Wilson v. City of Cincinnati

• Decision Date: 08 June 1960
• Docket Number: No. 36177,36177
• Citation: Wilson v. City of Cincinnati, 168 N.E.2d 147, 171 Ohio St. 104, 12 O.O.2d 129 (Ohio 1960)
• Parties: , 12 O.O.2d 129 WILSON et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF CINCINNATI et al., Appellees.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 104

171 Ohio St. 104

168 N.E.2d 147, 12 O.O.2d 129

WILSON et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF CINCINNATI et al., Appellees.

No. 36177.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

June 8, 1960.

Syllabus by the Court.

Any person whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a municipal ordinance may have determined any question of the validity of such ordinance and may obtain a declaration of rights, status, or other legal relations thereunder. Section 2721.03, Revised Code. Brown & Gettler, Cincinnati, for appellants.

James W. Farrell, Jr., City Solicitor, and Wallace M. Power, Cincinnati, for appellees.

Plaintiffs, appellants herein, are members of the pipe-fitters trade in Hamilton County. These pipe fitters brought this suit on behalf of themselves and approximately 1,200 others similarly engaged against the city of Cincinnati for the purpose of enjoining such city from enforcing certain ordinances of that city relating to plumbers and to the licensing of plumbers. The plaintiffs also seek a declaratory judgment as to the construction and validity of such ordinances and for a declaration of their rights thereunder.

A part of the controversy involved here concerns the right of the plaintiffs, as pipe fitters, to install certain industrial laboratory equipment for their employer, the Limbach Company, pursuant to a construction contract entered into by such employer with the Procter & Gamble Company of Cincinnati. Allegedly, defendant city has announced that all such installation work must be performed by licensed plumbers, and that such city has threatened plaintiffs with arrest for violating the city's ordinances relating to plumbing, unless plaintiffs immediately refrain from such employment.

In their amended petition, plaintiffs allege that, although pipe fitting and plumbing are distinct and separate occupations, the ordinances under attack make no such distinctions and require plumbers' licenses for all persons altering, repairing, or installing or making connections with any piping joined to a water supply. Consequently, plaintiffs claim that such ordinances, except for gas-pipe connections, in effect illegalizes and prohibits plaintiffs from engaging in the pipe-fitting trade. It is urged that a proper and fair classification of piping operations would declare that plumbing includes only domestic and sanitary piping work, whereas pipe fitting is concerned with alteration, repairing, and making connections with pipes for industrial purposes and with any piping work other than domestic and sanitary piping.

Both the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Appeals dismissed plaintiffs' amended petition.

The cause is before this court as an appeal as of right and pursuant to the allowance of plaintiffs' motion to certify the record.

MATTHIAS, Judge.

While plaintiffs herein are interested in enjoining the enforcement of the ordinances in question in order to permit them to complete the installation of the laboratory equipment previously mentioned, we are of the opinion that such particular dispute is but a manifestation of the continuing and principal controversy between these parties. Although plaintiffs raise innumerable issues on this appeal, we deem the determinative issue in this cause to be the following, as stated by the plaintiffs:

'May the city of Cincinnati, under statutory authority to license 'plumbers,' so define that term as to include other established crafts and prohibit those other crafts from engaging in their usual occupations?'

As to the particular dispute involving installation of the laboratory equipment, the court below determined that defendant city acted reasonably in requiring such work to be performed only by licensed plumbers. Thus, the court refused to enjoin the enforcement of the ordinances attacked. In answer to plaintiffs' prayer for a declaratory judgment as to the validity of the ordinances and for a declaration of plaintiffs' rights thereunder, the Court of Appeals stated:

'The court further finds that plaintiffs are not entitled to a declaratory judgment as to the validity and constitutionality of the provisions of the ordinances of the city of Cincinnati pertaining to the licensing of plumbers for the reason that there is no dispute between plaintiffs and defendants concerning said ordinances, since plaintiffs are not required to obtain a license to pursue their trade and are not applicants for plumbers' licenses.' (Emphasis added.)

In respect to this finding, we feel that the court below misconstrued the principal import of the plaintiffs' prayer for declaratory relief. Plaintiffs concede that they are not applicants for plumbers' licenses; in fact plaintiffs emphasize the fact that they do not have any desire to become plumbers, and they do not deny the authority of the defendant city to license plumbers.

Plaintiffs' real complaint is simply that the specific section of the ordinance (Section 1112-2, Building and Zoning Code of the City of Cincinnati) which prescribes 'plumbers operations' is so broad in its scope as to require a plumber's license for the performance of work which traditionally belongs to pipe fitters.

The plaintiffs themselves have...