Natal v. Louisiana/Opinion of the Court

The plaintiffs in error were severally complained of, tried, convicted, and sentenced in a recorder's court of the city of New Orleans for keeping a private market within six squares of a public market, in violation of section 4 of an ordinance of the city, copied in the margin, and passed under the authority conferred by the statute of Louisiana of 1878, No. 100, as follows: 'Sec. 2. That the city council of the city of New Orleans be, and they are hereby, authorized and empowered to make such arrangements and pass such ordinances for the government and regulation of the private markets in the city of New Orleans as they in their discretion may deem proper, and that they be vested with full power to provide for the enforcement of their said ordinances: provided, the city council shall not have the power to prohibit the existence of private markets under proper regulations. Sec. 3. That the said city council may prescribe by ordinance the manner in which such private markets shall be kept, the portion of the city in which they shall be located, and the distance which they shall be removed from the public markets, and shall have power to provide for the enforcement of said ordinances: provided, no private market shall be established within a radius of six squares ofany public market.' The cases were consolidated, and on appeal to the supreme court of the state the judgments were affirmed. 39 La. Ann. 439, 1 South. Rep. 923. The plaintiffs in error contended in the recorder's court, and afterwards assigned for error, that their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States had been abridged, and that they had been deprived of liberty and property without due process of law, and had been denied the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. The case is too plain for discussion. By the law of Louisiana, as in states where the common law prevails, the regulation and control of markets for the sale of provisions, including the places and the distances from each other at which they may be kept, are maters of municipal police, and may be intrusted by the legislature to a city council, to be exercised as in its discretion the public health and convenience may require. Morano v. Mayor, 2 La. 217; Municipality v. Cutting, 4 La. Ann. 335; New Orleans v. Stafford, 27 La. Ann. 417; Bush v. Seabury, 8 Johns. 327, Buffalo v. Webster, 10 Wend. 100; Nightingale's Case, 11 Pick. 168; Com. v. Rice, 9 Metc. (Mass.) 253. The ordinance of the city of New Orleans, prohibiting the keeping of a private market within six squares of any public market of the city under penalty of a fine of $25 and of imprisonment for not more than 30 days if the fine is not paid, was within the authority constitutionally conferred upon the city council by the legislature of the state. A breach of such and ordinance is one of those petty offenses against municipal regulations of police which in Louisiana, as elsewhere, may be punished by summary proceedings before a magistrate, without trial by jury. Const. La. 1852, arts. 103, 124; Const. La. 1868, arts. 6, 94; State v. Gutierrez, 15 La. Ann. 190; Mayor v. Meuer, 35 La. Ann. 1192; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540, 553, 555, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301. Judgment affirmed.