Town of Crowley v. West

• Decision Date: 09 January 1900
• Docket Number: 13,275
• Citation: 27 So. 53,52 La.Ann. 526
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: TOWN OF CROWLEY v. JAMES L. WEST

27 So. 53

52 La.Ann. 526

TOWN OF CROWLEY v. JAMES L. WEST

No. 13,275

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 9, 1900

APPEAL from Mayor's Court, Town of Crowley. Barry, J.

Philip J. Chappuis and Saunders & Gurley, for Plaintiff, Appellee.

Hampden Story and Philip S. Pugh, for Defendant, Appellant.

OPINION

MONROE J.

Defendant was fined for violating an ordinance of the town of Crowley which prohibited the establishment of livery stables, except within certain limits; and he has appealed to this court, on the ground that said ordinance is in contravention of statutory and constitutional law.

The ordinance in question was adopted in 1898, and, whilst it declares, "Section 1 * * * That hereafter, it shall be unlawful to establish, maintain, locate, or operate a livery feed, sale, and boarding stable within any portion of the corporation limits of the town of Crowley, except as hereinafter prescribed," and then proceeds to establish the limits, remote from the business centre of the town, in which such stables may be conducted, and to provide penalties for violation of the ordinance, the concluding section reads as follows, to-wit:

"Section 3. That the provisions of this ordinance should not be applied to livery, sale, boarding, and feed stables, already in existence and under operation. Provided; that the effects of the ordinance shall not be governed by this section, which is hereby declared to be a distinct and independent part of the ordinance."

The admissions and the evidence show that, when the case was tried, there were five livery stables within the prohibited section of the town; one of them being conducted by the firm of which the defendant is a member, and another being a stable which had been sold before the adoption of the ordinance, by defendant's present partner, to the person who is now conducting it. After this sale was made, and before the adoption of said ordinance, C. R. West defendant's partner, purchased a lot, for which he paid one thousand dollars ($ 1000), also within the prohibited district, and ordered lumber and material for the erection thereon of a new stable, which, as we understand, has been since built at a cost of $ 1300; and said firm have, in the meanwhile, and after the adoption of said ordinance, carried on business in the stable, for the maintenance of which the arrest was made.

The ordinance, as it stands, will affect no other existing stable than that conducted by the defendant's firm, and said firm, if the ordinance is enforced, will be compelled to move within the limits designated, with the result that it will be unable to compete with the other stables, which are in the business portion of the town.

The points relied on by defendant, are:

That the corporate powers of the town of Crowley are derived from Act 136 of 1898, and that said act confers no authority for the adoption of the ordinance in question.

That said ordinance is invalid, because it was not "entered in a well bound book," as required by said act.

That said ordinance is unconstitutional and illegal, for the further reason that it is "discriminatory, unreasonable arbitrary, and unequal in its operation and effect," and would "operate a hardship on defendant, by compelling him to remove his stable from a limit, where livery stables are now prohibited, to a locality designated and set aside for that purpose, remote and distant from the central portion of business, while others, his competitors, are permitted to carry on a similar and like occupation, unmolested, and free from municipal interference and objection."

That said ordinance abridges defendant's liberty with respect to the selection of a means of a livelihood, and denies him the enjoyment of his rights and privileges, and of his property, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

The town of Crowley was originally incorporated in 1894, agreeably to the provisions of Act No. 49 of 1882. The Act of 1882, however, purports merely to regulate the "manner" of incorporation, and contains no specific grants of power.

Whatever authority was exercised by the corporation thus established must, therefore, have been implied from the fact of its authorized existence as a municipal corporation. In 1899, said corporation, by the vote of its electors, and the proclamation of the Governor, as required by the act, accepted the offer made by the State, by means of Act No. 136 of 1898, and became a "town" under said act.

The Act of 1898 is of much broader scope than that of 1882, since the latter provided only for the "manner" of effecting incorporation, whilst the former provides not only for the creation of corporations where none previously existed, and for the conversion of corporations, already established under previously adopted statutes, into corporations acknowledging it, said act, as the authority within which, alone, they exist; but it also specifies, in terms of great exactness, the powers which are to be exercised by the corporations so created, or converted, and it concludes with a clause which repeals all laws contrary to it or "on the same subject matter," except as otherwise provided in the act itself.

The acceptance of this act by the town of Crowley, as the Jordan through which it was born again, if it does not cut off inquiry into any previous existence, at least reduces that inquiry within very definite bounds. It may be conceded that existing ordinances, adopted during such previous existence, were not necessarily annulled by the regeneration of the town thus effected. But it must also be conceded that no such ordinance can be enforced, if found to conflict with the law within which the town now lives and moves and has its being, since the creature, in matters of this kind, is not more powerful than the creator.

The charter of 1894 assumed for the town the power, among other things, to regulate the "location," as well as the inspection and cleaning of "stables, cattle yards, slaughter houses, soap, glue, tallow, and leather factories, depositories for hides, and all such places of business, likely to be, or to become, detrimental to health," etc.; and it was under this charter that the ordinance in question which undertakes "to regulate the location of stables" was adopted. But, since the acceptance of the Act of 1898, there is no room for the assumption or exercise of any power not expressly or impliedly conferred by the act.

It is not pretended that the Act of 1898, in express terms, confers upon corporations established under it any authority to regulate the location of stables. The remaining question then is, can such authority be implied?

The act provides, in substance:

Section 13. That each city, town, or village, which is incorporated, shall be governed by the provisions of this act and shall be a municipal corporation, with power;

First -- To sue and be sued, etc.;

Second -- To purchase and hold real estate, etc.;

Third -- To make all contracts, etc.;

Fourth -- To exercise such other or further powers as are herein conferred.

Section 14. That the powers herein granted shall be exercised by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, etc.

Section 15. That the Mayor and Board of Aldermen shall have power to enact ordinances for the purposes hereinafter named, and such as are repugnant to the laws of the State, and they shall have power,

"First -- To levy and collect taxes for general purposes, etc.;

"Second -- To levy and collect taxes to pay interest, etc.;

"Third -- To make regulations to secure the general health of the municipality; to prevent, to remove, and to abate, nuisances; to regulate, or prohibit the construction of privy-vaults and cess pools and to regulate or suppress those already constructed; to compel and regulate the connection of all property with sewers and drains; to suppress hog-pens, slaughter houses and stock yards and to locate the same with the concurrent approval of the Board of Health, or to regulate the same and to prescribe and enforce regulations for cleaning and keeping the same in order, and the cleaning and keeping in order of warehouses, stables, alleys, yards, private ways, out-houses, and other places, where offensive matter is kept or allowed to accumulate; and to compel and regulate the removal of garbage and filth, beyond the corporate limits."

And there are twenty-nine more paragraphs in section 15, each conferring separate and specific powers on cities and towns and villages falling under the dominion of the act. In section 16, there are eleven distinct paragraphs, conferring specific...