Bevard v. Baughman

DlGGES, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Nos. 11 and 12 were argued together and raise substantially the same question, namely, the constitutionality of chapter 281 of the Acts of 1933. The question was presented by a bill in equity filed by the appellants, wherein they sought to restrain and enjoin the commissioner of motor vehicles, temporarily and permanently, from instituting proceedings for the prosecution of the appellants for operating or permitting the operation during the year 1933 within the State of Maryland of certain motor vehicles described in the bill, without the payment of any registration or license fees therefor other than or in addition to those theretofore paid; that the commissioner of motor vehicles be commanded either to revoke the cancellation of the licenses issued as aforesaid to the complainants, or to renew the same for the balance of the year 1933 without the payment of any registration or license fees therefor other than or in addition to those theretofore paid; that the right of complainants to operate within the State of Maryland during the year 1933 without the payment of any registration or license fees therefor, other than or in addition to those theretofore paid, may be established ; and that chapter 281 of the Acts of 1933 may be construed and be declared to be an invalid and unconstitutional exercise of legislative powers upon the- part of the General Assembly of Maryland, as being in conflict with both the Maryland Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. The appeal in each case is from an order of Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City, where ⁵⁸ in it was ordered and directed that the preliminary injunction theretofore issued be dissolved, the permanent injunction refused, and the bill of complaint dismissed.

For the purposes of decision in these cases, chapter 281 may be thus summarized: (1) It segregates commercial motor vehicles, operating without a Public Service Commission permit in the transportation of freight or merchandise for hire, into separate classes: (2) it levies a tax upon each vehicle in a class, the tax being graduated according to the shipping weight of the chassis of each vehicle in pounds. The title of chapter 281 of the Acts of 1933 is: “An Act to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Section 182 of Article 56 of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, 1929 Edition, title ‘Licenses,’ sub-title ‘Fees for Registration of Motor Vehicles’; to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Section 194 of Article 56 of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, 1929 Edition, title ‘Licenses,’ sub-title ‘Speed, Size, Weight, Construction and Equipment of Motor Vehicles,’ for the purpose of dividing commercial motor vehicles operating for hire and driven by motor fuel or electricity equipped with pneumatic tires, and solid tires, into various classes, and taxing such vehicles according to classes; and for the purpose of dividing trailers and semi-trailers equipped with rubber tires into various classes and taxing according to class, and defining the gross weight which can be carried by each such class of motor vehicles, trailers and semitrailers.” Section 182 provides: “The following fees shall be paid per annum to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles for the markers and certificates of registration issued by him in accordance with the provisions of this sub-title.” The act then provides for classifications designated from A to K, inclusive. Class A designates the license fees for motor vehicles with pneumatic tires, with the exception of those operating without a Public Service Commission permit in transportation of freight or merchandise for hire, and fixes the fee at thirty-two cents per horse power per an ⁵⁹ num. (Prior to the effective date of chapter 281 the license fee for all motor vehicles equipped with pneumatic tires operating without a Public Service Commission permit was fixed at thirty-two cents per horse power per annum.) Motor vehicles equipped with pneumatic tires and used commercially, that is, when engaged in the transportation of freight or merchandise for hire, are further subdivided according to whether or not they have two or three axles, and whether or not they are operated electrically or by internal combustion engines.

In each of these classes the fee is fixed by the weight of the chassis of the motor vehicles in their respective classes. General class B, as defined by the act, provides for license fees for solid tire vehicles, and provides a different license fee for such vehicles, dependent upon whether they are propelled by internal combustion engines or by power other than that generated by internal combustion engines. Section 194 regulates the speed, size, weight, construction, and equipment of motor vehicles. The record discloses that the appellants in No. 11 are the owners of pneumatic tired motor trucks in which they haul the goods of others for compensation.

