State v. City of Coral Gables
| Decision Date | 23 April 1954 |
| Citation | 72 So.2d 48 |
| Parties | STATE v. CITY OF CORAL GABLES. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
George A. Brautigam, Miami, for appellant.
Edward L. Semple, Miami, for appellee.
This appeal is from a final decree of the Circuit Court of Dade County validating Storm Sewer Bonds issued by the City of Coral Gables aggregating $500,000, payable annually in designated amounts, bearing interest at five percent per annum. For payment of principal and interest on said bonds the City of Coral Gables pledges its portion of anticipated cigarette taxes collected and distributed to it as provided by Chapter 210, F.S.A. See Ordinance 823 of the City authorizing the issue of said bonds and pledging its portion of said taxes or so much thereof as may be necessary for servicing said bonds. There is no question about the power of the City to make the proposed improvement.
It is first contended that the City of Coral Gables is not authorized to pledge any portion of the proceeds of its cigarette taxes for payment of storm sewer bonds without an approving vote of the freeholders as required by Section 6, Article IX of the State Constitution, F.S.A.
This court has repeatedly held that the cigarette tax imposed by Chapter 210 F.S.A. is an excise tax and may be used or appropriated by municipalities as the legislature directs without an approving vote of the freeholders as required by Section 6, Article IX of the Constitution. State v. City of Jacksonville, Fla., 53 So.2d 306; State v. City of Homestead, Fla., 59 So.2d 742; State v. City of Pensacola, Fla., 40 So.2d 569; Zinnen v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 159 Fla. 498, 32 So.2d 162, and others. This case is ruled by these cases and others.
Questions one and two challenge the power of the City of Coral Gables to contract for the levy, collection and distribution of the cigarette taxes during the life of its Storm Sewer Bonds, when the charter of the City and other applicable provisions of the law under which said taxes are collected and administered might be repealed at any time.
This question is concluded by the well settled principle that the law in force at the time the contract is made forms part of the contract and when a county, municipality or other governmental entity issues its bonds under a statute providing for payment of said bonds, including the levy of an annual tax to service them, the legislature is without power to repeal the statute or otherwise impair the...
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...and the proceeds from state cigarette taxes collected in the municipality. Welker v. State, 93 So.2d 591 (Fla.1957); State v. City of Coral Gables, 72 So.2d 48 (Fla.1954). In Klein v. City of New Smyrna Beach, 152 So.2d 466 (Fla.1963), the Court summed up the rule and rationale of these As ......
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Metropolitan Dade County v. Floyd, Pearson, Richman, Greer, Weil, Zack & Brumbaugh
...exonerate itself from a contractually assumed obligation to pay a debt to a private third-party beneficiary. See State v. City of Coral Gables, 72 So.2d 48 (Fla.1954) (municipal creditors' rights cannot be impaired by subsequent Having reached the dispositive substantive question it is unne......
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Panama City v. State
...in previous opinions of this Court. For instance, so far as the power to pledge the cigarette taxes are concerned, see State v. City of Coral Gables, Fla.1954, 72 So.2d 48; as to the utility service taxes, see State v. City of Winter Park, 1948, 160 Fla. 330, 34 So.2d 740; as to the franchi......