Quigg v. State Ex Rel. Miller

• Decision Date: 03 January 1941
• Parties: QUIGG, Chief of Police v. STATE ex rel. MILLER.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

199 So. 489

145 Fla. 431

QUIGG, Chief of Police v. STATE ex rel. MILLER.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

January 3, 1941

Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Ross Williams, Judge.

Proceeding by the State, on the relation of A. W. Miller, against H Leslie Quigg, as chief of police of the city of Miami, Fla in whose custody the relator was placed for violation of an ordinance requiring the payment of a license tax. To review an adverse judgment, the chief of police brings error.

Reversed and remanded with directions.

COUNSEL Lewis Twyman, of Miami, for plaintiff in error.

Price &amp Price, of Miami, for defendant in error.

OPINION

BUFORD, Justice.

The record in this case shows that the defendant in error Miller, operated the business of a wholesale merchant dealing exclusively in apples grown outside of the State of Florida that he conducted this place of business in three rooms or stalls rented by him from Dade County Growers Cooperative Marketing Association. Miller was not a member of the Association; he did not transact his business through the Association. His was an independent business of buying and receiving on consignment large quantities of apples and selling them in large or small quantities, according to the requirements of his customers.

Section 3 (bb) of the Charter of the City of Miami provides that the City of Miami shall have power 'To license and tax privileges, business, occupations, and professions carried on and engaged in within the City limits, and the amount of such licenses and the amount of such license taxes shall not be dependent upon a general State revenue law.'

Section 49 of the Charter of the City of Miami provides, inter alia: 'In providing for licensing and regulating, persons, corporations and associations engaged in business, occupation, professions and trades the Commission may be ordinances, classify businesses and arrange the various businesses, occupations, trades and professions carried on in the City into such classes as may be just and proper and fix by ordinance the license fee payable by each, without regard to the State law fixing such fees.'

The power and authority of the City under these ordinance provisions has been upheld by this Court in the case of State of Florida ex rel. Swift v. Dillon, 75 Fla. 785, 79 So. 29; Hardee v. Brown, 56 Fla. 377, 47 So. 834.

Pursuant to that provision, the City of Miami adopted an ordinance which, amongst other things, required an occupational license tax of 'merchants, wholesale, jobber or distributor, having capital invested as follows: Not exceeding $10,000.00 ... $50.00'.

It is unquestioned that the defendant in error is a merchant doing a wholesale busimess having a capital invested of not exceeding $10,000 and under which condition the City has required the occupational license tax of $50.

The defendant in error contends that he is exempt from the payment of municipal license tax on authority of the opinion and judgment in the case of Johns v. Weeks, 140 Fla. 141, 191 So. 187, 188. We cannot agree that the opinion and judgment in that case is applicable here. It will be noted that it is said in that opinion; 'The wholesale farmers' produce market is a convenience to help him in this. It is not a place where speculative retailing in farm and grove produce is carried on. Sales are limited to those made by the producer or his agent. It is in other words, a clearing house for farm and grove products.'

In the instant case the defendant in error is doing exactly that thing which the Court said was not done in a wholesale farmers' produce market. He is doing a speculative business in a certain horticultural product and he is not a grower or a producer.

We have repeatedly held that where there are...