Glens Falls Ins. Co. v. City of Columbia
| Decision Date | 10 April 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 18052,18052 |
| Citation | 130 S.E.2d 573,242 S.C. 237 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | GLENS FALLS INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent, v. CITY OF COLUMBIA, Guy A. Pitts as City Treasurer of The City of Columbia and E. H. Paulk as City License Inspector of The City of Columbia, Appellants. SOUTH CAROLINA INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent, v. CITY OF COLUMBIA, Guy A. Pitts as City Treasurer of The City of Columbia and E. H. Paulk as City License Inspector of The City of Columbia, Appellants. |
John W. Sholenberger, Edward A. Harter, Jr., Columbia, for appellants.
Grorge L. Dial, Columbia, for respondents.
Separate actions were instituted by the plaintiffs Glens Falls Insurance Company and South Carolina Insurance Company against the defendant City of Columbia to recover certain sums paid under protest for municipal business licenses. The complaints and answers are identical in al material respects, except as to the amount involved in each case. The basic issue in both actions involves a determination of the right of the City of Columbia under its ordinances and the State statutes to impose an annual business license tax upon the plaintiffs in excess of $2500.00 each. This appeal is by the City of Columbia from an order of the Circuit Court granting motions of the plaintiffs to strike from its answer certain defenses upon the grounds that they were irrelevant, redundant, and constituted no defense to the allegations of the complaint.
The complaints allege that the plaintiffs are engaged in the business of writing insurance, each with a place of business in the City of Columbia, and that the maximum amoung for which each plaintiff is liable to the City, under the applicable laws, for a business license each year is the sum of $2500.00. It is then alleged that the plaintiff Glens Falls Insurance Company paid to the City, under protest, the sum of $5,537.94 for a business license for 1962, which was $3,037.94 in excess of the legal limitation of $2500.00; and that the plaintiff South Carolina Insurance Company paid the sum of $6,768.61 which was $4,268.61 in excess of the alleged limitation. Judgment is sought for the alleged excess amount paid by each.
The portions of the answers stricken by the lower court were paragraphs 4 and 5.
It was alleged in paragraph four of the answers that, undr the ordinances of the City of Columbia, a separate license is required for each agency issuing policies of a casualty or fire insurance company (in which classification the plaintiffs admittedly fall); that plaintiffs have numerous agencies in the City and in 1954, as a convenience to all parties, an agreement was reached whereby the plaintiffs would give to the City a list of its agencies with the total gross premiums collected by each and the city would issue one license covering all, but it was agreed between the parties that it would be deemed by them that one license would be the same as if a separate license had been issued to plaintiffs for each of its agencies in the city; that the license fees of which plaintiffs now complain were paid in accordance with this agreement and that not more than $2500.00 was charged plaintiffs for any one agency.
In considering the relevancy of the allegations of paragraph four of the answers, we must first determine the proper method of assessment of the license tax in question under the applicable ordinances and statutes.
The city asserts the right to impose the business license taxes in question under its Business and Professional License Ordinance, as governed by the applicable State statutes. The provisions of the city's ordinance which required the payment of license taxes by insurance companies and by agents or agencies are as follows:
'Insurance
069"2. Agents or Agencies--each ................................... $25.00
Only one license required for each agency. Life insurance
agents and agencies exempt except for transients
A69"3. On gross premiums collected through offices or agents
located in the city or collected on policies written on
property located in the city, wherever the premiums are
collected, the following rates shall apply
Fire insurance companies ...................................... 2%
Casualty companies (accident, collision, fidelity
guaranty, indemnity, liability, plate glass, surety
theft, or any other form) ................................... 2%'
Following the above provisions, the ordinance sets forth the manner and method of computing and collecting the license tax imposed on 'any insurance company, other than life.'
While the foregoing ordinance contains no limitations as to the maximum license which may be imposed upon insurance companies, we have recently held that the ordinance was passed under the authority granted to the city by Section 47-407 of the 1952 Code of Laws of South Carolina, dealing with business license taxes in cities of over 70,000 population, and that the city is limited in the assessment of license taxes against any person or corporation doing business in the city by the maximum of $2500.00 as prescribed by such statute. City of Columbia v. Putnam, 241 S.C. 195, 127 S.E.2d 631.
The city contends, however, that under the foregoing ordinance, for the purposes of assessing the license tax against the insurance companies (plaintiffs), the gross premiums collected by each agent or agency must be treated separately and that, in effect, each company must pay a separate license tax, not to exceed $2500.00, on each one of its agencies computed on the gross premiums collected by each agency. The license taxes imposed on the plaintiffs in the instant case were computed on the above basis. The plaintiffs contend on the other hand that under the foregoing ordinance the business license tax of each company cannot exceed the sum of $2500.00, regardless of the number of agents or agencies which each has in the city.
The ordinance here involved clearly provides for the assessment of the license taxes against an insurance company on the basis of the gross premiums collected by each company without regard to the number of agents or agencies which each company has in the city. The scheme of taxation is to treat the insurance agents or agencies separately from the companies. The license required of each agent or agency is the fixed sum of $25.00, and it is admitted that each agent or agency of the respective plaintiffs was required to pay this license. Nowhere in the ordinance is the license tax to be imposed upon an insurance company conditioned upon the number of agents or agencies maintained in the city. The only requirement of the ordinance with reference to an insurance company is that each company pay a license tax on the basis of 2% of the gross premiums 'collected through offices or agents located in the city or collected on policies written on property located in the city,' and the maximum amount of such tax which may be annually imposed on any company is limited to the sum of $2500.00 as prescribed by Section 47-407, supra.
In the light of the foregoing construction of the ordinance, we proceed to a determination of the relevancy of the allegations of paragraph four of the answers.
Taxes can be assessed and collected only under statutory authority, Watson v. City of Orangeburg, 229 S.C. 367, 93 S.E.2d 20, and we do not understand that the city relies upon the alleged agreement with plaintiffs as the basis for the imposition of the instant license taxes. Rather, we construe the contention of the city, under the allegations of paragraph four, to be that the city entered into an agreement with the plaintiffs as to the manner of assessment of the taxes, based upon the construction placed upon the ordinance by the city for many years, and that such interpretation by the city, agreed to by the plaintiffs, is a relevant consideration in the construction of the ordinance by the court.
It is true that the construction given an ordinance or statute by those charged with the duty of executing it is entitled to weight and should not be overruled without cogent reasons. However, 'the doctrine giving effect to executive construction is usually and properly restricted to cases in which the meaning of the statute is really doubtful,' Carolina, C. & O. Ry. of S. C. v. S. C. Tax Commission, 197 S.C. 529, 15 S.E.2d 764; for, 'where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous and conveys a clear and definite meaning, there is no occasion for resorting to the rules of statutory interpretation, * * *.' 50 Am.Jur. 205, Section 225.
We find no ambiguity in the ordinance in question and the fact that the city authorities may have...
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