Case Name: Burton et al. v. City of Toccoa et al.
Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1924-04-18
Citations: 158 Ga. 63
Docket Number: No. 3900
Parties: Burton et al. v. City of Toccoa et al.
Judges: All the Justices eoneur.
Reporter: Georgia Reports
Volume: 158
Pages: 63–63

Head Matter:
Burton et al. v. City of Toccoa et al.
No. 3900.
April 18, 1924.
Petition for injunction. Before Judge J. B. Jones. Stephens superior court. July 2, 1923.
The mayor and council of the City of Toccoa passed an ordinance on May 3, 1922, imposing a license tax of $100 a year for each moving-picture show doing business within that city. The plaintiffs in error conducted such a business in the city during the year 1922, and failed to pay the license tax. The penalty for the failure to pay such license tax under the ordinance was a fine, or service in the chain-gang in the city or confinement in the city jail. Upon being requested by the marshal of the City of Toccoa, on May 9, Í923, to pay the license tax, plaintiffs in error filed their equitable petition and undertook to enjoin the city marshal and other officers of the city from collecting the tax, and from enforcing the penalties imposed by the ordinance; and to have declared void the ordinance authorizing the tax, for various reasons. On the hearing before the trial judge the temporary restraining order was dissolved, and an injunction denied. To this judgment the plaintiffs excepted.
Borough & Owen, for plaintiffs.
Bond & McClure and George G. Allen, for defendants.

Opinion:
Hill, J.
The general rule is that a court of equity will not enjoin a criminal or threatened criminal prosecution. Prosecutions for violations of municipal ordinances, which are punishable by fine or imprisonment, are quasi criminal in their nature and come within the general rule. Steinberg v. Savannah, 149 Ga. 69 (99 S. E. 36); and cases cited; Campbell v. Jefferson, 149 Ga. 70 (99 S. E. 124); Volunteers of America v. Atlanta, 152 Ga. 461 (110 S. E. 282); Jones v. Carlton, 146 Ga. 1 (90 S. E. 278). The present ease, which seeks to enjoin the enforcement of a penal municipal ordinance, falls within the general rule. Eor cases which come under the exception to the general rule, see Baldwin v. Atlanta, 147 Ga. 28 (92 S. E. 630), and eases cited.
Judgment affirmed.
All the Justices eoneur.
Russell, C. J., and Atkinson and Gilbert, JJ., concur in the result.