Court Opinion

ID: 9692549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:57:03.330148+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:35.295575
License: Public Domain

O’Donnell, J.,

concurring:

I concur with the result reached by the majority, but I would sustain the grant of injunctive relief upon the more restricted ground that the appellant, Hechinger Company, is not within the exception set forth in the Maryland Code (1957, 1971 Repl. Vol.), Art. 27, § 534 H (c) (2), in that none of the merchandise sold by it brings it within the definition of a “nurseryman” as that term is known and defined. I cannot concur that in 1968 when the General Assembly enacted that section, nor in 1969 when the “Sabbath breaking” statute was last before it, that the legislature “must have had in mind the situation which had developed in the metropolitan areas of Baltimore and Washington, where many nurserymen customarily offered for sale plant material which had been propagated and raised elsewhere, either by the seller or by others.” Nor do I concur with the view that “[i]t is too late in the day to argue that the exemption extended by the Statute to nurserymen may be availed of only by the propagator and grower of plant materials.”
What the majority seems to suggest is that if the appellant is selling at retail upon his premises baled, balled *714or potted trees, bushes, plants and flowers — though purchased at wholesale elsewhere from the propagator and grower of such plant materials — and sells as well only nursery-related items, that the appellant would thus be a “nurseryman” and within the exemption in the statute. The majority then concludes that because of the adjunct retail sales by the appellant of non-nursery-related items and a wide range of general merchandise, it is not the operator of a nursery.
The first reference to any such kindred exemption appears in the Code (1957, 1967 Repl. Vol.) Art. 27, § 521 (b) — a codification of Ch. 811 of the Acts of 1959 — which permitted the sale on Sunday in Anne Arundel County of “artificial and natural flowers and shrubs” together with other specified limited merchandise. Subsection (f) in the same section — a codification of Ch. 236 of the Acts of 1966 — excepted from the application of the “Sabbath breaking” statute the operation in Allegany County of certain retail establishments, included among which were “nurseries or shops selling flowers and plants, or roadside vending stands selling fruits, vegetables or plants and flowers ” — provided that during the entire time such establishment was open on a Sunday, not more than three (3) persons were employed or working. (Emphasis supplied.)
The exception here in issue, set forth in Art. 27, § 534 H (c), as applicable to Prince George’s County, was enacted by Ch. 421 of the Acts of 1968. The same subsection, identical in form and content and codified as Art. 27, § 534 J (c), as applicable to Montgomery County, was enacted by Ch. 630 of the Acts of 1968. The same exceptions, now codified as Art. 27, § 534 L (c), was enacted by Ch. 686 of the Acts of 1968, as applicable to Baltimore County. The following year by Ch. 764 of the Acts of 1969, the General Assembly enacted identical exceptions, now codified as Art. 27, § 534 M (c), for Harford and Wicomico Counties.
By Chapters 343, 681 and 718 of the Acts of 1973, the identical provisions as are contained in Art. 27, § 534 H (c), were similarly enacted as applicable respectively to Anne Arundel and Calvert Counties (Art. 27, § 534N), Washington *715County (Art. 27, § 5340), and Frederick County (Art. 27, § 534Q). By comparison, Ch. 744 of the Acts of 1973, codified as § 534R, in subsection (c)(3) exempts as “types of business” “agricultural activities including florists, nurserymen and farmers, and commercial fishing” for Harford County.1
Each of those respective sections in Art. 27 provides in subsection (b) thereof:
“Notwithstanding any provision of this section, the operation of any of the following types of retail establishments is allowed on Sunday:
1. Drug stores whose principal business is the sale of drugs and related items.
2. Delicatessens whose principal business is the sale of delicatessen and related food items.
3. Bakeries and bakeshops.
4. Gasoline stations whose principal business is the sale of gasoline, oil, and other automobile maintenance items.” 2
