Montgomery County v. Bigelow

• Decision Date: 06 December 1950
• Docket Number: No. 26,26
• Citation: 77 A.2d 164,196 Md. 413
• Parties: MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. BIGELOW.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 413

196 Md. 413

77 A.2d 164

MONTGOMERY COUNTY v. BIGELOW.

No. 26.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 6, 1950.

J. Hodge Smith, Asst. County Atty. for Montgomery County, Rockville (David Macdonald, County Atty., Montgomery County, Rockville, on the brief), for Montgomery County.

James R. Miller, Rockville (Lee C. Miller and James H. Pugh, Rockville, on the brief), for Bigelow.

Before MARBURY, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, GRASON, HENDERSON and MARKELL, JJ.

MARKELL, Judge.

This is a review on certiorari, on petition of defendant, of a judgment for plaintiff for $203.75 on appeal by defendant from a judgment of a trial magistrate for $75 Code, Art. 5, sec. 104. Plaintiff sued to recover moneys collected from it by defendant, as fees for operating taxicabs in Montgomery County, under an ordinance of defendant which was not offered in evidence. The question, if any, presented is whether Montgomery County has authority, under Chapter 941 of the Acts of 1945, to impose upon the owner or operator of a taxicab any registration fee or license fee for operating it in Montgomery County. The lower court held that it has not.

Chapter 941 of the Acts of 1945 is entitled an act to add a new sub-title, 'Taxicabs', and three new sections, 1130 A, 1130 B and 1130 C to Article 16, 'Montgomery County', of the Code of Public Local Laws, 'providing generally for the regulation in Montgomery County of taxicabs and their owners and operators by the County Commissioners' and for regulation of taxicab rates. Section 1130 B, 'in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Montgomery County' and others who may use taxicabs there, authorizes and empowers the county to enact ordinances 'providing regulations for the ownership and operation of taxicabs in Montgomery County, and to provide for and fix the requirements for the registration, licensing and inspection of taxicabs, their owners and operators'; and to fix rates. 'The regulations herein provided for taxicabs in Montgomery County shall be in addition to any regulations by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles * * * or the Public Service Commission * * *.'

Art. 66 1/2, sec. 1, of the Code, 1947 Supplement, as enacted by the motor vehicles act, Chapter 1007 of the Acts of 1943, and as amended by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1949, provides: '1. (Applicability.) The provisions of this Article are intended to be State-wide in their effect, and except to the extent that they may be specifically authorized by other provisions of this Article [or by Public Local Laws providing for the regulation of taxicabs and the operators thereof, heretofore or hereafter enacted], no City, County or other Municipal sub-division of the State shall have the right to make or enforce any local law, ordinance or regulation upon any subject for which provision is made in this Article, nor require any registration or licensing of motor vehicles or operators thereof in addition to the registration and licensing herein prescribed, nor impose upon the owner or operator of any motor vehicle any tax, registration fee, license fee, assessment or charge of any kind for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway or highways in this State.

'The provisions of this Article (except as herein otherwise specifically provided) are intended to be exclusive of all local and municipal legislation or regulations, upon the various subjects with which this Article purports to deal, and all Public Local Laws, Ordinances and Regulations inconsistent or identical therewith or equivalent thereto are hereby repealed; and the charters of all Municipal Corporations of this State are modified so as to prohibit such corporations from making or enforcing any ordinance or regulations in violation of this Article. * * *

'No provision of this Article shall be deemed as repealed by any act hereafter passed unless said provision is expressly referred to and repealed in terms or some other clear evidence given of the intent on the part of the General Assembly to change the policy of the State herein declared.' The bracketed words are not part of the Act of 1943, but are part of the section as amended in 1949.

