Vansant v. Harlem Stage Co.

Stone, J., delivered tbe opinion of tbe Court. The Act of 1880, chap. 69, of the Public Local Laws, conferred upon the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, the power to license and regulate certain vehicles, owned and used in the city, and also to license and regulate certain occupations carried on therein. The true construction of this Act, and to define what power it intended to grant to the city, and whether the city, in its dealing with the appellee, has exceeded the powers it derived from that Act, are the two questions presented to us on this appeal. First, as to tbe true construction of tbe Act of 1880.

Tbis Court has laid down some general rules for tbe construction of tbe grant of powers to municipal corporations, in tbe case of St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys vs. Brown, et al., 45 Md., 310, 332 , which will materially aid us in the determination of tbe present case. “ It is a well settled rule of construction,” says tbe Court, “of grants by tbe Legislature to corporations, whether public or private, that only such powers and rights can be exercised under them, as are clearly comprehended within tbe words of tbe Act, or derived therefrom by necessary implication, regard being bad to tbe objects of tbe grant. ³³⁴ Any ambiguity or doubt arising out of tbe terms used by tbe Legislature must be resolved in favor of the public.” Again the Court says, quoting from Dillon, “It is important to bear in mind that the authority to municipalities to impose burdens of any character upon persons or property is wholly statutory, and as its exercise may result in a divestiture and transfer of property, it must he clearly given and strictly pursued.” Applying these wise and salutary rules to the construction of the Act of 1880, chap. 69, and we think it was the manifest intention of the Legislature, to give to the Mayor and City Council, the power to license and regulate the employments and vehicles described in the Act under what is generally termed the Police power, as a means of the regulation of the business carried on, and .not with a view to revenue. There is certainly no express grant of the power of taxation for revenue in the Act, nor can any such power he drawn from it by necessary implication. The word.tax is not once mentioned in the Act, and if the primary object of the law was to authorize the city to levy and collect a tax for the purpose of raising revenue, it is singular indeed, when apt and appropriate words to express such purpose abound, that none such were used. The term “revenue” used in the proviso, is used in the same sense as—“the money received” from the license, and in fact, .only makes a particular appropriation of the license money, when without such proviso, it would have gone for general municipal uses.

If the power to tax for revenue purposes was the purpose of the Act of 1880, then the power over the particular subjects mentioned in the Act, would (with the exception of the constitutional restrictions,) be unlimited. It would require the most unequivocal language to satisfy us, that the State intended to delegate such a power, over any class of her citizens, or any description of property within her borders, to a municipal corporation. ³³⁵ It is true that the power to license and regulate, carries with it, by necessary implication, the power to levy some tax. But in such cases the tax is a mere incident to the main purpose of the law. It is only intended as a means provided for carrying the law into effect.

It is the bill of costs attendant upon the expense, trouble and labor of licensing and supervising. “ A right to license an employment,” says Judge Cooley, in his work on Con. Lim., 201, “does not imply a right to charge a license fee therefor, with a view to revenue, unless such seems to be the manifest purpose of the power; but the authority of the corporation will be limited to such a charge for the license, as will cover the necessary expenses of issuing it, and the additional labor of officers and other expenses thereby imposed. A license is issued under the Police power ; but the exaction of a license fee, with a view to revenue would be the exercise of the power of taxation; and the charter must plainly show an intent to confer that power, or the municipal corporation cannot assume it.” The distinction between the power of taxation and the usual police powers, which are granted for the maintenance of peace and order, in a city is well settled. The functions of the latter are not primarily the raising of revenue.

Incidentally, the public treasury may be benefited by the license fees, where the power is specifically to license. But in all such cases the Court must see, that