Richmond Linen Supply Co v. City Of Lynchburg

• Decision Date: 15 June 1933
• Citation: 169 S.E. 554
• Parties: RICHMOND LINEN SUPPLY CO. v. CITY OF LYNCHBURG.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

169 S.E. 554

RICHMOND LINEN SUPPLY CO.

v.CITY OF LYNCHBURG.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

June 15, 1933.

EPES, J., dissenting.

Error to Corporation Court of City of Lynchburg.

Suit by the Richmond Linen Supply Company against the City of Lynchburg. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

Argued before CAMPBELL, C. J., and HOLT, EPES, HUDGINS, and GREGORY. JJ.

Strode & Edmunds, of Lynchburg, for plain tiff in error.

T. G. Hobbs and S. V. Kemp, both of Lynch burg, for defendant in error.

HOLT, Justice.

This case deals with the constitutionality of an ordinance of the city of Lynchburg under which a license tax is assessed against certain laundries.

The National Linen Service Corporation is a nonresident, domiciled in Virginia, and operates a branch in Richmond under the tradename of Richmond Linen Supply Company. From there business is carried to a number of Virginia cities. This consists in renting towels and linen to hotels, coats to barbers, dress es to waitresses, and like supplies to all customers whom it can secure. They are delivered from Richmond, used until soiled, collected, laundered, and redelivered.

In November, 1931, it applied for a license to do business in Lynchburg, and obtained it under a then existing ordinance which reads:

"86¹/₂. Towel Service. On every person, firm or corporation engaged in towel service or the renting or furnishing of towels for compensation, $25.00 per annum."

Almost immediately it appeared that this towel service license did not cover petition er's business, which went far beyond the renting of towels. It was amended by the addition of this further provision:

"On every person, firm or corporation (other than a laundry or dry cleaning establishment located in the city of Lynchburg, paying regular laundry or dry cleaning license tax In the city of Lynchburg) engaged in soliciting general laundry or dry cleaning work, including towel or laundry service, or the renting or furnishing of towels and linens for compensation, where said person, firm or corporation does the laundry or dry cleaningwork thereon outside of the city, or has it done outside of the city, $300.00 per annum not prorated."

This ordinance was enacted under authority of section 48 of the city charter, which reads:

"The council may impose a tax on merchants, commission merchants, * * * and any other person, firm, corporation or employment, whether of like kind with any of the foregoing or not, which it may deem proper, whether such person, firm, corporation or employment be herein specifically enumerated or not, and whether any tax be imposed thereon by the State or not. As to all such Persons, firms, corporations or employments, the council may lay a direct tax or may require a license tax therefor under such regulations as it may prescribe and levy a tax thereon; and where it is not prohibited by the laws of this State, or of the United States, may levy both a direct tax and a license tax thereon. * * *"

This license tax which the petitioner paid under protest it now seeks to recover.

It is said that the tax ordinance deprives it of property without due process of law, and denies to it equal protection of the laws; that it is against public policy, and is arbitrary as to classification. In support thereof we are cited to sections 1 and 11 of Virginia's Bill of Rights, and to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Simply stated, petitioner contends that the point at which it washes its own linen is unimportant, and that a classification which seeks to make a distinction between laundries located in Lynchburg and those located elsewhere, so far as it affects petitioner, is wholly arbitrary. Of course, one may wash his linen at will without let or hindrance as to time and place. The city is not undertaking to tax a laundry, but to assess a license for uses to which its products are put when brought within Its corporate limits.

Certain rules of construction are so fundamental that we hesitate to restate them. Statutes are not to be held unconstitutional, unless we are driven to that conclusion. City of Norfolk v. Bell, 149 Va. 772, 141 S. E. 844; Anthony v. Commonwealth, 142 Va. 577, 128 S. E. 633.

The Legislature, for the purpose of taxation, may classify property.

State Board of Tax Commissioners of Indiana v. Jackson, 283 U. S. 527, 51 S. Ct. 540, 543, 75 L. Ed. 1248, 73 A. L. R. 1464, is a case in which a license tax on chain stores was involved. The court said: "The power of taxation is fundamental to the very existence of the government of the states. The restriction that it shall not be so exercised as to deny to any the equal protection of the laws does not compel the adoption of an iron rule of equal taxation, nor prevent variety or differences in taxation, or discretion in the selection of subjects, or the classification for taxation of properties, businesses, trades, callings, or occupations."

And further: "It is not the function of this Court in cases like the present to consider the propriety or justness of the tax, to seek for the motives, or to criticize the public policy which prompted the adoption of the legislation. Our duty is to sustain the classification adopted by the Legislature if there are substantial differences between the occupations separately classified. Such...