County Commissioners v. English

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee, James Matthew English, at the time of the institution of the proceedings in this,case, was the owner of a trailer worth about 8600, consisting of living and sleeping quarters and a kitchenette, from which the wheels had been removed and which was resting on wooden blocks at Heintzeman’s Trailer Grove in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He, together with his family had been occupying this trailer house as a residence, place of abode and habitation continuously during the whole of the year 1942, and to date in 1943. This trailer house is not being used as a place of business or for any occupation, trade or calling, but it is exclusively a home for the appellee and his family.

He pays a weekly rental to the landowner of 83 a week and pays for all electric current used in this trailer house. He also paid the license fee to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles for the years 1942 and 1943, as provided in the 1939 Code, Article 56, Section 157. This trailer was duly assessed in the amount of 8100 by the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County for State and County property taxes for the year 1943, and under this assessment, as personal property, taxes were paid to the Treasurer of Anne Arundel County in the amount of 82.46. The appellee has been a resident of Anne Arundel County continuously since the year 1941, ⁵¹⁷ and has been continuously employed since that time in the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipbuilding Company plant at Fairfield in said county.

Some trailers at that camp were worth around $2,500 and all have sleeping quarters and cooking quarters, and the majority also have living quarters and ice boxes. It is stipulated and agreed that the Heintzeman’s Trailer Camp, where this trailer is located, has been fully examined by the Health Commission of Anne Arundel County and that it complies with the health regulations now enforced, as does also the appellee’s trailer. The General Assembly of Maryland, at the 1943 session, passed an Act, Chapter 983, applicable only to Anne Arundel County, now Article 2, Sections 486A, 486B, 486C, 486D and 486E of the Code of Public Local Laws of Maryland, 1930 Edition, which was duly signed, the essential parts of which, for the purpose of this case it is necessary to quote, being as follows: “486A. On and after June 15, 1943, it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to maintain, reside in or operate in Anne Arundel County any trailer used or to be used in the habitation or living quarters of any person or persons, without having secured a license for the maintenance of each such trailer from the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County.

The annual license fee for each such trailer shall be Thirty ($30.00) Dollars per year, accounting from June 1, 1943, and June 1st in each year thereafter. * * *. “All sums received by the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County for issuance of trailer licenses shall be paid over monthly to the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County and expended by it as a part of the general funds of Anne Arundel County. “486B. The tenant or lessee of a trailer shall be the person charged with the primary responsibility of securing a license for the use of said trailer in accordance with Section 486A. If the owner, operator, tenant, or lessee of a trailer fails to secure a license, the license fee shall become a lien on such trailer. The lien on such ⁵¹⁸ trailer may be enforced by sale at public auction by the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County, after notice by advertisement for two successive weeks in one or more newspapers of general circulation published in Anne Arundel County.

In case any trailer remains unlicensed for a period of five days, the owner of the land on which such trailer is located shall immediately notify the Building Inspector. It shall be the duty of the Building Inspector to enforce the provisions of this sub-title. “486C. Any person, firm or corporation operating, maintaining or residing in a trailer in Anne Arundel County without having secured a license, as required by Section 486A shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof by a court of competent jurisdiction, shall be fined not more than Twenty-five ($25.00) Dollars for each such violation, and each day that such violation shall continue shall be deemed a separate offense. }ji # í|í ífc “486E. The term ‘trailer’ as used in this sub-title means any structure of whatsoever kind or nature, utilized or capable of being utilized as the habitation or living quarters of any person or persons, which said structure is not in any manner whatsoever connected with the land on which it stands, except that connections for water, sewage and other similar facilities shall not be deemed a connection with the land within the definition herein set forth.

