed or amended, and this last sentence of the caption, therefore, will not figure any further in the consideration of this suit.

The act provides that it shall be unlawful for any person to engage in the business of a real estate agent or salesman without first obtaining a license from the clerk of the county court. It is provided that applicants for license shall give a bond in the sum of $1,000, to be in a form approved by the Attorney General, for the protection of any person injured by the wrongful act of such agent or salesman. The person desiring a license is required to make an application for the same to the county court clerk on a form to be approved by the Attorney General, signed by at least 10 freeholders, to the effect that they think the applicant honest, truthful, and of good moral character. Penalties are provided for engaging in the business without a license, and the first seven sections of the act contain other regulations not necessary to detail. As a condition to obtaining the license a real estate agent must pay to the county court clerk $25, along with his application, and a real estate salesman must pay $20.

Section 8 of the act imposes upon agents licensed thereunder a privilege tax, graduated according to the population of the city in which they are located.

Other sections of the act contain nothing material in this case.

It is said by counsel for the appellant that the first seven sections of this statute comprise purely a police regulation with reference to the licensing of real estate agents and salesmen; that section 8 of the act is an exercise of the taxing power of the state; and that this bringing together of the police power and the taxing power in one act makes the statute violate the two-subject clause of the Constitution.

We have recently gone over this ground in Bell v. Hart, 143 Tenn. ___, 223 S. W. 996, and, undertaking to state the result of our cases, there said:

"The two-subject clause of the Constitution was intended to prevent a combination in the same act of laws upon wholly different subjects; to avoid the union of incongruous matters in one statute; to secure unity of purpose in legislative enactments." Bell v. Hart, supra...