Staub v. City of Knoxville
| Decision Date | 15 December 1930 |
| Citation | 33 S.W.2d 415,161 Tenn. 663 |
| Parties | STAUB et al. v. CITY OF KNOXVILLE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from Chancery Court, Knox County; Robert M. Jones Chancellor.
Suit by Fritz Staub and others against the City of Knoxville. From a decree dismissing the bill, complainants appeal.
Modified and as modified, affirmed.
Ely Buhl & Ely, of Knoxville, for complainants.
D. J. Kelly, of Knoxville, for defendant.
The bill was filed to enjoin the enforcement of a city ordinance designed to regulate the use of the city market. The complainants who sue on behalf of themselves and others of common right are:
John J. May, producer and vendor of shrubs, trees, and flowers.
Frank L. Sherrod, producer and vendor of vegetables and fruits.
Fritz Staub, a citizen of Knoxville.
As producers and vendors, complainants May and Sherrod distributed produce for a number of years, using available space on the city market.
It is charged in the original bill that Ordinance 279, filed as Exhibit 2, circumscribes the area of the market and the rights of marketers to an extent and in a manner that is unreasonable and void.
After suit was filed, Ordinance 279 was repealed, and another, referred to in the record as Ordinance 317, was passed. It was attacked by an amended and supplemental bill as unreasonable, discriminatory, and void. At a hearing upon bill, answer, and proof, the chancellor held that Ordinance 317 was valid and not open to attack, and dismissed the bill. Being of the opinion that Ordinance 279, which was repealed after complainants filed the original bill, justified the attack upon it, the chancellor adjudged all the costs of the cause against the city.
Complainants appealed and have assigned errors. They insist that Ordinance 317 is unreasonable, oppressive, contravenes both state and federal Constitutions, and is therefore void.
The lot, 350 feet by 125 feet, upon which the public market is located, was conveyed to the city by deed from William G. Swan and Joseph A. Mabry March 21, 1853, "to be used *** for the purpose of constructing thereon a market house."
The map, Exhibit A to the testimony of W. N. Smithson, indicates that the market house, situated about the center of market square, covers a space 361.8 feet by 40.2 feet. The distance from the market house wall to the curb on the eastern side is 35 feet, and from the market house wall on the western side to the curb is 34.5 feet.
The market house contains within its inclosure 54 stalls which are rented by the city to dealers in country produce, meats, and other food products. An open space between the stalls is used by small producers as a free market where they may deposit and dispose of their products brought in baskets or other small receptacles. The space along each curb opposite both sides of the market house has been for a number of years put to use by producers who sold from wagons stationed there. It appears from the record that between 400 and 500 producers altogether use the public market and that about 300 each day dispose of their products on the market.
Before the enactment of Ordinance 317, the evidence shows that there were 117 available spaces where market wagons and trucks might stand at and near the curb. For a number of years some of those having produce for sale have preempted space along the curb by the use of what is called in the record "dead wagons." These are described as vehicles mounted by a covered body stationed in the street at the curb and kept there from early Monday morning until late Saturday night of each week, being removed by two men who, for hire, furnished parking space and moved the wagons from the market late Saturday night and returned them early Monday morning. Few, if any, of these wagons were self-propelling. They were not designed to be moved except in the manner and for the purpose above indicated. Seventy-three of the 117 available spaces on the free market were occupied by these dead wagons. Of the 300 producers who marketed produce each day at this market place, the 73 owners of the dead wagons monopolized that number of spaces; the remaining 227 made use of the 44 that were unoccupied.
The ordinance in question was designed to regulate the use of the market and certain of its provisions in their operation interfere with the practice that had prevailed among the owners of the dead wagons of holding space continuously by preempting it in the manner described.
It appears from the record that prior to the enactment of Ordinance 317, no uniform parking rules were observed and for lack of such regulation both sides of Market Square were congested, not only hindering traffic but interfering in some instances with the service of the fire department.
By section 3 of the ordinance, spaces 7 feet in width running the entire length of the market at a distance of 350 feet on both sides of Market Square were set apart as parking spaces where wagons and trucks might be stationed for the disposition of country produce. The wagons and trucks were so arranged that when parked against the curb they would stand at an angle of thirty degrees pointing with the current of traffic so that they might be removed and others stationed in their place without obstructing travel.
Other provisions of the ordinance will be referred to in the course of our discussion.
Taking the ordinance altogether, it apparently operates alike upon all persons similarly situated, is not unreasonable in its classification, and was designed to regulate the use of the public market by producers to the exclusion of dealers; and also was designed to open the market to a greater number of producers by the exclusion of the so-called dead wagons, which, in fact, were selling shops put on wheels, and permanently stationed through each week, both day and night, on the street against the curb.
The city had power to regulate the use of the market and also to regulate traffic over and through it. These stationary wagons, occupying as many as 73 spaces on the market into which the dealers or producers unloaded produce at irregular intervals from trucks. necessarily obstructed and hindered the general public in the use of the street, and the city could, in the exercise of its police power, make the regulation to prevent it. It could also regulate the alignment of sales trucks and wagons stationed along the curb in such position as to easily permit their passage from or to the line of traffic. This alignment would not unreasonably or unnecessarily reduce the free market space. There is no merit in the broad attack upon the ordinance.
Other assignments of error are directed at the action of the trial judge in sustaining certain specific provisions. These will be disposed of in sequence.
Subsection (b), section 2, provides that "no person, firm or corporation, truck grower or farmer shall have more than one vehicle, horse-drawn or motorized, for the sale of produce on any market place at any time." With power to regulate the market, the city could limit its use to...
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