Case ID: ohio-st_110/html/0532-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Matthias, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Conrad v. Lengel.
    
      Peddlers and itinerant vendors — Municipal corporations — Issuance and revocation of licenses — Discharged soldier — Sections 6851 and 6852, General Code — Arrest by officer without warrant — Section 181/92. General Code — Detention for one hour.
    
    1. While by the provisions of Section 6351, General Code, an honorably discharged soldier procuring a peddler’s license as therein provided is exempt from the payment of “any fee for a municipal or other license,” he is subject to the police regulation of the municipality, including a requirement that before he peddles or hawks merchandise therein he must obtain a license, and such license, under the express provisions of Section 6352, General Code, may be revoked and cancelled for causes therein stated.
    2. The arrest without a warrant by an officer of one found by such officer violating a statute or ordinance is authorized •by Section 13492, General Code, and detention for the period of one hour without such warrant is not unreasonable.
    (No. 18217
    Decided June 10, 1924.)
    Error to the Court of Appeals of Stark county.
    This action was instituted by the plaintiff in error in the court of common pleas of Stark county to recover damages for claimed false imprisonment caused by the defendant in error as chief of police of the city of Canton. The pertinent averments of the amended petition were that the plaintiff a,t the time in question, without affidavit filed or warrant issued, was arrested land detained for more than one hour in jail on a charge of peddling in such city without a license; whereas, he was an honorably discharged soldier of the United States, having served in the World War, and as such had paid for and been granted a license from the county auditor of Lucas county, by virtue of Sections 6347 and 6351, General Code, which were in force, and which authorized him to peddle wares and merchandise anywhere in the state, of which he informed the defendant immediately upon arrest.
    The answer set up the provisions of an ordinance of the city, prohibiting peddling therein without procuring a license, and averred that plaintiff had been arrested while in the act of violating same in the presence and sight of the arresting officer. A demurrer to the answer having been overruled and plaintiff not desiring to further plead, judgment was rendered against him for costs, and. his amended petition dismissed, which judgment, on- proceeding in error, was 'affirmed by the Court of Appeals. Upon motion the case was ordered certified to this court for review.
    
      Messrs. Emmons & Emmons, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Mr. Thomas M. Miller, city solicitor, and Mr. J. E. Kinnison, assistant city solicitor, for defendant in error.
   Matthias, J.

Plaintiff below relied upon the provisions of the statute, which he claimed exempted him from procuring a city license, he having procured what is termed a soldier’s license from a county auditor under the provisions of Section 6351, General Code, and claimed that he was by the express terms thereof, and by 'Section 6353, General Code, authorized to sell goods, wares, and merchandise anywhere in the state.

The construction and application of the provisions of these sections and Section 6352, General Code, determine the question. Section 6351, General Code, exempts plaintiff, not from procuring a license, but only “from paying any fee for a municipal or other license, as required by law or ordinance,” and Section 6352, General Code, which must be read with the other sections, recognizes the police power otherwise conferred upon municipalities, and particularly with reference to' the regulation of peddlers, and provides that “a municipal authority, issuing a license to him, for the purpose of peddling, may revoke and cancel it when he is guilty of a wrongful act in connection with such business or is not a fit person to be engaged therein.”

The purpose of the legislation is obvious and the conclusion irresistible that only exemption from the payment of an additional fee is attempted and no exemption from municipal police regulation other than that specified is contemplated or authorized. Under the averments of the answer the plaintiff was found violating the ordinance by the police officer, and the officer was authorized by the provisions of Section 13492, General Code, to make the arrest without a warrant, and certainly it cannot be determined as a matter of law that detention for one hour is an unreasonable time. The demurrer to the answer was therefore properly overruled, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming that ¡action must be affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

Maeshall, C. J., Robinson, Jones, Day and Allen, JJ., concur.

Wanamakee, J., not participating.