Baughman v. Sterrett Operating Service, Inc.

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The question here is as to the construction of a statute fixing the license charges for “commercial motor vehicles operating without a Public Service Commission permit-in ⁵¹ the transportation of freight or merchandise for hire,” in accordance with the schedule therein prescribed. Acts 1933, ch. 281, repealing and re-enacting Code (Supp. 1929), art. 56, sec. 182. The plaintiff, appellee, is a corporation, incorporated under the laws of Delaware, qualified to do business in Maryland.

It owns thirty-seven commercial vehicles, which are leased to individuals, partnerships, and corporations doing business in Maryland. The vehicles are leased under a form of agreement whereby it is provided: “That the term of this agreement shall be for one year from the last day of the month in which the first vehicle hereunder is available for service, with the further understanding and agreement that the term shall be automatically extended from year to year thereafter unless cancelled as herein provided.” Provision is made for the cancellation of the contract by either party upon written notice given sixty days before the end of any contract year. If the lessee cancels he must buy the vehicle; if the lessor, the lessee may buy it at the price fixed by the depreciation schedule contained in the agreement. The specimen contract filed as an exhibit to the bill of complaint provided for a monthly service charge of $59.65, and a per mile charge of fifty-nine cents, and by it the lessor was to provide storage, and furnish all gasoline, oil, repairs, washing, polishing, oiling and greasing.

The lessor pays all license fees and insurance on everything except the lessee’s goods. “The vehicles * * * listed will be supplied by S. O. S. (appellee) for the sole use of customer and will to all external appearances be his own private vehicles; however, title thereto shall at all times be and remain vested in S. O. S.” The cars so leased are used by the lessees in the hauling of their own merchandise and not for the transportation, by such lessees, of freight and merchandise of others for hire, and it is this provision, along with one by which the “Customer” provides the driver or chauffeur, that the plaintiff contends makes of the transaction a renting or leasing and not a hiring of the vehicle. ⁵² The General Assembly, in 1933, passed an act, chapter 281 (sec. 3), providing for the readjustment of license charges for commercial motor vehicles, which, provided that the licenses of all vehicles affected by the act should expire and be canceled the first day of June, 1933, and that those so affected would be required to obtain new licenses at the rates prescribed by the act, with a credit for the unexpired portions of the fees already paid. The bill charges that the plaintiff is informed that, unless it procures licenses under the provisions of the Act of 1933, at the rates therein prescribed, E. Austin Baughman, commissioner of motor vehicles, the appellant, will prosecute the plaintiff or its lessees and their drivers for the violation of that act, and prayed that its rights in the matter be determined and that the commissioner of motor vehicles be enjoined from interfering with the use of the license plates issued to it under the law as existing prior to the Act of 1933, and unchanged, so far as it was concerned, by the provisions of that act. These are substantially all of the facts alleged in the bill of complaint; at least all that we regard as necessary to a decision of the question here submitted.

The defendant answered, and by his answer admitted the facts alleged, but contended for a different construction of the act, so far as it applied to the plaintiff’s business. It was virtually a demurrer to the bill, and may be so considered. Goldsworthy v. Public Service Commission, 141 Md. 674 , 119 A. 693 . The case was submitted on bill and answer, and from a decree in favor of the plaintiff the defendant appeals.

The decision in this case depends on the meaning adopted of the words “for hire.” In 29 C. J. 756, it is said: “The word ‘hire’ is associated with the act of employment rather than the reward for services done; and in the latter connection is more on the plane of wages than of salary, although in a sense it comprehends both; and is also applied to engaging the use of property. We have very ancient and highly respcted authority for the understanding that it was the wages or re ⁵³ ward for personal service or employment (Luke X 7; 1 Timothy V 18), as well as the act of being hired. The Century Dictionary defines it as, “The price or compensation paid or contracted to be paid for the temporary