Cowles

This is an appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment in favor of the defendant, rendered after the municipal court had sustained defendant’s demurrer to the complaint without leave to amend.

By the complaint and an amendment thereto, neither of which is a model of pleading, the plaintiff seeks to recover from the defendant the sum of $12 which he alleges he paid to the city license fee collector “under duress and fear of criminal prosecution” for the issuance of an annual “Municipal Permit” in October, 1957, pursuant to the provisions of a 1932 city ordinance.

The further allegations of the complaint and amendment may be summarized as follows: In 1932 the city enacted an ordinance (Oakland Municipal Code, §§ 5-1.02 et seq.) requiring the payment of an annual “license tax” or fee by any person carrying on any business within the city, the amount of the tax or fee being computed upon the number of persons employed in the business. Although the ordinance expressly provided—and still provides—that the payment required was “a tax for revenue purposes and are not regulatory permit fees,” the true primary purpose of the ordinance “is for regulation and not revenue.” Since 1933 plaintiff…