The complaint of the appellants in both cases is based upon what they allege to be an improper, arbitrary, and unreasonable classification in two respects: First, that a distinction is made between commercial motor vehicles with pneumatic tires operated for hire, and the same kind of vehicles not operated for hire; and, second, that a distinction is made in favor of solid tired vehicles as against pneumatic tired vehicles operated for hire. The real question to be determined, therefore, is whether or not the Legislature, in making a classification which results in a larger fee being exacted from the owner of an automobile engaged in transporting freight or merchandise for hire, than from the owner of the same automobile not engaged in carrying freight or merchandise for hire, and the further classification of commercial vehicles, that is, those operating for hire, into those equipped with pneumatic tires and those equipped in part ⁶⁰ or in whole with solid tires, has acted arbitrarily and unreasonably. In other words, the complainants in the first case, in effect, say two things: First, that “I own an automobile truck equipped with pneumatic tires, with which I haul my own produce or merchandise, and I have identically the same automobile truck which I use in the transportation of freight and merchandise, belonging to others, for hire; and the action of the State in requiring a larger fee for the one which I use in transportation for hire than for the one which I use for pleasure or transporting my own products or merchandise, has no reasonable basis, and therefore is arbitrary and invalid”; and, second, that “I have an automobile truck engaged in transportation for hire, equipped with pneumatic tires, and I have another truck of exactly the same model, size and weight, the only difference being that it is equipped wholly or in part with solid tires; and the action of the State in imposing and collecting a larger license fee for .the truck equipped with pneumatic tires than for the one equipped with solid tires, is also unreasonable, arbitrary and illegal.” The action of the State in classifying and fixing the fees to be paid for the operation of motor vehicles in Maryland, beginning with the original act in 1906, has been a growth culminating in the Act of 1933, chapter 281, which is now being attacked. Chapter 449, section 131, of the Acts of 1906, provided that the owner of a motor vehicle should pay a flat fee of $3 per vehicle.

By the Act of 1910, ch. 207, sec. 136, this blanket form of fee was changed to a graduated fee, depending upon the horsepower of the vehicle, that act providing for a fee of $6 per annum for each motor vehicle with a rating of 20 horsepower or less, $12 per annum for one with a rating of more than 20 horse-power and less than 40 horse-power, and $18 per annum for one with a rating of more than 40 horse-power. The Act of 1912, ch. 133, continued this graduated horse-power rating system, and made a slight modification in the rate per horse-power. That method of taxing motor vehicles on a horse-power rating basis has ⁶¹ continued without interruption from its inception in 1912 to the present time, in so far as pleasure cars are concerned. See chapter 281, class A, Acts of 1933.

The Act of 1916, ch. 687, sec. 141, created a class of “for hire” vehicles, and provided a separate tax against this class, the fee for hire vehicles being 50 cents per horse-power or fraction thereof in the case of all motor vehicles having pneumatic tires, with a minimum charge of $5 for any motor vehicles, and $1 per horse-power or fraction thereof in the case of all motor vehicles operating for the purpose of transporting persons for hire. In addition to the above, there was passed at this same session of the Legislature chapters 610 and 714 of the Acts of 1916. Chapter 714 segregated into a separate class, and taxed as a separate class, vehicles operating in the “public transportation of merchandise or freight.” Vehicles in this class were, in turn, divided into three separate weight classes, and taxed according to weight. Chapter 610 segregated into a separate class and taxed as a separate class, motor vehicles operating in the “public transportation of passengers for hire.” It will thus be seen that after the effective dates of the Acts of 1916, motor vehicles were segregated and taxed as: (1) “For hire” passenger vehicles; (2) vehicles used in the public transportation of passengers for hire; (3) vehicles used in the public transportation of freight or merchandise; (4) noncommercial vehicles.

The tax on vehicles engaged in the public transportation of passengers for hire and the public transportation of freight or merchandise was computed upon a weight basis or capacity seat basis. From the year 1916 until the Act of 1927 there was no essential change made in the vehicle tax laws of the state. By chapter 152, sec. 259, of the Acts of 1927, there was created a separate class, taxed as a separate class, of all “for hire” carriers of freight and merchandise operating between fixed termini and on a regular schedule. The foregoing is roughly a resume of the statutory legislation of the State in reference to license fees for motor vehicles up to the act now in question.

This act places ⁶² all commercial motor vehicles operating for hire in the transportation of freight or merchandise in the same class, taxing each vehicle according to weight classification. As a result of the Act of 1933 there are the following classes of motor vehicles, taxed according to each class: (a) Commercial motor vehicles engaged in the public transportation of passengers for hire, (b) Commercial motor vehicles transporting freight or merchandise for hire between fixed termini or on regular schedule, and required to have a Public Service Commission permit, (c) Commercial motor vehicles transporting freight or merchandise for hire, but not operating on a regular schedule or between fixed termini, and not required to have a Public Service Commission permit, (d) Vehicles carrying passengers “for hire,” that is, taxicabs. By tracing the history of this legislation it will be seen that, from 1916 until 1933, vehicles using the roads of the state as a place of business have been placed in separate categories or classes, and taxed at a different rate basis from other vehicles; and further, that from 1916 a computation of taxes based on weight has been followed. This legislation has been passed upon in one form or another in many cases since 1912.

