Tidewater/Havre de Grace, Inc. v. Mayor and City Council of Havre de Grace

• Decision Date: 01 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 153,153
• Citation: 653 A.2d 468,337 Md. 338
• Parties: TIDEWATER/HAVRE DE GRACE, INC. et al. v. The MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF HAVRE DE GRACE. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 338

337 Md. 338

653 A.2d 468

TIDEWATER/HAVRE DE GRACE, INC. et al. v. The MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF HAVRE DE GRACE.

No. 153, Sept. Term, 1993.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 9, 1995.

Robert J. Carson (Ronald G. Dawson, Smith, Somerville & Case, all on brief), Baltimore, for petitioners.

Frederick J. Hatem, Jr. (Dewey Brian Stanley, Reed & Hatem, all on brief), Bel Air, for respondent.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, BELL and RAKER, JJ.

BELL, Judge.

In this appeal, we shall consider whether Ordinance No. 765 exceeds the authority granted to the City of Havre de Grace by the General Assembly and/or is void for vagueness. Resolving the declaratory judgment action filed by Tidewater/Havre de Grace, Inc. and Penn's Beach Arena, the petitioners, to test the validity of the Ordinance, the trial court found in favor of the Mayor and City Council of Havre de Grace, the respondent, on both issues, granting its motion for summary judgment and denying the petitioners'. Interpreting paragraph 6.B. of the Ordinance, the court concluded:

Contrary to the arguments of the Plaintiffs, a marina cannot be penalized when a lessee fails to pay the fee. As this Court interprets paragraph 6(B), the duty to submit the fee to the City is not incurred until the marina collects the fee. If a lessee refuses to pay the tax, then the marina has not collected the tax. Consequently the marina is not liable until it has collected the fee and failed to remit it to the City.

Memorandum Opinion and Order, 98 Md.App. 218, 234, 632 A.2d 509, 517. Both the marinas and the City appealed.

Addressing the petitioners' appeal, the Court of Special Appeals agreed with the trial court that the City acted with authority and that the Ordinance was not unconstitutionally vague; hence, it affirmed the judgment of the trial court in that regard. The City's cross-appeal challenged the court's interpretation of paragraph 6.B. On that issue, the intermediate appellate court reversed, concluding that "the statute implicitly places a clear and affirmative obligation on the marinas to charge and collect the appropriate user tax coincident with the time when said marinas collect their rental fees." Tidewater/Havre de Grace, Inc. v. Mayor of Havre de Grace, 98 Md.App. 218, 235, 632 A.2d 509, 518 (1993). It added, "the statute implicitly provides a right of action on behalf of the marina against the lessee for the entire balance due (including both the unpaid rental charges and the unpaid user tax)." Id. at 236, 632 A.2d at 518. We granted the petitioners' petition for certiorari.

I.

In 1992, the General Assembly of Maryland enacted Chapter 261 of the Laws of Maryland ("Chapter 261"), now codified as Maryland Code (1957, 1994 Repl.Vol.), Art. 24, § 9-605. As introduced Chapter 261 permitted "[a] municipal corporation [to] impose by ordinance a user fee on charges for the docking and storage of boats" and limited that fee to a certain percentage of the total rental charges. ¹ As enacted, in addition to the foregoing, by amendment, Chapter 261 included a further limitation on the amount of user fees that could be charged "per boat slip."

Both as introduced and enacted, the title of the bill was "An Act concerning Municipal Corporations--Boat Slip User Fee." Moreover, while the preamble stated that the purpose of the statute was to "authoriz[e] a municipal corporation to impose a user fee on charges for the docking and storage of boats," it also indicated that it was "generally relating to authorization for a municipal corporation to impose a boat slip user fee." ²

Acting pursuant to the authority granted by Chapter 261, the respondent enacted Ordinance No. 765. That Ordinance imposed "[a]n annual fee of 5%, not to exceed One Hundred Dollars ($100), of all rental charges for the docking, slip rental and storage, dry or wet, of boats," to be "collected by all businesses, including, but not limited to, all marinas, establishments, or individuals within the Havre de Grace City limits that rent space for boat docking, boat slip rental and boat storage." Paragraphs 1 and 2. It also provided for the remitting of the user fees, along with a report "listing the names of the lessees, the amount of rent paid and the user fee due" to the City, on a semi-annual basis, paragraph 3, ³ the audit of the financial records of any affected business, paragraph 4, and civil penalties to be imposed upon businesses that fail to comply. Paragraph 6. ⁴

It is well-settled that, pursuant to Article XI-E, Section 5 of the Maryland Constitution, a municipality may levy only such type of tax, license fee, franchise tax or fee, that is specifically authorized by the General Assembly. See Campbell v. Annapolis, 289 Md. 300, 305, 424 A.2d 738, 741 (1981). See also Allied Vending v. City of Bowie, 332 Md. 279, 296, 631 A.2d 77, 85 (1993). The threshold issue that is presented, therefore, is whether the tax imposed by Ordinance 765, which, by its express terms, is applicable to both the wet and dry storage of boats, exceeds the authority granted by the General Assembly to the City of Havre de Grace by enacting Chapter 261.

