State v. Freitas

Decision Date01 February 1897
Docket Number12,298
Citation49 La.Ann. 345,21 So. 551
CourtLouisiana Supreme Court
PartiesTHE STATE OF LOUISIANA v. J. FREITAS AND THOMAS A. CLAYTON

Argued January 9, 1897

APPEAL from the First Recorder's Court of the City of New Orleans. Finnegan, J.

Rogers & Dodds, for Defendants, Appellants.

OPINION

WATKINS J.

The defendants were arrested on a charge of having violated Sec 7 of City Ordinance No. 6022, and Ordinance No. 4788, as amended by Ordinance No. 4334; and upon the trial they interposed a motion to quash the affidavits, on the ground that they preferred against them no offence known to or covered by said ordinances.

This motion was submitted upon an agreed statement of facts; and same having been overruled, the Recorder sentenced each of defendants to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars, and, in default of payment, to suffer thirty days' imprisonment in the parish prison, and from that decree they prosecute this appeal.

The following is substantially the statement of facts upon which the case was submitted, viz.:

That Clayton, one of the defendants, was, on the 7th of July 1896, the general superintendent of the Southern Chemical and Fertilizing Company, Limited, and at that date instructed and directed Freitas, his co-defendant, to dump garbage in the vacant lot indicated in the aforesaid affidavits; and that he did dump the garbage accordingly. That the "garbage so dumped was mixed garbage, composed of market sweepings, onions, potatoes, remnants of beefsteaks, and everything that would come from a kitchen and a yard," etc.

That Ordinance No. 6022, Administration Series, of the city of New Orleans is a valid and subsisting ordinance of said city of New Orleans; that Sec. 7 of said ordinance was in force at the time (of said occurrence); and that said ordinance together with Ordinance No. 4788, as amended by Ordinance No. 4334, are existing ordinances of the city.

"It is further admitted that, at the date aforesaid, the city had not designated any definite and certain locality to be used for the purpose of dumping garbage."

On this statement there was no question raised and decided in the recorder's court of the unconstitutionality or illegality of either of the ordinances which are drawn in question; and, consequently, there is none involved in this appeal. On the contrary, the distinct admission is that the ordinances in question are valid.

Indeed the motion to quash, inferentially, at least, admits the legality and validity of the city ordinances by alleging that they preferred against defendants no charge known to or...

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