Title: City of Jackson v. Lee
Citation: 252 So. 2d 897
Docket Number: 46308
State: Mississippi
Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court
Date: October 4, 1971

252 So. 2d 897 (1971) CITY OF JACKSON et al. v. Walter Riley LEE, Jr. No. 46308. Supreme Court of Mississippi. October 4, 1971. John E. Stone, Val Surgis, W.T. Neely, E. Dale Ingels, III, Jackson, for appellants. Harry L. Kelley, Jackson, for appellee. ROBERTSON, Justice: Appellee, Walter Riley Lee, Jr., secured a writ of prohibition from the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, prohibiting the City of Jackson, Mississippi, from enforcing a municipal ordinance, which provided that: The City of Jackson appealed, asserting that this ordinance was a reasonable traffic regulation that the City had a right to enact under Mississippi law. The City is correct. Section 3374-129, Mississippi Code of 1942 Annotated (1956), provides, among other things: Section 8150, Mississippi Code of 1942 Annotated (1956), provides that the Uniform Highway Traffic Regulation Act (Sections 8126-8285, Mississippi Code of 1942 Annotated (1956): The ordinance here questioned is not in conflict with any provision of the Uniform Highway Traffic Regulation Act, but is merely an additional traffic regulation, which the statute specifically grants local authorities the right to enact. Although not exactly in point, Somerville v. Keeler, 165 Miss. 244, 145 So. 721 (1933), and Wasson v. City of Greenville, 123 Miss. 642, 86 So. 450 (1920), shed some light on this question. *898 In Everhardt v. City of New Orleans, 253 La. 285, 217 So. 2d 400 (1969), the Supreme Court of Louisiana had occasion to rule on the constitutionality of a similar ordinance passed by the City of New Orleans requiring all cyclists to wear protective helmets while operating motorcycles on the streets of the City. There, as here, the argument was made that the ordinance was unconstitutional in that it was an unreasonable limitation on the personal liberty of the individual motorcyclist and thus violated the equal protection clause. The Louisiana Supreme Court, in deciding this case, first restated the long-established ground rules for determining the constitutionality of ordinances: Mississippi has long followed this general rule. It was restated in 1969 in Ridgewood Land Company v. Moore, 222 So. 2d 378, in this way: In Everhardt, the Louisiana Supreme Court in answering the main contention of the plaintiffs, said: And: The courts reached the same conclusion in City of Wichita v. White, 205 Kan. 408, 469 P.2d 287 (1970); Elliott v. City of *899 Oklahoma City, 471 P.2d 944 (Okl.Cr., 1970); and State of Washington v. Laitinen, 459 P.2d 789 (Wash., 1969). This ordinance of the City of Jackson is a reasonable traffic regulation authorized by both Sections 3374-129 and 8150 supra. The judgment of the circuit court making permanent the writ of prohibition is reversed, and the questioned ordinance is found to be legal, valid and enforceable. Judgment reversed and order of the city council reinstated. GILLESPIE, C.J., and JONES, PATTERSON and INZER, JJ., concur.