Yee Bow v. The City Of Cleveland
| Decision Date | 11 March 1919 |
| Docket Number | 16106 |
| Citation | 124 N.E. 132,99 Ohio St. 269 |
| Parties | Yee Bow v. The City Of Cleveland Et Al. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Municipal corporations - Ordinance regulating laundries - Classification Not unreasonable or discriminatory, when - Police power - Ordinance not invalid because operation limited, when - Legislative or judicial power not delegated to administrative officer, when - Constitutional law.
In the regulation of laundries, a city ordinance defining a public laundry to be any premises, etc., used for the purpose of laundering certain washable articles "for thirty or more owners of such articles per week, and for pay," is not unreasonable nor discriminatory. The basis of classification therein employed is natural and reasonable, and the provisions of the ordinance operate uniformly upon the class therein named
When a city has the right, under its police power, to impose regulations upon a business, the validity of an ordinance cannot be attacked merely because its scope was not extended to cover the entire field of possible abuses which such ordinance seeks to prevent.
An ordinance imposing on an administrative officer, as a prerequisite to the issuance of a license, the duties of ascertaining whether sanitary and drainage arrangements are sufficient to protect the public health and whether "adequate ventilation" and "adequate plumbing and drainage facilities" are provided on the premises does not confer arbitrary legislative or judicial powers upon such officer in a constitutional sense. If his conduct should prove to be arbitrary or palpably unwarranted, resort may be had to the courts.
The provisions of the ordinance referred to in propositions one and three herein violate neither the state nor the federal constitution.
Plaintiff in error filed his petition in the court of common pleas of Cuyahoga county seeking an injunction to restrain the enforcement of a city ordinance. This ordinance provided for the regulation of the public laundry business in the city by means of inspection and license. Section one of the ordinance is as follows:
Other sections of the ordinance provide that public laundries cannot be maintained or operated without a license from the commissioner of assessments and licenses, to whom applications were required to be made. These applications were then transmitted to the health commissioner of the city for investigation and report. Thereupon the health commissioner was required to make an examination of the premises for the purpose of ascertaining whether the location, construction and ventilation of such laundries, and the sanitary and drainage arrangements thereof, were "sufficient to properly protect the public health, and the health of the persons to be employed in such proposed laundry." Among other requirements provided for in said ordinance was the requirement that "All rooms used in connection with such laundry shall be provided with adequate ventilation by means of windows, air-shafts, air-ducts or other mechani- cal apparatus, if needed, so as at all times to insure a free circulation of fresh air in such laundry."
Provisions were also made whereby any person aggrieved by any finding or order of the commissioner of assessments and licenses, or the commissioner of health, should have the right of appeal to a board of appeals, composed of the mayor, director of law and director of public safety. A violation of any of the provisions of the ordinance is made a misdemeanor.
In his petition plaintiff urged that the ordinance was in violation of the state and federal constitutions, was an unconstitutional interference with his business, and asked the court to restrain the defendants from enforcing the ordinance.
A general demurrer was filed in the court of common pleas, which was sustained. Plaintiff perfected his appeal to the court of appeals, which sustained the judgment of the lower court. Error is now prosecuted to this court.
Messrs. Bold, Cannon, Brooks & Wickham and Mr. John J. Sullivan, for plaintiff in error. Mr. W. S. FitzGerald, director of law, and Mr. Alfred Clum, assistant city solicitor, for defendants in error.
The argument attacking the constitutionality of this ordinance is based upon two grounds: (1) That it was class legislation of unequal operation and discriminatory in character; (2) That...
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