Knight & Wall Co. v. Bryant, 33660
| Decision Date | 30 June 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 33660,33660 |
| Parties | KNIGHT & WALL COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Spicola Hardware Compary, Inc., a Florida corporation, Younkin Sports Supply, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. Farris BRYANT, Governor of Florida, Tom Adams, Secretary of State, Ray E. Green, Comptroller, James W. Kynes, Attorney General, J. Edwin Larson, Treasurer, Thomas D. Bailey, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Doyle E. Conner, Commissioner of Agriculture, as and constituting the State Revenue Commission, and J. Ed Straughn, as Director of the State Revenue Commission, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
C. DuBose Ausley of Ausley, Ausley, McMullen, O'Bryan, Michaels & McGehee, Tallahassee, for appellants.
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Sam Spector and Ira Weinstein, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellees.
This appeal comes from a decree resolving a frontal assault on Chapter 63-527, Acts of 1963, levying a tax generally on fishing, hunting, camping, swimming and diving equipment purposed to finance programs of the outdoor recreational development council. Parenthetically, one of the cases decided in the final decree, King Kole, Inc. v. Farris Bryant, Governor,* involving an attack on the title of the act so far as it relates, or does not relate, according to the point of view, to swim suits as diving equipment is now pending in this court.
The chancellor was at pains in his decree to enumerate many articles which by usage could become taxable under the act yet by a dissimilar but equally practical usage would be exempt and it is not difficult to envisage countless instruments that would be equally convenient in the fish camp and in the home. Although the appellants challenge the law on three specific grounds predominant in the presentation of their position is the thought that there would be insurmountable difficulty in determining the taxability or 'exemptibility' of myriads of articles usable in everyday life that could or might be adaptable to activities in 'fishing, hunting, camping, swimming' or 'diving'.
But the difficulty of classifying such property for tax purposes is the burden of administration and the possibility or probability that the task is fraught with difficulty would not justify the courts in declaring, for that reason, the law invalid. We think the point was well put by the chancellor when he pronounced that 'difficulty to the executive or the judiciary departments of government does not justify the Courts in overthrowing or emasculating by construction the considered action of the legislature.'
The appellants first assert that the title of the act is defective when measured by the requirement of Sec. 16, Art. III of the Constitution, F.S.A., that 'each law * * * shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected therewith, which subject shall be briefly expressed in the title * * *.'
In scores of decisions this court has announced what title should contain and what titles need not contain. In general while they are not required to be indices of the provisions in the body of the Act, McCord v. Smith, Fla., 43 So.2d 704, they must be sufficiently informative to obviate the surprise or fraud that would spring from hidden provisions not indicated in the title. State v. Florida State Turnpike Authority, Fla., 80 So.2d 337. There is no occasion to repeat the principles now.
Measured by these rules we do not find the title of Chapter 63-527 so defective that we are impelled to hold it deficient although we entertain some doubt about the terminology 'swimming and diving equipment' putting a reader on notice that it encompasses bathing suits, a point presented in the King Kole...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Keaton
...517, 84 S.Ct. 1659, 12 L.Ed.2d 992 (1964); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 98, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940).3 Knight & Wall Co. v. Bryant, 178 So.2d 5 (Fla.1965); Sun Ins. Office, Ltd. v. Clay, 133 So.2d 735 (Fla.1961); City of Dunedin v. Bense, 90 So.2d 300 (Fla.1956).4 354 So.2d ......
-
City of Miami Beach v. Fleetwood Hotel, Inc.
...Pelt, 1919, 78 Fla. 337, 350, 82 So. 789, 793. (Emphasis supplied.) Ex Parte Lewis, 1931, 101 Fla. 624, 135 So. 147; Knight & Wall Co v. Bryant, Fla.1965, 178 So.2d 5, cert. denied 383 U.S. 958, 86 S.Ct. 1223, 16 L.Ed.2d The rent control ordinance of the City of Miami Beach is a law enacted......
-
A.J. Spagnol Lumber Co., Inc. v. Trauger
...an act will not be declared unconstitutional unless it is determined to be invalid beyond a reasonable doubt. Knight and Wall Co. v. Bryant, 178 So.2d 5 (Fla.1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 958, 86 S.Ct. 1223, 16 L.Ed.2d 301 (1966). Nevertheless, it is our conclusion that the statute, if appl......
-
Deehl v. Knox, s. 81-592
...litigation by judicial decision-making does not, however, render an otherwise valid statute unconstitutionally vague. Knight & Wall Co. v. Bryant, 178 So.2d 5 (Fla.1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 958, 86 S.Ct. 1223, 16 L.Ed.2d 301 (1966); see, People v. Kahn, 19 Cal.App.2d 758, 60 P.2d 596 (1......