The majority, by their interpretation of “nurserymen,” have in effect added an additional classification to subsection (b) in Art. 27, § 534H, which in effect would read “Stores whose principal business is the sale of trees, shrubs, plants and flowers, and nursery-related items.” Such classification and exemption was not created by the General Assembly; rather it chose to use the limited term “nurserymen.” It could have exempted “Nurseries or shops selling flowers and plants,” as was done by Ch. 811 of the Acts of 1959, for Anne Arundel County, but it did not. When the classification “nurserymen” was used in the respective statutes applicable to the various counties that word had a plain and definite meaning and as such is limited, as the *716majority recognizes, to “ ‘[o]ne who conducts or cultivates a nursery,’ ” and according to the dictionary definitions, a nursery “is a place where trees, shrubs, plants, and so forth, are propagated from seed or otherwise for transplanting, for use as stock for grafting and for sale.”3 See Piekos v. Bachand, 333 Mass. 211, 129 N.E.2d 890 (1955), quoting with approval that same definition set forth in Town of Needham v. Winslow Nurseries, Inc., 330 Mass. 95, 111 N.E.2d 453 (1953). See also Suburbia Gardens Nursery, Inc. v. County of St. Louis, 377 S.W.2d 266 (Mo. 1964); 67 C.J.S. Nursery (1950, Supp. 1974); and 58 Am.Jur.2d Occupations, Trades and Professions § 1 (1971) (concerning the regulation of “nurserymen”).
The Chancellor (Bowen, J.) — of no little experience with agronomy — in holding that the appellant was not a “nurseryman,” succinctly stated:
“A nurseryman is by definition one who conducts or operates a nursery, . . . but we are talking about here nursery in the agricultural sense. That, we think, is not difficult to glean because nurseryman follows right after farmers, [by statutory arrangement] which is the first one, so if by nothing else in the statute by the arrangement we apprehend they are talking about nursery in the sense as it applies to agriculture as opposed to any other kind of nursery you find in the dictionary. Now a nursery is by definition an operation which concerns itself with propagation of plant material, or with the propagation of certain forms of animal life. We hold as a matter of fact that that is the definition intended by the statute, none other having been offered in the statute; that it is as a matter of fact susceptible of precise and exact definition and therefore that the defendant’s argument that this section makes the statute *717unconstitutional for vagueness or lack of definiteness or certainty must fail.
. . . With this contention, [that Hechinger Company is a “nurseryman”] gentlemen, we are unable to agree as in the view the Court takes of the matter the critical operation which makes something a nursery and the operator a nurseryman is that part of the operation which is critical to the definition of nursery, and that is not the selling at retail or wholesale of the products of the nursery but the propagation of the material which is sold. It is propagation which makes an operation a nursery as opposed to the distribution in the world of commerce or transfer to the ultimate consumer in the market place of the products of the nursery. Now this record is devoid of any evidence that the defendant propagates anything that he sells either in the green goods department or the seed department or any of the live, material products which he sells. As a matter of fact, the evidence would indicate that he does not because his testimony is that he must maintain in his stores certificates of origin for those plants which are sensitive and fall within the regulation promulgated by the various, governmental agencies which regulate the sale and distribution of live, plant material, agriculture products and related items. It would make as much sense if one can argue with oneself to say that he is a fertilizer manufacturer because he sells fertilizer, or he is in the agri-chemical business because he sells the products of Ortho and others who manufacture these chemicals, or that he is in the cattle business because he sells cow manure. Nor is he in the lumber business by virtue of that fact, a tree farmer, or a saw mill, or in the foundry business because he sells ornamental casting to go on garden gates. ...”
Judge Gilbert, who delivered the opinion for the Court of *718Special Appeals4 in affirming the grant of injunctive relief, reached the same conclusion. For the Court, he stated:
“In this Court the appellant argues that it ‘offers more than 220 varieties of growing stock for public purchase. And common sense tells us that in order to stock such growing items . . . [appellant] would have to water and fertilize the plants periodically,’ in order to sell ‘good and healthy merchandise.’ Appellant utilizes the quoted statement as a premise upon which it grounds a conclusion that because it fertilizes and waters plants in order to sell them, it is in the business of ‘raising’ plants for sale and thus is a nurseryman. We decline to adopt the appellant’s line of reasoning.
The word ‘nurseryman’ is defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (unabr. ed. 1967) as, ‘one whose occupation is the scientific cultivation of trees, shrubs and plants.’ [Similar definitions are found in Funk and Wagnall’s Standard College Dictionary, Text Edition (1963); The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1969); 67 C.J.S. Nursery 3 (1950).] A nursery is defined by the same source to mean ‘an area where trees, shrubs or plants are grown for transplanting, for use as stocks for budding and grafting, or for sale.’
In Town of Needham v. Winslow Nurseries, 330 Mass. 95, 100, 111 N.E.2d 453, 456 (1953), the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts said:
‘According to dictionary definition a nursery is a place where trees, shrubs, plants, and so forth, are propagated from seed or otherwise for transplanting, for use as stock for grafting, and for sale. See Miethke v. Pierce County, 173 *719Wash. 381, 23 P. 2d 405 [(1933)]; Attorney General v. State Board of Judges, 38 Cal. 291, 296 [(1869)]; Miller v. Baker, [42 Mass. (1 Met.) 27 (1840)]; Whitmarsh v. Walker, [42 Mass. (1 Met.) 313 (1840)]; Paine v. Board of Assessors of Town of Weston, 297 Mass. 173, 7 N.E.2d 584 [(1937)].’ ” 19 Md. App. at 710-11, 313 A. 2d at 717.
He further stated for the Court:
“That the employees of the appellant water and fertilize the plants and shrubs that are part of the appellant’s inventory, does not in our view place the appellant within the ambit of the definition of nurserymen.
We think the appellant was conducting a retail business and not, as the word is ordinarily and naturally used, a nursery. Ergo, appellant is not a nurseryman. If we were to adopt the argument urged upon us by the appellant we would in effect authorize every bona fide nurseryman in Prince George’s County to engage in a retail business enterprise similar to that of the appellant. Nurserymen could then, under the guise of their statutory exemption, undertake to sell, on Sunday, the diverse and sundry items offered for sale by the appellant.
The word nurserymen as used in art. 27, § 534H (c) 2 is not void for vagueness, but on the contrary is clearly definitive. . . .” 19 Md. App. at 711-12, 313 A. 2d at 718.
I concur with these views. It was a special class of commercial enterprise which the legislature undertook quite limitedly to exempt; the General Assembly did not intend to exempt every business enterprise which purchases plants, shrubbery, flowers, etc., from “nurserymen” at wholesale and then undertakes on Sunday to sell these horticultural products at retail to the general public. The use of the word *720“farmers” in subsection (c) (1) and the use of the term “nurserymen” in juxtaposition by legislative arrangement in subsection (c) (2) would suggest that the General Assembly intended to encompass and classify together those who grow and propagate agricultural products with those who grow and propagate horticultural products — and not those retail sellers of such nursery products grown and propagated elsewhere.

. See Majority Opinion, n. 2.

. Ch. 744 of the Acts of 1973 re-enacted § 534M for Wicomico County and eliminated all references in that section to Harford County; it enacted a new section, § 534R applicable solely to Harford County.

. Art. 27, §§ 534M, N and Q include within subsection (b) as (5), “Restaurants, grills and snack bars,” as does § 534L, as amended by Ch. 265 of the Acts of 1973. Art. 27, § 5340 (for Washington County) includes within subsection (b) as (5), “Restaurants, ice cream parlors, snack bars and grills,” and adds (6), “Antique shops.”

. Hechinger Company v. State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County, 19 Md. App. 707, 313 A. 2d 715 (1974).