Ex parte Hutchinson
| Decision Date | 19 April 1905 |
| Docket Number | 2,889. |
| Parties | Ex parte HUTCHINSON. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Oregon |
Carroll & Carroll, for petitioner.
L. A McNary, City Atty., for the city of Portland.
The petitioner is a citizen of the state of Michigan, and is a member of a firm doing business under the name of the National Stamp Company. The company is engaged in what is popularly known as a 'trading stamp business.' It sells stamps to merchants at the rate of 50 cents a hundred to be given by them to their patrons as a cash discount-- one stamp to each 10 cents represented in the purchase made. These stamps are redeemed by the stamp company in merchandise at its place of business in this city. The petitioner alleges that said stamps are used only as a means of advertising the business of the stamp company and of the merchants using the same, and as a medium of co-operation and exchange for value.
The restraint complained of grows out of the petitioner's arrest because of his failure to take out a license as required by an ordinance of the city of Portland which makes it unlawful for any person to sell, offer, or attempt to sell goods and merchandise by selling trading stamps, etc., to merchants for delivery to their customers upon the purchase of merchandise from such merchants without paying annually the sum of $200 for a license authorizing the same. The city charter authorizes the council 'to grant licenses with the object of raising revenue or of regulation, or both, for any and all lawful acts, things or purposes,' etc. The city defends its action in arresting and imprisoning the petitioner upon the ground that the ordinance in question was for the purpose of raising revenue and that it is a lawful exercise of the power conferred by the charter to that end.
The authority to raise revenue by a tax levied upon business is undeniable, but it does not admit of argument that the Legislature cannot authorize a tax 'for any and all lawful acts, things, or purposes. ' It is impossible to imagine a form of government so oppressive as one that would authorize a tax upon every lawful act or thing a man may do to say nothing of the authority to tax 'any and all' his lawful 'purposes.' Judge Hanford, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Washington, in passing upon the validity of a trading stamp ordinance of the city of Seattle, in a case identical with this (137...
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Sperry & Hutchinson Co. v. Hoegh
...cash. Ex parte Drexel, 147 Cal. 763, 82 P. 429, 2 L.R.A.,N.S., 588, 3 Ann. Cas. 878; Ex parte West, 147 Cal. 774, 82 P. 434; Ex parte Hutchinson, C.C., 137 F. 950; Sperry & Hutchinson Co. v. Temple, C.C., 137 F. 992; Lawton v. Stewart Dry Goods Co., 197 Ky. 394, 247 S.W. 14, 26 A.L.R. 686; ......
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Independent Linen Service Co. v. State ex rel. Rice
... ... (Ky.), ... 197 S.W. 813; State v. Wilson, 249 Ill. 195; ... Louisville v. Foley (Ky.), 124 S.W. 315; Little ... v. Turner, 208 F. 605; Ex parte Stoddard (Nev.), 131 P ... 133; Sperry & Hutchinson Co. v. State (Ind.), 122 ... N.E. 584; Owens v. State (Tex.), 112 S.W. 1075; ... Moffitt v ... ...
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Kansas City Loan Guarantee Co. v. Kansas City
...& Lumber Co., 181 Mo. 536; State ex rel. v. Ashbrook, 154 Mo. 375; In re Flukes, 157 Mo. 125; Rendering Co. v. Behr, 77 Mo. 98; Ex parte Hutchinson, 137 F. 950. The ordinance is squarely in conflict with an express statute, and is therefore void. Sec. 895, R. S. 1899; sec. 23, art. 9, Const......
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Leonard v. Bassindale
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