Southeastern Greyhound Lines v. City of Knoxville
| Decision Date | 02 December 1944 |
| Parties | SOUTHEASTERN GREYHOUND LINES et al. v. CITY OF KNOXVILLE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Fowler & Fowler, of Knoxville, and Walker & Hooker, of Nashville, for complainants.
James P. Brown, Ben Winick, and Joel H. Anderson, all of Knoxville, for defendant.
The complainants filed their original bill in the Chancery Court of Knox County against the City of Knoxville, seeking a decree of the Court invalidating an ordinance of the City which imposed a tax upon each of complainants in the amount of $15 for every bus owned and operated by them upon any street within the corporate limits of Knoxville during the year. The ordinance which complainants alleged to be invalid provides for the collection of the following amounts, the same being characterized as an "annual fee":
"Motor trucks, trailers, semi-trailers
and buses, from 8,000 lbs
up to and including 18,000 lbs. gross
capacity, $10.00
"Motor trucks, trailers, semi-trailers
and buses, from 18,000 lbs
up to and including 30,000 lbs. gross
capacity, $15.00"
Section 3 of the ordinance provides that the ordinance shall not apply "to any truck, trailer, or bus that goes through the City as through traffic and not using a terminal or making delivery." Section 5 provides that all revenues resulting from the sale of registration or license tags shall be placed in a special fund and shall be used solely for the construction and/or maintenance of public streets and thoroughfares within the City of Knoxville.
Each of complainants is a foreign corporation and is engaged in business as a common carrier in interstate commerce. The complainants further averred that the City of Knoxville was wholly without any legislative authority to enact the aforesaid ordinance; that the provision of the City Charter conferring authority upon the City "to license, tax, and regulate all occupations which are now or hereafter may be declared to be privileged occupations by the laws of the State" was invalidated insofar as it conferred authority upon the City of Knoxville to levy a tax upon motor-propelled vehicles, by certain acts of the General Assembly which were passed subsequent to the date of the charter of Knoxville, which acts are (1) Chapter 108 of the Public Acts for the year 1937, and (2) Chapter 18 of the Third Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly for the year 1937. It is further averred that "the effect of the ordinance is to impose a burden upon complainants in the conducting of their interstate commerce, in violation of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States." Other averments are made in the bill which are apparently argumentative and need not be mentioned.
The defendant demurred to the bill upon the ground (1) that "it has the authority and power as a municipal corporation to levy the tax complained of, and (2) that the law forbids injunctions against the collection of municipal taxes."
The Chancellor sustained the demurrer and complainants have appealed to this Court and assigned the following errors: (1) the Chancellor erred in sustaining the demurrer filed by the defendant City of Knoxville and in thus holding that the ordinance, Number 1209, was valid. It is contended the learned Chancellor should have held the ordinance invalid for the following reasons: (a) the City of Knoxville had no inherent power to pass said ordinance, and that the provisions of the charter upon which defendant relies are void; (b) the said provision of the charter was violative of Article 11, Section 8, of the Constitution of Tennessee, in that it undertook to grant to the City of Knoxville a right or privilege which was unavailable to any other municipality in Tennessee; (c) the charter provision had been rendered void by Chapter 108, art. 2, Section 2, of the Acts of the Legislature for the year 1937, and Chapter 18 of the Third Extraordinary Session of 1937; (d) the charter provision undertakes to authorize the taxing for revenue purposes of motor vehicles carrying interstate commerce, in violation of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States; (e) that the scheme of legislation adopted by the State, with respect to the construction and maintenance of highways and taxing motor vehicles for this purpose, requires that all taxes such as defendant seeks to collect from complainants shall be paid to the State of Tennessee, and that such taxes when paid and collected be apportioned among the various municipalities throughout the state. (2) That the Chancellor erred in sustaining the second ground of the demurrer, thereby holding in effect that the complainants were not authorized to maintain a bill to enjoin the collection of municipal taxes, etc.
There can be no doubt the Legislature, in order to prevent utter chaos and confusion in levying taxes upon motor vehicles, as well as in their regulation, has adopted a scheme or a policy that is reasonable and fair to all classes of motor vehicles, to the public, and also the various municipalities of the State. The State must maintain a vast system of public roads and highways. The various municipalities of the State must keep and maintain their streets in reasonable repair for the benefit of the traveling public. The operator of a motor vehicle cannot be restricted to the use of any particular road. He travels everywhere. The citizens of the various municipalities of the State travel upon all highways as well as the streets of every city. These users of our streets and highways must pay the cost of their construction and maintenance. The Legislature has accordingly passed a general law providing for the collection of all revenue derived from the sale of gasoline, oil, licenses, etc., for that purpose, a portion being allocated to the various counties and cities of the State. Code, sections 3177, 3179, 3242; Collier v. Baker, 160 Tenn. 571, 27 S.W.2d 1085. That the Legislature clearly withdrew from all municipalities the right to assess a privilege tax upon motor vehicles cannot be seriously questioned. The right, which the defendant under its charter seeks to exercise, is vested solely in the State of Tennessee. On November 19, 1937, the General Assembly of the State, at its Third Extraordinary Session, enacted the following statute (ch. 18, Pub.Acts 1937, 3rd Extra Sess.):
(Italics ours.)
Conceding that the provision of the Charter of the City of Knoxville invoked by the defendant in the instant case authorized the assessment upon the complainants' buses and trucks, we think the foregoing statute rendered such ordinance void from and after its passage. The act did not undertake to restrict the right of any municipality to regulate traffic by requiring inspections of automobiles and license tags. In the absence of such a proviso as found in the foregoing act, a municipality might impose such regulations under its general charter powers. But no municipality may enact ordinances for the collection of privilege taxes upon a business or occupation under its general police powers. We must look to the purpose of the ordinance rather than the name of the tax sought to be imposed by the municipality. Authorities need...
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