State v. Sheppard

• Decision Date: 29 April 1896
• Citation: 67 N.W. 62,64 Minn. 287
• Parties: STATE v SHEPPARD.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

64 Minn. 287

67 N.W. 62

STATEvSHEPPARD.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 29, 1896.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. A city ordinance, which in its scope may be adjudged reasonable and valid as applied to one state of facts and circumstances, may be adjudged unreasonable and invalid when applied to facts and circumstances of a different character.

2. Under authority granted by the charter to pass an ordinance to prevent and punish immoderate driving upon the public streets of the city of Minneapolis, the council enacted an ordinance which prohibited driving upon the streets at a greater rate of speed than six miles an hour; no exceptions being made. Held, as to members of a salvage corps, organized under the provisions of Gen. Laws 1895, c. 178, § 1, and for the purposes therein prescribed, responding to an alarm of fire sent to their station from the headquarters of the city fire department, said prohibition was unreasonable and invalid.

Appeal from municipal court of Minneapolis; Andrew Holt, Judge.

William Sheppard was convicted of violating a city ordinance, and appeals. Reversed.

Cobb & Wheelwright, for appellant.

David F. Simpson and M. D. Purdy, for the State.

COLLINS, J.

By the terms of the charter of the city of Minneapolis the common council has been given full power and authority “to prevent and punish immoderate driving and riding” on the public streets, by ordinance. Acting upon this authority, presumably, an ordinance was passed prohibiting the driving of animals in the streets at a rate of speed exceeding six miles an hour, and defendant was convicted of a violation of this ordinance. It stands admitted that he drove on the streets at a rate of speed exceeding that specified in the ordinance. It also stands admitted that at the time he was in the employ of a corporation known as the Minneapolis Board of Fire Underwriters, organized under the provisions of Gen. St. 1894, c. 34, tit. 2, and having all of the powers and privileges conferred by Laws 1895, c. 178, § 1, as a member of its salvage corps and fire patrol, and was driving a pair of horses attached to a wagon containing a part of its equipment, in response to a fire alarm communicated to the corps' station by wire from the headquarters of the city fire department. It also stood admitted that, in order to act in the manner provided by the terms of section 1, supra,-with promptness and efficiency,-this wagon should be driven to the scene of the fire as rapidly as the department apparatus, the object and purpose of the salvage corps and fire patrol being to protect and save life and property. This appears from the provisions of the 1895 statute. When at the fire, the men of the corps are subject to the complete control of the chief of the city fire department; and, if their duties are speedily and intelligently performed, the organization must be of great public service. In the rendition of these services it is auxiliary to the fire department, and designed so to be by the legislature. Although its members are not agents or servants of the municipality, they are empowered to perform public duties. To them the state has delegated the power to take steps to make early discovery of the existence of fires, and the duty of saving life and property when threatened by the flames, with full authority to properly and adequately perform these duties. If the organization to which defendant belonged had been equipped and maintained by the municipality, who would undertake to point out wherein the general authority and power of its members differed when engaged in the performance of their duty from that possessed by men serving in the fire department proper?

In conferring such authority and power upon the members of these salvage corps and fire patrols, the legislature, it must be inferred, intended that they should have such rights and privileges as would be necessary for the efficient discharge of their functions, including the use of the public streets within reasonable bounds. It was not contemplated that the corporations mentioned in chapter 178, after being empowered to organize salvage corps and fire patrols for the express purpose of discovering and preventing fires, to save and preserve life and property at and after fires, and, that this might be done, to act with promptness and efficiency under the superintendence of the chief of the fire department, should have their men restricted by unreasonable local regulations, and deprived of the right to adopt and use means absolutely...