City of Jacksonville v. Ledwith

26 Fla. 163
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJanuary 15, 1890
StatusPublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 26 Fla. 163 (City of Jacksonville v. Ledwith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Jacksonville v. Ledwith, 26 Fla. 163 (Fla. 1890).

Opinion

Raney, C. J.:

The act of May 31st, 1887, Chapter 3775, establishing the Municipality of Jacksonville, provides, in Section 4 of Article III, that the Mayor and City Council “shall have power by ordinance * * to make regulations to [187]*187secure the general health of the inhabitants and to prevent and remove nuisances; * * to provide for and regulate the inspection of beef, pork, flour, meal and other provisions, oils, whisky and other spirits in barrels, hogsheads and other vessels ; to regulate the inspection of milk, butter, lard and other provisions; to regulate the vending of meat, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables; to restrain and punish the forestalling and regrating of provisions, and to establish and regulate markets; * * and to pass all ordinances necessary for the health, convenience and safety of the citizens, and to carry out the full intent and meaning of this act, and to accomplish the object of this incorporation.”

The substance of the market ordinances of Jacksonville, as they stood on September ioth, 1889, the time the bill in this case was filed, is, omitting the penal provisions as to a violation of the same, as follows : The Public Market ordinance makes every day except Sunday a public market day, and constitutes the market buildings on Water Lot 24, at the foot of Market street, and “not elsewhere,” the Public Market; and ordains that stalls, tables, or space in this market shall be rented to butchers or others desiring to hire the same by the month, or such longer period as may be desirable, upon such terms, and for such sum as the Board of Public Works shall determine. It also provides that no person shall sell any fresh beef, fresh pork or mutton, or establish or maintain any market, stall or shop for the keeping or sale of fresh beef, pork or mutton at any place within the corporate limits, except at the public market, unless such person or persons shall be expressly authorized to do so by fhe City Council; provided, however, that producers bringing vegetables, poultry, eggs or other country produce to the city for sale shall be ^-mitted to sell the same free of tax anywhere witnm the city.

[188]*188The Private Market ordinance provides that private markets may be established, regulated and abolished at the discretion of the City Council, but no private market for the sale of fresh meats or fish shall be maintained within the city except with the permission of the City Council granted by resolution, and not more than one stall shall be permitted or licensed within the same building. Private markets must be constructed and maintained in accordance with specifications, rules and regulations approved by the City Board of Health governing the same and prescribing the size and character of stalls, and no permit for the establishment or maintenance of any private market shall be granted except upon a petition endorsed by the City Board of Health. No person can maintain or do business in a private market except upon paying to the City Treasurer for a license, the sum of five dollars per month for each and every stall used, and no person shall do the business contemplated by this ordinance except upon stalls licensed as heretofore provided.

A market, says Blackstone, is a franchise or liberty derived from the crown by grant, or by prescription which supposes a grant. 2 Com., 37 ; the establishment of public marts or places of buying and selling, such as markets and fairs, with the tolls thereunto belonging being in England within the King’s prerogative as to domestic commerce; 1 Com., 274; such prerogative consisting in the discre tionary power of acting for the public good where the positive laws are silent, and if it be abused by him to the public detriment, such prerogative is exerted in an unconstitutional manner. Ibid, 252. In Jácob’s Law Dictionary, as well as that of Tomlin, a market is defined to -be the liberty by grant or prescription, whereby a town is enabled to set up and open shops, &c., at a certain place therein for buy[189]*189ing and selling, and better provision of such victuals as the subject wanteth ; it being less than a fair and usually kept once or twice a week. Bouvier’s definition is : A public place and appointed time for buying and selling, a public place appointed by public authority where all sorts of things necessary for the subsistence or for the convenience of life are sold. In Ketchum vs. the City of Buffalo, 21 Barbour, 296, it is said, citing Crabb’s Law of Real Property, that a market is the privilege within a.town to have a market, and the franchise may be granted to natural persons or bodies politic; the grantee of the franchise has the right to have the market, but the public have also an interest in the market, and the grantee of the franchise is bound to provide suitable accommodations for those who attend the market. Judge Dillon, in his work on Municipal Corporations, note 4 to Section 380, quotes the definition given by Judge Breeze, which is : A designated place in a town or city to which all persons can repair who wish to buy or sell articles there exposed for sale. See also Cincinnati vs. Buckingham, 10 Ohio, 257; State vs. City of Newbern, 70 N. C., 12; City of Burlington vs. Dankworth, 73 Iowa, 170. The public character of markets is further illustrated by Prince vs. Lewis, 5 B. & C., 363, where the grantee of the market for the buying and selling of vegetables, fruits, flowers, roots and herbs, had for his own profit permitted part of the space to be used for other purposes than those specified in the grant, and the residue of the space became insufficient for public accommodation, and there was not on ordinary occasions space within the market for carts and wagons resorting thither with vegetables, etcetera, and it was held that the owner of the market could not maintain an actipn against an individual for selling vegetables in the neighborhood of the market and thereby de - [190]*190priving him of toll, even at a time when there was room in the market, without showing that on the day when the sale took place he gave notice to the seller that there was room within the market. Again, in Moseley vs. Walker, 7 B. & C., 55, it is said by Bayley, J.: I take it to be implied in the terms in which a, market is granted that the grantee if he confine it to particular parts within a town, shall fix it at such parts as will from time to time yield to the public reasonable accommodations; and that if the space once alloted ceases to. give reasonable accommodation, he is bound if he has land of his own to appropriate land on which to hold it; or if not, to get land from other people, in order that the market which was originally granted for the benefit of the people, as well as for the benefit of the grantee, may be effectually held, and that the public may have the benefit which was originally intended they should derive from it.

In the case of Mayor of Penryn vs. Best, 3 Law Reports, Exchequer Division, 292, decided in 1873, the Court said: “The mere grant of a market does not of itself confer the right to prevent persons from selling on market days in their private houses, though within the town or manor where the market may be held. This was decided in the case of Mayor of Macclesfield vs. Chapman, 12 M. &. W., 18. It is pointed out in the judgment that an old case, the Prior of Dunstable’s case, 11 H. 6, f. 19 a, and cited in City of London’s Case, 8 Rep., 127, a, had been erroneously supposed to decide the contrary. It may also be considered as decided by the case of Earl of Egremont vs. Saul, 6 Ad. & E., 924. We feel- bound by these authorities, although dicta

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Bluebook (online)
26 Fla. 163, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-jacksonville-v-ledwith-fla-1890.