In the case of Ruggles v. State, decided in 1913, 120 Md. 553 , 87 A. 1080, 1082 , the constitutionality of the Act of 1912 was challenged. That act provided that a license fee for operating a motor vehicle in the state should be $2, while the fee for a chauffeur’s license should be $5 annually. It was contended in that case that an illegal distinction was drawn between a commercial operation and a non-commercial operation, and therefore the act was unconstitutional, was an arbitrary classification dividing commercial operators from non-commercial operators, and denied the equal protection of the law. It was also contended that the act violated the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution and the twenty-third article of the Declaration of Rights of Maryland., In dealing with the question, Judge Urner, speaking for the court, said: “The validity of the statute is next assailed on the ground that ⁶³ it unduly discriminates against those who operate motor vehicles for salary, wages, hire, or profit, thereby denying to them the equal protection of the law, contrary to the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution.” In denying the validity of such a contention the court said: “But in any event the validity of this provision can be readily sustained as an exercise of the well recognized power of the state to impose license taxes upon occupations within its limits.

State v. Applegarth, 81 Md. 300 , 31 A. 961 ; Rohr v. Gray, 80 Md. 276 , 30 A. 632 ; Mason v. Cumberland, 92 Md. 461 , 48 A. 136 ; Meushaw v. State, 109 Md. 91 , 71 A. 457 ; License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462 , 18 L. Ed. 497 ; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 278 , 23 L. Ed. 347 ; 25 Cyc. 599. This consideration disposes also of the additional objection urged that the exaction of a special license fee in the case of those who operate motor vehicles for salary, wages, hire, or profit deprives the defendant of his property without due process of law, contrary to the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and of the twenty-third article of the Declaration of Rights of Maryland.” In that case the court recognized the legitimate and legal distinction between a commercially operated and a non-commercially operated automobile, and the right to tax each at a different rate. The case of Grossfeld v. Baughman, Commissioner, 148 Md. 330 , 129 A. 370 , was an appeal from an order dismissing a petition for a writ.of mandamus against the commissioner of motor vehicles. Chapter 412 of the Acts of 1924 directed the commissioner of motor vehicles to refuse the issuance or transfer of title to any motor vehicle in the City of Baltimore, unless the taxes of the transferor upon the motor vehicle were paid.

By that act commercial vehicles were specifically segregated into a separate class, and exempted from the provisions of the act. The same attack was made upon the constitutionality of that act as is now being urged here. This court, speaking through Judge Parke, at page 334 of 148 Md., 129 A. 370, 372, said: “The appellants contend that the act is unconstitutional (1) because it deprives the citizen ⁶⁴ of his property without due process of law; (2) because it denies to the citizen of Maryland the equal protection of the law; (3) because it violates the constitutional right to the citizen of uniform taxation; (4) because it ‘infringes fundamental principles of right and justice.’ * * * In support of this position, provisions of article 14 of the Constitution of the United States, articles 23, 15, and 45 of the Declaration of Rights, and article 3, sec. 33, of the Constitution of Maryland, are invoked.” In considering these objections the court said “The power to tax is inherent in sovereignty. The method of its imposition is, however, a proper subject of inquiry, and it must survive the test of uniformity and equality.

If, however, a law provides for the classification of the property, subject to its operation into different classes, and makes for one of these classes particular provisions so as to enforce the payment of the taxes on that class of property through regulatory inhibitions on its use and devolution of title, the requirement of equality and uniformity of procedure is met, if the provisions have impartial application to all members of this class so that the law shall operate equally and uniformly on all persons in similar circumstances.” In the case of Restivo v. Public Service Commn., 149 Md. 30 , 129 A. 884 , the defendant was operating a regular passenger service between two points in the State of Maryland without first obtaining a permit from the Public Service Commission. He alleged that he was a private carrier, and as such was not subject to the Public Service Commission. This contention was denied by the lower court in a decree refusing an injunction against the Public Service Commission. The ruling was affirmed on appeal by this court, and in an opinion by Judge Walsh the court clearly recognized that, from the beginning of this class of legislation^ a distinction has been made and approved between commercial motor vehicles for hire and other motor vehicles, and that each may be taxed as a separate and distinct class.

It