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CITY OF MARIETTA v. HOWARD

Supreme Court of Georgia1952-02-11No. No. 17728
208 Ga. 719

Summary

Holding. The judgment overruling the demurrer was reversed. A municipality retains its police power to regulate and conditionally permit taxicab businesses on its streets independent of state law granting exemptions from licensing fees, because such operations constitute a privilege granted at the city's discretion rather than a vested right.

The City of Marietta enacted an ordinance regulating taxicab operations on its streets by conditioning such operations on obtaining a license at the city's discretion. A taxicab operator challenged the ordinance, relying on a state statute that exempts certain persons from paying business fees to cities. The operator argued that this state law prevented the city from regulating taxicab businesses. The court disagreed, finding that the state statute only eliminates licensing fees for specified individuals; it does not curtail a municipality's police power to regulate business activities or to decide whether to allow a particular business to operate at all.

The court held that operating a taxicab business on city streets is a privilege, not a right, unless the city has granted it by ordinance. Because the city's ordinance reserves discretionary authority to grant or deny taxicab licenses based on conditions it determines, and does not unconditionally confer a right to operate, the city may impose conditions on that privilege—including licensing fees—without running afoul of the state statute. The state law applies only to rights, not privileges. The court concluded that the operator failed to state a valid legal claim.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Scope of state statutory exemption from business licensing fees
  • Preservation of municipal police power to regulate business activities
  • Distinction between a regulatory right and a discretionary privilege in licensing

Procedural posture

The trial court overruled a demurrer to the taxicab operator's petition and issued an interlocutory injunction; the appellate court reviewed the propriety of that decision.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Duckworth, Chief Justice.

An erroneous interpretation of Code (Ann. Supp.) § 84-2011 (Ga. L. 1897, p. 24; 1898, p. 46; 1918, p. 116; 1919, p. 91; 1935, p. 163; 1947, p. 1151) upon the part of the petitioner is the cause of this litigation. That law purports only to relieve the persons there described from paying any fee to cities, towns, or counties for the right to engage in business. It also provides that a certificate from the ordinary shall be proof that he is exempt from paying any fee to any city, town, or county. The law stops there, but this petitioner seems to have construed it to constitute a denial of any power of such subordinate governmental units to regulate businesses that require close policing. The law relied upon neither expressly nor by implication takes away the police powers of towns, cities, or counties. McKinney v. Patton, 176 Ga. 719 (169 S. E. 16). Indeed the City of Marietta may prohibit altogether the use of its streets for the conduct of a taxicab business, since no one has a right to do so. Schlesinger v. Atlanta, 161 Ga. 148 (129 S. E. 861); Clem v. City of LaGrange, 169 Ga. 51 (149 S. E. 638); Jones v. City of Moultrie, 196 Ga. 526 (27 S. E. 2d, 39); City of Dalton v. Staten, 201 Ga. 754 (41 S. E. 2d, 145); Associated Cab Co. v. City of Atlanta, 204 Ga. 591 (50 S. E. 2d, 601). Until and unless the city enacts a valid ordinance conferring a right upon anyone meeting specified conditions to operate a taxicab business upon its streets, neither this petitioner nor anyone else has any right to do so. The ordinance in evidence here plainly refuses to confer such a right but reserves to the city the power to exercise its discretion, at the time all applications for such license are considered, to grant or refuse the same. Thus, by ordinance, the city refuses to confer a right to operate taxicabs and keeps it on a basis of a privilege. Being a mere privilege, the city may grant it or refuse to grant it as it chooses, and no one has a right to complain in court because of the city’s actions in that respect. McWhorter v. Settle, 202 Ga. 334 (43 S. E. 2d, 247); Atlanta Veterans Transportation v. Jenkins, 203 Ga. 457 (47 S. E. 2d, 324); City of Brunswick v. Anderson, 204 Ga. 515 (50 S. E. 2d, 337).

Counsel for the petitioner strongly contends that his position here is sustained by the decision in Macon v. Samples, 167 Ga. 150 (145 S. E. 57). That decision is no support for the petitioner’s contentions here, for the very solid reasons that the city, in spite of Code (Ann. Supp.) § 84-2011, was there demanding payment of a license fee, while here no fee is demanded, but the city stands upon its right to exercise its police power unhampered by the State law, and we sustain that contention. Moreover the decision there does not have the concurrence of all the Justices, and for that reason is not a binding precedent. We are not advised as to whether or not the city there had by ordinance conferred a right to operate taxicabs on its streets unconditionally. Here no such right has been conferred. The privilege by grace of the city may be given upon such conditions as the city chooses, which might be the payment of a fee, and those conditions including the fee must be fully satisfied without regard to the State law (Code, Ann. Supp., § 84-2011), which refers to rights only and not to privileges.

For the reasons above pointed out, the court erred in the judgment overruling the demurrer to the petition; and even had it alleged everything shown in the evidence on which the interlocutory injunction was issued, it would still have failed to allege a cause of action. The error in overruling the demurrer rendered all subsequent proceedings, including the injunction, nugatory.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Wyatt, J., who concurs in the judgment, but not in all that is said in the opinion.