Montgomery County Motor Co. v. State

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant was indicted for unlawfully keeping “a garage for the hire, storage and sale of automobiles without first taking out a license therefor. * * *” It pleaded not guilty and the case was submitted to the court on the following agreed statement of facts, “1. The defendant, the Montgomery County Motor Company, a corporation, is the owner and occupant of two buildings in the town of Rockville, Montgomery County,' Maryland, in which it conducts the business of selling and repairing Ford and Lincoln automobiles and Fordson tractors and of selling automobile and tractor parts, ■ supplies and accessories. In one building it has its repair shops and salesrooms for supplies and accessories.

The other building is occupied by the company’s offices, showrooms and salesroom. “2. That it does not hire, store for hire or keep for hire, either temporarily or permanently, any automobile or other vehicle. Its business is limited to the selling and repairing of such vehicles, supplies and accessories. “3. That the defendant pays a trader’s license based on the average annual amount of its stock.

It is contended on the part of the State that this corporation should also pay a garage license as described by chapter Ho. 704, section 166 of the Acts of 1920, which it declines to do ánd it has been indicted for its failure to take out this character of license. “4. It is further agreed that the court shall have power to enter up verdict or judgment in conformity with its finding and the right to appeal is reserved.” ²³⁴ A verdict of .guilty was found by the court and a 'fine, imposed. This appeal is ’from that judgment. Eor the jurisdiction .of this Court in such an appeal, see Code, art. 5, sec. 2; Keller v. State, 12 Md. 322 .

Chapter 294 (in.the agreed statement erroneously called chapter 704) of the Acts of 1920 repeals and re-enacts, with amendments, section 166 of article 56 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, which is a codification of chapter 704, section 166 of the Acts of 1916, and provides as follows: “Ho person, firm, company, or corporation, resident or non-resident, in this State shall keep a garage for the hire, storáge or sale of automobiles until they shall first have obtained a license therefor, and shall pay an annual license fee based upon the square feet of each floor for each garage.” (Here follows a schedule of fees.) “A garage, as used within the terms of this section shall mean a place of storage for hire or a place where is kept for hire any automobile, locomobile, or any vehicle of any kind the motive power of which shall he electricity, steam, gas, gasoline, or any other motive power except animals, whether such automobile, locomobile or vehicle is kept therein permanently or temporarily, but wherever such garage has included within the building a machine shop, which machine shop is definitely defined by permanent partitions in the building, the space occupied by the same shall he exempted from taxation under this act.” The .sole question is: Does ¡a sales room for motor vehicles, whioh is not used for the hire, or the storage for hire, of any such vehicles, come within the purview of this act ? The learned trial court, iu an able opinion which presents the affirmative of the proposition as strongly as it could he stated, felt constrained to hold that it does, on the theory that otherwise the use of the word “sale” iu the statute would have no meaning. Its view was that “so far as garages for the sale of automobiles are concerned the provision needs no definition, but with respect to garages for the ²³⁵ Tire’ or ‘storage’ of automobiles,' it'-was evidently considered desirable to make the explanation that they were places where automobiles were kept or stored for hire,” b'ecause except for this explanation, the court thought, the statute would apparently have been