State v. J. Foto & Bro

• Decision Date: 01 December 1913
• Docket Number: 19,890
• Citation: 63 So. 859,134 La. 154
• Parties: STATE v. J. FOTO & BRO
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

63 So. 859

134 La. 154

STATE v. J. FOTO & BRO

No. 19,890

Supreme Court of Louisiana

December 1, 1913

Rehearing Denied January 5, 1914

SYLLABUS

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Where the state sues for licenses amounting to less than the minimum jurisdictional amount of this court and the defendant sets up that the state is estopped from collecting the licenses, this court cannot take jurisdiction of the question of estoppel, as it has jurisdiction, under the circumstances only where it is claimed that the law under which it is sought to collect the license is unconstitutional.

An act whose title states one object and a number of other things germane to this object and connected therewith is not a violation of articles 31 and 32 of the Constitution, requiring that the title of an act shall state only one object.

Act No. 148 of 1906 deals only with the subject of licenses and the things germane to their imposition and collection and is therefore not violative of the Constitution.

Act No. 148 of 1906 fully reproduces all that was necessary for the amendment of the acts which it was intended to amend and is therefore constitutional.

In so far as relates to issues over which this court has no jurisdiction, case transferred to Court of Appeal, parish of Orleans.

P. J. Patorno and George B. Smart, both of New Orleans, for appellants.

Wm. W. Westerfield, of New Orleans, for the State.

OPINION

BREAUX, C. J.

The state claims of the defendants a license for their business as wholesale dealers in the sum of $ 50 and $ 25 for their business as commission merchants for each of the years 1909 to 1912, inclusive, together with penalty of 2 per cent. per month interest from March 1st for the year for which the license is due and 10 per cent. attorneys' fees upon the whole, with first lien and privilege.

The defendants resist the suit on the ground that the state is estopped from obtaining a license from them for the years 1909 to 1912, inclusive, for the reason that the state has already accepted a license from the same defendants for all of their business as retailers, conducted during the said years. That the state is estopped for the further reason that defendants' affidavit, if untrue, should have been traversed promptly after the receipt of defendants and payment of the license thereunder.

This court has no jurisdiction of the defense just above stated. There is no question of the unconstitutionality of a tax involved.

But the defendants further urged in the pleadings that the state claims a license for the years 1909 to 1912, inclusive, under authority of Act 148 of 1906. Defendants aver that said act is unconstitutional, null, and void and in direct violation of the Constitution of the state and of articles 31 and 32 in having more than one object and also in failing to re-enact the amendment sections in full. That the demands are prescribed. Defendants also deny that they are engaged in business as merchants and also deny that they are wholesale dealers.

The title of the act attacked...