Harrison v. Kersey
| Citation | 67 Fla. 24,64 So. 353 |
| Parties | HARRISON v. KERSEY. |
| Decision Date | 20 January 1914 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Headnotes Filed February 23, 1914.
Error to Circuit Court, Pinellas County; F. M. Robles, Judge.
Action by George W. Kersey against W. T. Harrison. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
The failure of a real estate broker to pay a license tax, imposed for revenue only, does not prevent a recovery for his commissions, even though the statute subjects one so offending to a fine.
COUNSEL John U. Bird, of Clearwater, and C. B. Parkhill of Tampa, for plaintiff in error.
John E Lambeth, of Clearwater, and Roy V. Sellars, of St Petersburg, for defendant in error.
To a judgment recovered upon a real estate brokerage, the defendant takes his writ of error.
The decision of the case depends upon whether our revenue law, imposing license taxes, avoids all contracts made by those who have not paid the license tax. We may admit in the beginning that the cases from other jurisdictions are in irreconcilable conflict, and that as many may be cited in the affirmative as in the negative of the proposition.
Chapter 5597, Laws of 1907, entitled 'An act imposing licenses and other taxes, providing for the payment thereof, and prescribing penalties for doing business without a license, or other failure to comply with the provisions thereof,' provides in the first section that: 'No person, firm or corporation shall engage in or manage the business, profession or occupation mentioned in this act, unless a state license shall have been procured.' One of the occupations mentioned is that of brokers dealing in land. The penalty provided in the act for doing business without first obtaining a license is contained in the eleventh section which declares that the person so offending 'shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not more than double the amount required for such license.'
Unlike the licenses to dealers in intoxicating liquors, discussed in Goldring v. Johnson, 65 Fla. 381, 62 So. 212, which are issuable and transferable only by permission of the county commissioners, if the applicant be found fit to transact the business, the license to engage in the business of selling lands for others is open to any one willing to pay the tax, and is solely and wholly a revenue measure.
The penalty, which under the title to the act is imposed for its violation, is solely and wholly directed to the person, and nothing is said that should be construed into a denunciation of the business itself, or as affecting the contracts performed by the guilty party. Protection of the public from acts, deemed by the Legislature under the police power as of possible harm, is not here involved, as in the case of Cook v. Fernandez, 11 Fla. 100, nor have we here, as in Ulmer v. First National Bank of St. Petersburg, 61 Fla. 460, 55 So. 405, a statute prohibiting the doing of business by a foreign corporation until it had secured a permit, and declaring all contracts voidable if made before compliance with the statute.
The views of this court expressed in Atlantic Coast Line R Co. v. Weir, 63 Fla. 69, 58 So. 641, 41 L. R. A. (N. S.) 307, indicate our leaning towards that line of decisions which decline to add penalties to those declared by the Legislature in aid of purely revenue measures. In that case we held that the failure to register an automobile did not...
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State v. Allen
...the taxing power of the state without rendering it obnoxious to any constitutional inhibition, is also well established. Harrison v. Kersey, 67 Fla. 24, 64 So. 353; Bradley v. Richmond, 227 U.S. 477, 33 S.Ct. 318, L.Ed. 603. So that it is clear that these sovereign powers, namely, the taxin......
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Realty Bond & Share Co. v. Englar
...... broker or salesman from obtaining a judgment for services. rendered in the sale or purchase of real estate. Harrison. v. Kersey, 67 Fla. 24, 64 So. 353. By the said act of. 1925, the Legislature re-enacted, in substance, the provision. that a real estate broker ......
- Sosa v. Petteway
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State v. Bird
...act does not affect its validity as a measure imposing a license tax on persons engaged in the business of selling land. Harrison v. Kersey, 67 Fla. 24, 64 So. 253. present controversy arises from an apparent conflict between the provisions of section 12 and section 8 of the statute. The pe......