In an opinion in a case of Swisher v. County Commissioners of Montgomery County, which did not reach this court, the lower court said, in 1948, 'Art. 3, Sec. 29 of the Constitution of Maryland provides, 'every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject, and that shall be described in its title'. This has been passed upon by the Court of Appeals in many cases; we shall refer to only a few. The purposes thereof are twofold: 'The first is to prevent the combination in one Act of several distinct and incongruous subjects; and the second is, that the legislature and the people of the State may be fairly advised of the real nature of pending legislation'. Kafka v. Wilkinson, 99 Md. 238, 241, 57 A. 617. 'Publicity and a knowledge of the true effect and operation of every bill brought before the Legislature are the great safeguards against ill-considered and improper legislation'. State v. Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 105 Md. 478, 484, 66 A. 458. Ch. 941 of the Acts of 1945 makes no reference in the title to the fact that a settled and often stated policy of the State is modified and changed in body thereof; but, under the guise of local legislation, without any reference thereto in the title, the same is accomplished. This Act, House Bill 735, was referred to, and received a favorable report from, a special committee in the Senate, and the local delegation in the House (those usually appointed after a reading of the title for local legislation). 1945 House Journal p. 1399; 1945 Senate Journal p. 1210. Had the state-wide aspect of this legislation appeared in the title, it, properly, would have been referred to the Judicial Proceedings Committees of both branches, where it would have received a careful and painstaking consideration by these Standing Committees for state legislation. We feel the failure to mention such an important and vital matter of state-wide interest is fatal to that particular portion of the Act: that which provides the regulations shall be in addition to those of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. We will also hold that this omission, in addition to the law as hereinafter referred to, makes ineffectual any provisions in the ordinance that contravene Article 66 1/2 of the Code, or deal with subjects for which provision is made in said Article. This does not apply, in our opinion, relative to the Public Service Commission, because Sec. 367, of Art. 23, seems to make its regulations supplementary to, rather than exclusive of, laws and ordinances.' This reasoning (but not the application of it to the facts or the conclusions in the three sentences last quoted) is similar to the reasoning and decision of this court in the recent case of Bell v. Board of County Com'rs of Prince George's County, Md., 72 A.2d 746, 748, in which we held unconstitutional an act 'relating to the licensing of coin operated mechanical or electrical amusement devices or machines in Prince George's County', which in fact repealed pro tanto the general criminal laws against gambling, as applied to slot machines in Prince George's County. We think, however, that neither our decision in the Bell case nor the reasoning of the court in the Swisher case supports the conclusions in the last three sentences quoted. The provision in section 1130 B that the regulations shall be in addition to those of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, we think, has the same meaning as the words in Art. 23, sec. 367, relating to the Public Service Commission, viz., 'supplementary to, and not in substitution for.' The provision in question is a disclaimer, not an assertion, of any grant of power to set aside regulations under the motor vehicles act. The title of the Act of 1945 states the subject of the act, 'regulation * * * of taxicabs and their owners and operators', which necessarily includes licensing, perhaps the commonest form of regulation. Any uncertainty as to whether or not the act 'change[s] the policy of the State' declared in the motor vehicles act arise not out of any defect in the title but out of uncertainty as to whether or not regulation of taxicabs is a 'subject for which provision is made' in Art. 66 1/2, or a fee for operating taxicabs is a fee 'for the use of a motor vehicle upon any public highway or highways in this State.' The uncertainty is not as to the title of the Act of 1945, but as to the scope of the motor vehicles act. The Act of 1945 is not, in whole or in part, unconstitutional under Art. 3, sec. 29 of the Maryland constitution.

Plaintiff, for reasons not made clear, seems anxious to disclam reliance on the Swisher case and asserts that all references to that case 'should be disregarded' by us. He asserts 'that the validity of [the Act of 1945] was not in issue in [the instant] case--the court merely held that it conferred upon Montgomery County no authority to impose registration or license fees or charges of any kind, upon owners or operators of taxicabs in Montgomery County.' He contends that any such authority is denied by the very Act of 1949 [supra] which amended Art. 66 1/2, sec. 1, so as expressly to except from the ban of the state-wide policy 'Public Local Laws providing for the regulation of taxicabs and the operators thereof, heretofore or hereafter enacted'. This particular contention is based on an ungrammatical reading, which does not makes sense. The exception, like the exception in the original act, is plainly applicable to all the rest of the sentence and cannot be restricted (as plaintiff attempts to do) to the first of the three 'rights' denied in that sentence. The preamble of the Act of 1949 recites that uncertainty has been expressed as to whether Article 66 1/2 was intended to include all the provisions for the regulation of...