In Re Jones

1910 OK CR 158, 109 P. 570, 4 Okla. Crim. 74, 1910 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 19
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedJune 8, 1910
DocketNo. A-724.
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 1910 OK CR 158 (In Re Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Jones, 1910 OK CR 158, 109 P. 570, 4 Okla. Crim. 74, 1910 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 19 (Okla. Ct. App. 1910).

Opinion

RICHARDSON, Judge.

It is contended by petitioner that the ordinance in question is void, for the reason that the Incorporated Town of Eldorado had no statutory grant of power to pass the same; that municipal corporations are creatures of the Legislature, and can exercise only such powers as are expressly conferred by their charter or by statute; that a grant of power to them must be strictly construed, so that they take nothing by implication; and that they have no power to declare anything a nuisance unless it is so per se.

It is true that a municipal corporation has no power except that which is specifically granted or necessarily implied. Dillon on Municipal Corporations defines the powers of such corporations as, “First, those granted in express words; second, those necessarily or fairly implied in,, or incident to, the powers expressly granted; third, those essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation, not simply convenient, but indispensable.” And he also states that, “Any fair, reasonable doubt concerning the ex *77 istence of power is resolved by the court against the corporation, and the power is denied. Of every municipal corporation, the charter or statute by which it was created is its organic act. Neither the corporation nor its officers can do any act or make any contract or incur any liability not authorized thereby. All acts beyond the scope of the powers granted, are void.” The foregoing statements of the law have been quoted, approved and adopted by courts innumerable; and constitute perhaps- as clear, accurate, and succinct a rule for determining the power and the limitations upon the power of municipal corporations as could be formulated. Bearing this rule in mind, then, as our guide, let us examine our statutes and see if such power as that attempted to b.e exercised by the passage of this ordinance is granted to incorporated towns in this state.

Cities of the first class are by express statute authorized “to restrain, prohibit and suppress tippling shops, billiard tables, bowling alleys, houses of prostitution, and other disorderly houses.” Section 683, Snyder’s Comp. Laws. But no such express grant of power is given to incorporated towns and villages so far as billiard halls and bowling alleys are concerned. It is provided by section 847 of Snyder’s Comp. Laws with respect to towns and villages that, “The board of trustees shall have the following powers, namely: 4th, to declare1 what shall constitute a nuisance, and to prevent, abate and remove the same, * * And it is clear that if the town of Eldorado had the power to enact the ordinance in question that power must be found in the 4th sub-division of the section just quoted; and -from the title and wording of the ordinance it is also clear that it was from this source that the trustees claimed the power which they sought to exercise.

Within constitutional limitations the Legislature has the power to declare what shall constitute a nuisance; and in the exercise of that power it is not restricted to declaring only such things a nuisance as were so at common law or are so per se. Joyce on the Law of Nuisances, sections 81, 82. and 83; Ripley v. State, *78 4 Ind. 264; Train v. Boston Disinfecting Co., 144 Mass. 523, 11 N. E. 929, 59 Am. Rep. 113; Fisher v. McGirr, 1 Gray (Mass.) 1, 61 Am. Dec. 381; Moses v. United States, 16 App. D. C. 428, 50 L. R. A. 532; Lawton v. Steele, 119 N. Y. 226, 23 N. E. 878, 7 L. R. A. 134, 16 Am. St. Rep. 113; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 31 L. Ed. 205. It may declare billiard and pool halls and bowling alleys nuisances and forbid them; that is a legitimate exercise of the police power. State v. Noyes, 30 N. H. 279; Freund on Police Power, sec. 193.

Now, the Legislature may delegate this power' to municipal corporations to be exercised within their corporate boundaries. “After repeated challenge of municipal authority to exercise the police power, on the ground that it is a sovereign power and therefore non-delegable, the doctrine is firmly established and now well recognized that the Legislature may expressly or by implication delegate to municipal corporations the lawful exercise of police power within their boundaries; the measure of power thus conferred is subject to legislative discretion.” 28 Cyc. 693, and the many cases there cited. And Judge Freeman states in his note to Robinson v. Mayor of Franklin, 34 Am. Dec. 625, 632, that, “Discretionary powers” granted to a municipal corporation, to be exercised according to its judgment as to the necessity or expediency of a given measure, vests the corporation, within the sphere of the powers delegated, with a control as absolute as the Legislature would have possessed if it had never delegated the powers, and the discretion of the municipality in respect to the exercise of the powers granted is as wide as that possessed by the government of the state.” And in support of the statement he cites the following cases: Gas Co. v. Des Moines, 44 Iowa, 509, 24 Am. Rep. 56; Dillon on Munic. Corp., sec. 308, (3d Ed.) ; Ex parte Burnett, 30 Ala. 469; Osborne v. Mayor, 44 Id. 498; Ex parte Wall, 48 Cal. 321, 17 Am. Rep. 425; Covington v. East St. Louis, 78 Ill. 550; Indianapolis v. Gas Light and Coke Co., 66 Ind. 402; Perdue v. Ellis, 18 Ga. 591; Kniper v. Louisville, 7 Bush (Ky.) 601; Mayor *79 v. Morgan (La.) 7 Mart. 5, 18 Am. Dec. 234; Portland v. Water Co., 67 Me. 137; Heland v. Lowell, 5 Allen (Mass.) 108; State v. Dwyer, 21 Minn. 513; St. Paul v. Coulter, 12 Id. 46; Taylor v. Carondelet, 22 Mo. 110; Metcalf v. St. Louis, 11 Id. 103; State v. Noyes, 30 N. H. 288; Howe v. Plainfield, 37 N J. L. 146; Presb. Church v. New York, 5 Cow. 541; Markle v. Akron, 14 Ohio, 590; Respub. v. Duquet, 2 Yeates (Pa.) 500; State v. Williams, 11 S. C. 291; Trigally v. Memphis, 6 Coldw. (Tenn.) 389; Milne v. Davidson, 5 Mart. (La.) 409; 16 Am. Dec. 189, and note.

Now, turning again to the statute under consideration, we find that the board of trustees of incorporated towns are expressly empowered to declare what shall constitute a nuisance, and to prevent the same. This delegation of authority is apparently as broad and comprehensive as the Legislature could make it, and according to some decisions grants to a municipality the power to declare anything local in its character and operation a nuisance which the Legislature could constitutionally include in a statutory definition of the word, and' thus leaves the municipal power in this respect limited only by the state and federal Constitutions. But according to the greater weight of authority this grant empowers a municipality to declare only those things a nuisance which are so per se,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1910 OK CR 158, 109 P. 570, 4 Okla. Crim. 74, 1910 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 19, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-jones-oklacrimapp-1910.