The parties disagree as to the intended scope of Chapter 261. The petitioners contend that it authorizes imposition of user fees on only one form of boat storage, boat slips. To arrive at that conclusion, the petitioners argue that Chapter 261 is ambiguous. In support of that conclusion, they point out that Chapter 261 refers both to "boat slip" and the "docking and storage of boats." Since "boat slip" refers to a specific kind of in-the-water storage, but "docking and storage of boats" is sufficiently broad to encompass both wet and dry storage of boats, it is unclear, they continue, what the Legislature's intention was when it enacted Chapter 261. When the context of the statute is considered and the rules of statutory construction applied, they argue that the intention becomes clear, to impose user fees only on boat slips.

The respondent does not dispute the meaning the petitioners attribute to the term "boat slip" or the phrase, "docking and storage of boats," or the fact that both are used in the body of the statute. It does draw a different conclusion from those facts, however. ⁵ The respondent posits that the statute is clear and unambiguous. Accordingly, it concludes that the fees imposed by Ordinance 765 are expressly authorized by Chapter 261. That being so, it contends that the petitioners' argument to the contrary requires the creation of ambiguity where none otherwise exists.

The threshold issue in this case involves the determination of the scope of Chapter 261. That, in turn, requires discerning its meaning, i.e., the Legislature's intent in enacting it. It is well-settled that when the meaning of a statute--its legislative intent--is at issue, the court's inquiry begins with the words of the statute, and ordinarily, also ends there. Gargliano v. State, 334 Md. 428, 435, 639 A.2d 675, 678 (1994); Thanos v. State, 332 Md. 511, 522, 632 A.2d 768, 773 (1993); Harris v. State, 331 Md. 137, 145-46, 626 A.2d 946, 950 (1993); Ball v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 325 Md. 652, 656, 602 A.2d 1176, 1178 (1992). If the words of the statute are clear and free from ambiguity, we need not look further; there ordinarily is no need to look beyond the words of the statute to determine its meaning or scope. Montgomery County v. Buckman, 333 Md. 516, 523, 636 A.2d 448, 452 (1994); Harris, supra, 331 Md. at 146, 626 A.2d at 950; Ferguson Trenching Co., Inc. v. Kiehne, 329 Md. 169, 177, 618 A.2d 735, 739 (1993); Scheve v. Shudder, Inc., 328 Md. 363, 371-72, 614 A.2d 582, 586 (1992). Nevertheless, "[i]n the interest of completeness ... we may look at the purpose of the statute and compare the result obtained by the use of its plain language with that which results when the purpose of the statute is taken into account," Harris, 331 Md. at 146, 626 A.2d at 950, as well as such evidence as "a bill's title and function paragraphs, amendments that occurred as it passed through the legislature, its relationship to earlier and subsequent legislation, and other material that fairly bears on the fundamental issue of legislative purpose or goal...." Wynn v. State, 313 Md. 533, 539, 546 A.2d 465, 468 (1988) (quoting Kaczorowski v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 515, 525 A.2d 628, 632-33 (1987)). "[W]here statutory language is plain and free from ambiguity and expresses a definite and sensible meaning, [we] are not at liberty to disregard the natural import of words with a view towards making the statute express an intention which is different from its plain meaning." Fikar v. Montgomery County, 333 Md. 430, 434-35, 635 A.2d 977, 979 (1994) (quoting Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dep't, Inc., 309 Md. 347, 353, 524 A.2d 61, 63-64 (1987)) (quoting State v. Fabritz, 276 Md. 416, 421-22, 348 A.2d 275, 278 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 942, 96 S.Ct. 1680, 48 L.Ed.2d 185 (1976) (citations omitted)). We are not, in short, at liberty to create an ambiguity where none otherwise exists.

Chapter 261 is clear and unambiguous. By its plain language, it authorizes a municipal corporation to "impose by Ordinance a user fee on charges for the docking and storage of boats." Although it limits the rate of the user fee to a maximum of "five percent of the rental charges for the docking and storage of boats," if the mode of storage is by means of a boat slip, it further caps the total amount of user fees to be charged to not more than $100 per year.

Contrary to the petitioners' argument, the mere reference to both "docking and storing" and "boat slip" in the body of the statute, even when coupled with the provision for a different maximum fee in connection with the latter, does not render the statute ambiguous. Nor does the fact that the two kinds of storage are treated differently render the statute ambiguous.

The broader term ...