Standard Oil Co. v. City of Selma

• Decision Date: 21 April 1927
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 911
• Citation: 216 Ala. 108,112 So. 532
• Parties: STANDARD OIL CO. v. CITY OF SELMA.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

112 So. 532

216 Ala. 108

STANDARD OIL CO. v. CITY OF SELMA.

2 Div. 911

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 21, 1927

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dallas County; H.F. Reese, Judge.

The Standard Oil Company was convicted of violation of an ordinance of the city of Selma, and it appeals. Transferred from Court of Appeals under Code 1923, § 7326. Affirmed.

Pettus Fuller & Lapsley, of Selma, for appellant.

Leo Leva and Hugh Mallory, both of Selma, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The ordinance under which appellant was convicted and fined, so far as it need be stated here, is as follows:

"Section 1. *** The word 'distributor' and the word 'seller' shall include every person, as the word 'person' is above defined, who shall engage in selling gasoline, within the corporate limits of the city of Selma, or of shipping, transporting or delivering gasoline as herein defined at or from its storage point or place of business in the city of Selma to any point within the city of Selma or to any point within the police jurisdiction of the city of Selma.

"Section 2. Every distributor or seller as above defined shall pay a license tax to the city of Selma, and a license is hereby fixed and created, which license tax shall be a sum and amount equal to 1 cent on each and every gallon of gasoline sold or delivered in the corporate limits of the city of Selma or shipped, transported, or delivered by a distributor or seller at or from its storage point or place of business in the city of Selma to any point within the police jurisdiction of the city of Selma."

As stated in brief of counsel for appellant, the principal point presented by the appeal is whether or not this ordinance, in attempting to fix a license tax of 1 cent per gallon on gasoline shipped, transported, or delivered from within the corporate limits of Selma to points outside the corporate limits, but within the police jurisdiction, is in conflict with section 2173 of the Code of Alabama 1923, which reads as follows:

"No municipality of this state shall assess or collect any privilege or license tax, or fee, from any person, firm or corporation for carrying on any business, trade or profession, when the conduct and operation of such business trade or profession is wholly outside the corporate limits of such municipality."

Another contention is that this ordinance is not authorized by section 2154 of the Code of 1923, which is the only source of authority for the imposition of license taxes of this character.

Appellant contends also that the ordinance is discriminatory and unfair and unreasonable in its operation upon its business, and is in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution.

In the case of Standard C. & O. Co. v. City of Troy, 201 Ala. 89, 77 So. 383, L.R.A.1918C, 522, decided in December, 1917, this court held that a municipality could levy a license tax, under its police power, on a manufacturing plant located beyond the territorial limits of the city, but within the area of its police jurisdiction. No doubt section 2173 of the Code was enacted for the purpose of neutralizing the decision in the Troy Case.

But we do not see how that section can be construed as an inhibition upon the taxation of a business whose plant or managing office is located within the corporate limits of the tax-imposing city, and whose business, or that phase of it which is taxed, and is properly taxable, is conducted from its plant or office so located. The tax is forbidden only "when the conduct and operation of such business, trade or profession is wholly outside the corporate limits of such municipality." (Italics ours.) "Conduct and operation," as here intended, cannot be restricted to the mere completion of sales or of deliveries outside the city limits, because the completion of those acts is only a part of the conduct and operation of the business, an essential part of which may be, as in the instant case, the storing and keeping of goods within the city limits, the receipt of orders therein, and the shipping out of such goods from their place of storage. This intendment of the statute is, we think, made unmistakably plain by the use of the word "wholly," meaning that the inhibition laid on the taxing power of municipalities does not apply to any business any phase or feature of which is conducted within the corporate limits.

We conclude that the ordinance in question is not offensive to section 2173 of the Code, and cannot be avoided on that...