The provisions of this sub-title shall be liberally construed in favor of the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County, and nothing herein contained in any manner shall be held to require a restriction, of the licensing provisions of this sub-title only to automobile trailers or similar trailers, but this subtitle shall apply to all structures within the definition herein set forth. “Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any provision, clause, sentence, phrase, or part of this Act, or ⁵¹⁹ the application thereof to any person, firm or corporation or circumstances, is held invalid, the remainder of this sub-title and the application of such provisions to other persons, firms and corporations and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.” The appellee filed a bill of complaint in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County on June 15, 1943, alleging in substance the facts above stated and further that said Act of 1943, Chapter 983, supra, is illegal, arbitrary, discriminatory and unconstitutional and asked in said bill that said Act be declared unconstitutional, illegal and void. After answer filed by the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County, testimony was taken in open court. On the 6th day of August, 1943, that court passed a decree declaring that Chapter 983 of the Acts of 1943 was unconstitutional, null and void and ordered the defendants to pay the costs.

An appeal is taken to this court from that decree. In approaching this question, this court is mindful that the presumption is in favor of the validity of the law and it assumes that the Legislature intended a lawful enactment. A reasonable doubt as to its constitutionality is enough to sustain the Act. We cannot be concerned with the question of policy or the wisdom of the statute, as such questions of usefulness of the law, policy and expediency are for the Legislature.

Baltimore v. State, 15 Md. 376, 453 , 74 Am. Dec. 572 ; Harrison v. State, 22 Md. 468, 491 , 85 Am. Dec. 658 ; Anderson v. Baker, 23 Md. 531, 628 ; Davis v. Helbig, 27 Md. 452, 462 , 92 Am. Dec. 646 ; Fell v. State, 42 Md. 71, 89 , 20 Am.

Rep. 83 ; Shaffer v. Union Mining Co., 55 Md. 74, 80 ; Painter v. Mattfeldt, 119 Md. 466, 472 , 87 A. 413 ; Ruehl v. State, 130 Md. 188, 194 , 100 A. 75 ; Oursler v. Tawes, 178 Md. 471, 487 , 13 A. 2d 763 . In addition to the general presumption in favor of its validity, the Act specifically states that it shall be liberally construed in favor of the County Commissioners of Anne Arundel County. We must also recognize that the Legislature has the power of taxation over prop ⁵²⁰ erty in this State except as restricted, by the Federal and State Constitutions. McLane v. State Tax Commission, 156 Md. 133, 140 , 143 A. 656 ; Oursler v. Tawes, supra, 482.

The question therefore for our decision is whether this taxing measure is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States and by the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the State of Maryland and more specifically by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and by Articles 15 and 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. It is apparent that this Act is essentially a revenue-producing measure. The flat tax of $30 per year has no relation as to the cost to the county to enforce the statute. By payment of the tax, the licensee receives a license and no other conditions are required.

There is no provision in the Act as to compliance with health regulations. When a person pays his $30 tax, he gets his trailer license, and there are no other conditions to be complied with in order to get that license. This makes it a revenue measure. It cannot therefore be held constitutional on the grounds that it is enacted under the police power.

Judge Marbury said in the recent case of Maryland Theatrical Co. v. Brennan, 180 Md. 377 , at pages 381 and 385, 24 A. 2d 911 , 914: “In general, it may be said that when it appears from the act itself that revenue is its main objective, and the amount of the tax supports that theory, the enactment is a revenue measure. Tn general, * * * where the fee is imposed for the purpose of regulation, and the statute requires compliance with certain conditions in addition to the payment of the prescribed sum, such sum is a license proper, imposed by virtue of the police power; but where it is enacted solely for revenue purposes and its payment gives the right to carry on the business without any further conditions, it is a tax.’ 33 Am Jur., Licenses, Paragraph 19, Page 340. * * * It has been generally held that where an act is passed under the police power, the money collected under it ⁵²¹ must be not more than that necessary to carry out its provisions.” Let us first inquire whether this legislation is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and Article 23 of the Declaration of Rights of Maryland. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, of course, prohibits the denial of equal protection of the laws and the deprival of property without due process of law. Article 23 of the Declaration of Rights of Maryland prohibits the disseizing of a person’s freehold, liberty or privileges except by the Law of the Land.

This court has previously ruled that Article 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and the term, “due process of law,” as used in said amendment, are synonymous with the expression, “Law of the Land,” as used in Article 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Oursler v. Tawes, supra, 483; Niles, Constitutional Law, page 46. As to the alleged arbitrary and discriminatory classification and deprivation of property without due process of law by the Legislature in this Act, courts of last resort in many of the States of the Union have passed upon these matters. Of course, State constitutional provisions relative to raising revenue for the support of the respective State governments are by no means uniform.

