Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Los Angeles

This appeal is taken by the defendant city of Los Angeles and certain of its officers from a judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff. The judgment was for the return of certain fees paid as a license for the conducting of a telephone business within the city of Los Angeles. It was admitted that under an amendment to the constitution of the state, adopted in November, 1910 (sec. 14, art. XIII), the municipality had no power to exact a license tax from the plaintiff, and that its ordinance attempting so to do was void. The ordinance under which the claim for license tax was made against the plaintiff provided that telephone companies should pay a license tax monthly; that any tax remaining unpaid for a period of ten days should have added a penalty of ten per cent; that “any person, firm, or corporation” violating any of the provisions of the ordinance should be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punishable by. a fine of not less than five dollars nor more than two hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the city jail for a period of not more than one hundred days, or by both such fine and imprisonment; and that “each such person, firm, or…