National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc. v. Cefalu

280 So. 2d 903
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedJune 11, 1973
Docket52679
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 280 So. 2d 903 (National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc. v. Cefalu) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc. v. Cefalu, 280 So. 2d 903 (La. 1973).

Opinion

280 So.2d 903 (1973)

NATIONAL FOOD STORES OF LOUISIANA, INC.
v.
Hon. Earle CEFALU, Mayor, Town of Amite, Louisiana, et al.

No. 52679.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 11, 1973.
Rehearing Denied August 20, 1973.

*904 Guste, Barnett & Colomb, William M. Barnett, Sidney L. Shushan, New Orleans, for plaintiff-respondent.

Schilling & Simpson, Edwin C. Schilling, Jr., Amite, for defendants-applicants.

*905 CALOGERO, Justice.

The plaintiff, National Food Stores of Louisiana, Inc. seeks injunctive relief prohibiting the Town of Amite and certain elected officials therein from enforcing its Town Ordinance No. 291. This ordinance is commonly referred to as a "Sunday Closing Law", and had been used to prohibit plaintiff from operating a supermarket within the city limits of Amite on Sunday. Plaintiff alleges that this local ordinance is unconstitutional in that it is inconsistent with La.R.S. 51:191-51:194, the general statewide "Sunday Closing Law", and thus in contravention of La.Const. of 1921, Art. 14, Sec. 40(d).[1]

At the time the suit for a permanent injunction and application for a preliminary injunction were filed in the district court the plaintiff obtained a temporary restraining order. At the hearing in which the application for a preliminary injunction and defendants' motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order were consolidated, the district judge ruled that the temporary restraining order should be dissolved and the rule for a preliminary injunction was dismissed, holding the ordinance valid and enforceable.

Plaintiff, National Food Stores, Inc., appealed from the dismissal of their application for a preliminary injunction. La.C.C. P. Art. 3612. The First Circuit Court of Appeal held that the municipal ordinance was in contravention of the general statewide "Sunday Closing Law", LSA-R.S. 51:191-51:194 and was, therefore, unconstitutional. LSA Constitution Art. 14, Sec. 40(d). A rehearing was granted and the court of appeal reaffirmed their original opinion that the ordinance was unconstitutional, but also gave instructions to the trial judge to issue a permanent injunction.

We granted a writ of review at the instance of the defendants, the mayor and other elected officials of the Town of Amite.[2]

The plaintiff reurges here the argument accepted by the Court of Appeal that the Town of Amite should be enjoined from enforcing Ordinance No. 291 because it is inconsistent with LSA-R.S. 51:191-51:194 and therefore, in violation of Louisiana Const. Art. 14, Sec. 40(d).

The ordinance is criminal in nature (see text infra) and one who seeks injunctive relief from its enforcement must satisfy three conditions, namely, he must show: (1) the clear invasion of a property right; (2) threatened irreparable injury; and (3) the manifest unconstitutionality of the statute. See West v. Winnsboro, 252 La. 605, 211 So.2d 665 (1968).

Under our jurisprudence the plaintiff has clearly satisfied the first two conditions. It has been shown that plaintiff's right to conduct a business, a substantial property right, will be invaded in the absence of the granting of the injunction sought. Secondly, threatened irreparable injury has been sufficiently demonstrated. Pending against plaintiff's store manager in the Mayor's Court of Amite at the time this case was argued were charges arising out of the violation of the subject ordinance. Furthermore, the plaintiff has demonstrated that its supermarket will lose approximately $1,400.00 in sales receipts each Sunday that the ordinance remains in effect.

The defendants argue that no irreparable injury is shown in the instant case because plaintiff has an adequate remedy at law by way of a defense to the *906 criminal prosecution which arose out of the enforcement of the ordinance. However, as this Court held in West v. Winnsboro, supra, the requirement of irreparable injury (that the plaintiff be without an adequate remedy at law) is satisfied under these circumstances. "When unconstitutional ordinances or laws interfere with the pursuit of a lawful occupation, this Court has declined to rate the defense of a prosecution as an adequate remedy and has granted injunctive relief." West v. Winnsboro, supra, 211 So.2d 665, 671.

The final condition, manifest unconstitutionality of the ordinance, remains for consideration. It is alleged that Amite Ordinance No. 291 is unconstitutional because it is in contravention of and inconsistent with the general state law covering the same subject matter.

The pertinent provisions of the ordinance under attack read as follows:

"Section 1: That from and after this ordinance takes effect all stores, shops, saloons, and all places of public business which are or may be licensed under the ordinances or municipal laws of the Town of Amite are hereby required to be closed at 12 o'clock on Saturday nights and to remain closed continuously for 24 hours during which period of time it shall be unlawful for the proprietors thereof, or their employees or agents to give trade, barter, exchange, or sell any of the stock or any article of merchandise kept in such an establishment.
"Section 2: That whosoever shall violate the provision of this ordinance for each offense shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on trial and conviction shall pay a fine of not less than ten dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars or be imprisoned for not less than three days, nor more than ten days, or both, at the discretion of the court.
"Section 3: That the provisions of this ordinance shall not apply to printing offices, drug stores, undertakers shops, dairies, railroad or express offices, hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, telegraph offices and theatres, gasoline and oil filling stations, garages, the sale and delivery of ice and morning newspapers, and providing further that no alcoholic, vinous, or malt liquors shall be given, traded, bartered, sold or delivered on said day between the hours of twelve o'clock midnight and 7:00 A.M. o'clock, and from 10:00 A.M. o'clock until 2:00 P.M. o'clock."

The general state law governing Sunday closing is found at LSA-R.S. 51:191-51:194, which sections provide in pertinent part:

"Section 191. Places of business to be closed; penalty
"All stores, shops, saloons, and all places of public business, licensed under the law of Louisiana or under any parochial or municipal law and all plantation stores, shall be closed at twelve o'clock on Saturday nights, and remain closed continuously for twenty-four hours, during which time no proprietor thereof shall give, trade, barter, exchange or sell any of the stock or any article of merchandise kept in this establishment.
"Whoever violates this Section shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than two hundred and fifty dollars, or imprisoned for not less than ten days nor more than thirty days, or both for each offense.
"Section 192. Exemptions
"The provisions of R.S. 51:191 shall not apply to newsdealers, the sale of ice, watering places and public parks, places of resort for recreation and health, newspaper offices, keepers of soda fountains, printing offices, book stores, drug stores, apothecary shops, undertaker shops, public and private markets,

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280 So. 2d 903, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-food-stores-of-louisiana-inc-v-cefalu-la-1973.