Although these decisions are helpful, they are not in accord and, of course, are not controlling in this case. Oursler v. Tawes, supra, 481. However, this court adopted in that case at page 483 of 178 Md., at page 768 of 13 A. 2d, a construction of what is meant by these two expressions where Judge Mitchell said: “First of all, it may be observed that the Federal Constitution has not undertaken to lay down any hard and fast rule with respect to due process of law, the equal protection of the laws, or as to privileges and immunities ; and as tersely summarized in Board of Com’rs, etc., ⁵²² v. Johnson County, 173 Ind. 76, 89 , N. E. 590, 593: * * Nor does the equal protection clause prevent the states from adjusting their systems of taxation in all proper and reasonable ways. * * * If all persons who are in like circumstances, or affected alike, are treated under the laws the same, there is no deprivation of the equal protection of the law. * .* * Conversely, a law which operates upon some persons or corporations, and not upon others like situated or circumstanced or in the same class, is invalid. * * * So, classes of persons may be exempt from taxation upon reasonable grounds, or different kinds of property taxed in different ways. * * * Persons engaged in the same line of business may be classified, and different provisions applied to each class, without depriving any of them of the equal protection of the laws. * * * Corporations, individuals, wholesale and retail dealers, domestic and foreign corporations, may be separately classified and taxed differently, so long as the constituent classes are treated alike. * * * Whether a statute is applicable to a large or small class is a legislative, and not a judicial question. * * * But taxation is not uniform, or equal, when it applies to a portion of a class, and omits a portion. * * * The classification itself must be based upon natural reasons, upon reasons which naturally inhere in the subject-matter, upon real difference existing between the classes, and so as to produce no distinction between members of the same class’.” Although the State, for the purpose of raising taxes, has the right to impose upon members of a class tax burdens, it cannot be exerted so as to impose upon members of a selected class burdens which are not shared by others in like circumstances. As this court said through Judge Offutt in the case of Dasch v. Jackson, 170 Md. 251 , at pages 264 and 265, 183 A. 534 , 539: “For those ‘who make the law’ are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, ‘for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough.’ Locke on Civil ⁵²³ Government, Sec. 142; Cooley, Const.

Lim., 810. ‘Equality of rights, privileges, and capacities unquestionably should be the aim of the law; and if special privileges are granted, or special burdens or restrictions imposed in any case, it must be presumed that the legisláture designed to depart as little as possible from this fundamental maxim of government.’ Cooley, Const. Lim., 813. In Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540 , 22 S. Ct. 431, 439 , 46 L. Ed. 679 , it was said: ‘The difficulty is not met by saying that, generally speaking, the state when enacting laws may, in its discretion, make a classification of persons, firms, corporations, and associations, in order to subserve public objects. For this court has held that classification “must always rest upon some difference which bears a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which the classification is proposed, and can never be made arbitrarily and without any such basis. * * * But arbitrary selection can never be justified by calling it classification.

The equal protection demanded by the 14th Amendment forbids this. * * * No duty rests more imperatively upon the courts than the enforcement of those constitutional provisions intended to secure that equality of rights which is the foundation of free government. * * * It is apparent that the mere fact of classification is not sufficient to relieve a statute from the reach of the equality clause of the 14th Amendment, and that in all cases it must appear, not only that a classification has been made, but also that it is one based upon some reasonable ground, — some difference which bears a just and proper relation to the attempted classification, — and is not a mere arbitrary selection”.’ So, while the state has the power, for purposes of taxation, or for the legitimate protection or promotion of some substantial public interest to classify the objects upon which the power is exercised, the classification must have some rational basis, and the operation of the law upon persons or property within the class must be uniform and equal, 12 C. J. 1159, 1274, 1128 et seq., 1136; 6 R. C. L. 218, ⁵²⁴ 369, 373.” Although, as pointed out, the counties of this State are faced with a large influx of people necessary for war work in industrial centers