Standard Tailoring Co. v. City of Louisville

• Decision Date: 27 February 1913
• Citation: 152 Ky. 504,153 S.W. 764
• Parties: STANDARD TAILORING CO. v. CITY OF LOUISVILLE et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

153 S.W. 764

152 Ky. 504

STANDARD TAILORING CO. v. CITY OF LOUISVILLE et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 27, 1913

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Chancery Branch, First Division.

Action by the Standard Tailoring Company against the City of Louisville and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Walter S. Mendel, of Louisville, for appellant.

Joseph S. Lawton and Clayton B. Blakey, both of Louisville, for appellees.

CARROLL J.

The only question for decision in this case is whether or not the appellant company is a manufacturing establishment within the meaning of an ordinance of the city of Louisville exempting from taxation for a period of five years manufacturing establishments. The ordinance reads, in part: "That in order to induce the location of more manufacturing establishments within the city *** the same are hereby exempted for a period of five years after such location and the commencement of the business of manufacturing thereat from all taxation whatever by the city of Louisville on all property, real or personal, employed or used by such person firm or corporation in conducting the business of such manufacturing establishment, and which would otherwise be subject to city taxation."

The business in which the appellant company is engaged is thus stated in its pleading: "Plaintiff states that it has since its formation been engaged in manufacturing men's clothing. States that most of its manufacturing is of the kind technically known as 'tailors to the trade,' said term meaning that it does not manufacture clothing wholesale and sell by general sizes and lots, but that it distributes samples of its cloth among local dealers, largely country merchants, who have the prospective purchaser select a style of goods, which selection is sent in to the plaintiff, together with the purchaser's measurement or figure, whereupon the clothing is manufactured in accordance with these specifications and sold to the merchant to be resold by him to the buyer."

The words "manufacturing establishment" have been given a variety of meanings, depending largely on the circumstances surrounding the case in which they have been used. The result of this is that, although the words have been often defined by the courts, few judicial precedents can be found that may be properly applied to any particular state of facts. Webster defines "manufacture" to be: "The process or operation of making wares or any material products by hand by machinery, or by other agency; often such process or operation carried on systematically with division of labor and with the use of machinery. Anything made from raw materials by the hand, by machinery, or by art, as clothes iron utensils, shoes, machinery, saddlery." And this definition in different forms of expression embodies the general idea that may be found in all the cases where the word has come up for construction; but, in applying it to the facts of particular cases in which the construction of ordinances or statutes was involved, the courts, especially in license and exemption cases, have found it necessary, in carrying out the legislative intent in the use of the word, to materially limit the scope of this general definition, which is broad enough to embrace almost every concern that is engaged in the business of changing the nature or quality of articles so that they may be used for whatever purpose they were intended. Indeed, we might say that the meaning of the words "manufacture" and "manufacturing establishment" has been adapted to meet the varying circumstances arising in the case or class of cases in which it was necessary to define them, so that the intent with which they were used might be accomplished. The purpose of the lawmaking body in using the words has always been allowed to have controlling weight in the decision of the meaning that should be attached to them, as may be seen by an examination of the number of cases cited in "Words and Phrases," vol. 5, title "Manufacture."

Keeping in mind then the purpose of this ordinance and the thought that the words should be given such meaning as was reasonably intended in their use, it must be at once manifest that, if this broad definition of Webster should be given to the words as used in this ordinance, there are few establishments whether large or small, that are engaged in the business of converting material from one form into another to make it more convenient or desirable for use that would not be entitled to the benefit of the exemption. The baker, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the shoemaker, the confectioner, the merchant tailor, the milliner, the dressmaker, and scores of others, would escape taxation, although it seems quite obvious that it was not intended by the adoption of this ordinance to exempt from taxation the multitude of concerns that in some way or another are engaged in the business of changing the character of material from one form to another. To give the ordinance the construction contended for would defeat, in place of accomplish, the result intended in its adoption, which was to induce the location in the city of new manufacturing establishments that would bring wealth into the city to...