Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/759

 702

BOARDING HOUSES. (LICENSE — REASONABLE DISCRIMINATION.) SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

In ex parte Lemon, 77 Pacific Reporter 455. 't %vas contended that a city ordinance requiring .a license fee of $8 per month of boarding houses where the meals are not cooked and served by the proprietor or mem bers of his family and of $3 a month only where the meals are cooked and served by the proprietor or members of his family, is void for unreasonable discrimination. The court cites numerous authorities to the ef fect that the amount of license to be paid by those engaged in a certain business may be made to depend upon the amount or volume of the business done. In applying this rule the amount of the license may be made to depend on the amount of the receipts from the business (County of San Luis Obispo v. Greenberg, 120 California 300, 52 Pacific Reporter 797), on the amount of sales or business transacted (Ex parte Mount, 66 Cal ifornia 448, 6 Pacific Reporter 78), on the amount of stock on hand (Saks v. Mayer, 120 Alabama 190, 24 Southern Reporter 728), on the number of persons employed, as in the case of a laundry (Ex parte Li Protti, 68 California 635, 10 Pacific Reporter 113), or, as in the case of taverns, on the location, whether in a large city or village (County of Amador v. Kennedy, 70 California 458. 11 Pacific Reporter 757). The rule underlying these decisions appears to be, that while the State, county or city cannot discriminate in the imposition of license taxes between. per sons exercising the same privilege, by impos ing different taxes on persons similarly sit uated, it may classify and tax occupations, grading the privilege tax by the amount of business done, that different methods of ac complishing1 this may be adopted, and that any classification reasonably designed to at tain this object is within its power to make. It is clear that as a general rule a restaurant or boarding-house where the meals are wholly cooked and served by the proprietor and members of his family must be a very small affair, hardly rising to the dignity of a

"restaurant" or "boarding house" Ordi narily, the accommodations and service at such a place must necessarily be very limited, and the amount of business done must con sequently be very small. There may be exceptional cases, it is true, where by reason of the magnitude of the proprietor's family a very pretentious and prosperous business might be conducted without the aid of a single employé. We must, however, judg; of the reasonableness of the ordinance in question by what we know of the general conditions, and not hold it void simply be cause in some exceptional case it may result in imposing unequal burdens. The classi fication here adopted is probably no more likely practically to result in unfair discrimi nation between those similarly situated as to the amount of business than a classifica tion according to the number of rooms in a hotel, or the number of employes in a laun dry, and the ordinary effect of the enforce ment of the provision as it stands will be that those doing the greater amount of bus iness will pay the higher tax fixed thereby. CKMETKRIES. (MONUMENTS—TITLE.) SUPREME COURT OF RHODE ISLAND.

In McCann v. McGann, 58 Atlantic Re porter 458, the court announces the rule that an administratrix, in erecting a monu ment over the grave of deceased under au thority of the probate court, does not act as administratrix in such a way as to preclude the heirs from having any title in and to the monument, or any rights or equities therein. Xo authorities are cited. FRATERNAL SOCIETIES. (INITIATION OF MEM BER — PERSONAL INJURIES — LIABILITY OF SovEREIC.N CAMP.) SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

In Mitchell v. Leech, 48 Southeastern Re porter 290, the question was raised whether or not the sovereign camp of a fraternal so ciety was liable for injuries inflicted on a member of a local camp in initiating him. It appeared that the society selected and organ ized local lodges for the purpose of transact