State v. Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

124 So. 769, 169 La. 167, 1929 La. LEXIS 1963
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedNovember 4, 1929
DocketNo. 30049.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 124 So. 769 (State v. Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Co.) 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
State v. Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 124 So. 769, 169 La. 167, 1929 La. LEXIS 1963 (La. 1929).

Opinion

OVERTON, J.

This is a proceeding by rule, instituted by the state tax collector of the parish of Orleans against the Louisiana Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Limited, to recover peddler’s licenses for the years 1926, 1927, and 1928. The defenses urged involve the applicability to defendant of the act, levying the license, the constitutionality of the license levied, and the right to collect a license for each truck used, or the right to collect a license, based on the number of trucks used.

Defendant is a Louisiana corporation, domiciled and doing business in New Orleans, where it is engaged in the manufacture of soft drinks and the sale of the same. The manner in which defendant does business is substantially as follows; Its trucks leave defendant’s plant each morning, loaded exclusively with goods of its manufacture, for the purpose of disposing of them. Each truck has a prescribed route, mapped out in advance by defendant, and the driver knows in advance the places at which he is to call, and with some reasonable degree of certainty the quantity of defendant’s goods each store or soft drink stand will require. The proprietors of these stores and stands are under no obligation to purchase when the truck calls. It is optional with them whether they purchase or not. The sales are made at a standard price by the drivers, or other employees, accompanying them, from the trucks, *169 and delivery is made at once. The sales are made for resale, and not for consumption. Some of the trucks are confined to the parish of Orleans, while others go outside of it. In going from store to store, the goods are not exposed for sale, for the obvious reason they are well known to the trade and are of standard quality.

We find it necessary to pass on only one of the defenses urged, and that defense is that the act levying the license, which is an amen-' datory act, is unconstitutional, because its title is insufficient to give notice of the intention to define the word “peddler,” especially by including in the definition the going “from store to store, exposing and selling the merchandise which he carries with him and delivering the same,” thereby incorporating in the generally accepted definition of peddler a new class of persons, namely, those selling for resale.

The licenses, which it is the purpose of this proceeding to collect, are licenses levied by section 2 of Act No. 299 of 1926.

The title of the act is: “An act to amend and re-enact the title and sections 18 and 25 of and by adding section 25B to Act 205 of 1924, entitled: ‘An act to levy, collect and enforce payment of an annual license tax on all persons, associations of persons, firms and corporations pursuing any trade, profession, vocation, calling or business, in pursuance of section 8 of article X of the Constitution of 1921; prescribing the mode and method in which all persons subject to license. shall make report of their business; providing remedies to enforce compliance therewith; prescribing penalties for making false statements or affidavits in relation thereto; and to repeal conflicting and inconsistent laws.’ ”

In section 1 of the act, the title of Act 205 of 1924 is amended and re-enacted by repeating its title verbatim, as given above, in giving the title of the amendatory act, except that after the words “section 8 of article X of the Constitution of 1921” is inserted the following clause, namely: “Except manufacturers who sell their manufactured articles direct from their manufacturing plants or warehouses” — thus giving notice of the intention, in the title of the Act of 1924, as amended and re-enacted in the body of the amendatory act, to exclude from license taxation manufacturers who sell their manufactured articles direct from their factories or warehouses.

Section 25 of the Act of 1924, which is one of the sections to be amended, is a section levying a license on various callings, such as carrying on the business of keeping motor vehicles for hire, or conducting an agency for steamboats or steamships, or following the calling of a funeral director, or engaging in the business of posting bills, and on all businesses not provided for in that act, and not otherwise provided for by separate law, exi cept manufacturing, thereby exempting manufacturing from license taxation. The Legislature, in amending and re-enacting section 25 of the Act of 1924, inserted in the paragraph levying licenses on all other businesses except manufacturing, not otherwise provided for, a clause reading as follows: “Provided that manufacturers selling their manufactured articles in any manner other than from their manufacturing plants or warehouses to dealers for resale shall pay licenses as fixed in this Act.” Section 3 of Act No. 299 of 1926.

Section 18 of the Act of 1924 is the section of that act, levying licenses on peddlers. It does not undertake to define what a peddler is, but merely levies the license against “each and every peddler' or hawker.” In amending and re-enacting section 18 the Legislature, in section 2 of the Act of 1926, inserted a clause *171 defining a peddler as follows: “P'rovided that any person, who goes from house to house, or place tó place, or store to store, exposing and selling the merchandise which he carries with him and delivering the same at the time of or immediately after the sale or without returning to the base of business operation between the taking of the order and the delivery of the goods, otherwise than for advertising purposes, shall be deemed a peddler. * * * ”

Section 16 of article 3 of the Constitution of 1921 reads that: “Every law enacted by the Legislature shall embrace but one object, and shall have a title indicative of such object.”

It would seem clear enough that, in passing t)he original act, Act No. 205 of 1924, the Legislature might, under the title given to that act, and repeated in the amendatory act, have defined the word “peddler” as it did in the latter act. However, that is not the question. In the original act the Legislature had levied, in section 18 thereof, the license against peddlers, without seeking to define what should constitute a peddler. The word “peddler,” therefore, was to be accepted in its generally' accepted sense. It did not then include a person going from store to store, exposing and vending his merchandise, or, to state the same thing otherwise, selling his merchandise, in unbroken packages, for resale, instead of in broken or unbroken packages for consumption; that is, at retail. Webster’s New International Dictionary defines the verb “peddle” as follows: “To travel about with wares for sale; to go from place to place, or house to house, retailing goods; as, to peddle without a license.” Under the Act of 1924, one going from store to store, selling his goods, would not have been considered a peddler, for the simple reason that he would be one selling for resale and not at retail. Such person would have been liable, if not exempted, either under section 7 of that act for the license prescribed for wholesale dealers, or under the omnibus clause of section 25 thereof, levying a license on all businesses, not otherwise provided for. The question therefore is: May the Legislature, under the title given to the Act of 1926, so extend the generally accepted meaning of the word “peddler” as to include persons conducting business not theretofo're included in the particular section amended, the Act of 1926 being an amendatory act, and the original act not including, as peddlers, such persons.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
124 So. 769, 169 La. 167, 1929 La. LEXIS 1963, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-louisiana-coca-cola-bottling-co-la-1929.