Dowdy v. City of Covington

• Decision Date: 06 February 1931
• Parties: Dowdy v. City of Covington et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

237 Ky. 274

Dowdy v. City of Covington et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky. (Common Law and Equity Division.)

Decided February 6, 1931.

1. Municipal Corporations. — Statute is satisfied if body of ordinance is germane to accomplishment of purpose of subject stated in title (Ky. Stats., sec. 3059).

2. Municipal Corporations. — Ordinance may designate in body agencies for carrying out its purposes without indicating them in title (Ky. Stats., sec. 3059).

3. Municipal Corporations. — Ordinance requiring those engaged in moving business to record former and new addresses of customers contains single subject sufficiently expressed in title relating to registration of changes of address (Ky. Stats., sec. 3059).

4. Constitutional Law. — Conduct of municipal authorities in failing to enforce against nonresident moving companies ordinance requring registration of changes of address of persons moved did not deny equal protection.

Plaintiff, suing to restrain the enforcement of the ordinance, did not aver that the enforcement officers of the city were persistently and systematically attempting to enforce it unequally with the intention to burden plaintiff and others similarly situated and to favor nonresident movers, but merely averred that they had erroneously construed and interpreted the ordinance as not apply to nonresident movers.

5. Action. — In action for declaratory judgment as to validity of ordinance, court should render judgment interpreting ordinance, where rights of parties depended on interpretation (Civil Code of Practice, secs. 639a-1 to 639a-12).

6. Municipal Corporations. — Ordinance requiring all persons moving household goods to record names and addresses of customers should be applied to nonresident movers.

Appeal from Kenton Circuit Court

BLAKLEY & MURPHY for appellant.

RALPH RICH for appellees.

OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUDGE THOMAS.

Reversing.

The legislative department of the city of Covington on August 18, 1915, enacted an ordinance, No. 340, the title to which is in this language: "An ordinance providing for the registration of change of address of residents of the city of Covington, Kentucky." The first section of the ordinance says: "That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons, firm, or corporation, owning or operating any moving van, furniture car, transfer wagon, express wagon, delivery wagon, or any other vehicle, to haul or move any article of household goods, trunk, chattles, or personal property or effects in the possession, custody, or control of any residents of the city of Covington, in connection with the changing of the place of his or her or their residence, until there has been recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose by such person or persons, firm, or corporation, the full name of the owner or persons in possession, custody, or control of such household goods, trunks, chattels, or personal property or effects, together with the address of the place from which and to which such hauling or moving is to be done, giving the date thereof and the name of the owner or person in charge of such vehicle."

The second section prescribes that those engaged in the moving business, as specified in section 1, shall on Monday of each week file in the office of the commissioner of public safety a correct statement covering all moving transactions by them for the past week, and which statement shall remain in that office as a public record for public inspection. Section 3 requires that the persons who are moved from one place to another give to the mover truthful information touching the matters prescribed in section 1 of the ordinance, and section 4 prescribes a fine of not less than five, nor more than thirty, dollars for each violation of the ordinance by the mover or those whom they move.

Appellant and plaintiff below, M.A. Dowdy, is a resident in the city of Covington, and engaged in operating vehicles for moving people, and he filed this declaratory judgment action in the Kenton circuit court against the city of Covington, its police judge, and its prosecuting attorney seeking a declaration of the rights of the parties under the facts alleged therein, and contending that the ordinance was invalid upon two grounds, which in substance are: (1) That its title was insufficient under a provision contained in section 3059 of our present statutes, and which is a part of the charter of cities of the second class, to which Covington belongs, saying: "No ordinance shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title;" and (2) that there are many nonresident persons who are engaged in moving inhabitants of Covington from one place to another, and who, because of such nonresidence, do not pay a license tax, and that the officials of the city of Covington have construed the involved ordinance as not applying to them, and, because of such erroneous construction, the actual operation of the ordinance on plaintiff, who is a resident of the city, and who does pay a license, and is required to comply with the requirements of the ordinance, is discriminatory, and deprives him of the equal protection of the law, a right guaranteed by both our federal and state...