Court Opinion

ID: 9689768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:46:11.201082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:52.055461
License: Public Domain

SIMPSON, Justice.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Mobile County in an action in the nature of quo warranto filed in the name of the State on the relation of Huston Carter, appellant (see Code 1940, Title 7, § 1136) holding Act No. 631, 1959 Acts of Alabama, Vol. 2, p. 1535 constitutional and valid as against the proscriptions of §§ 104(6), (17), (18), and 105, Article 4 of the Constitution of 1901.
Trial was had upon an agreed statement of facts. The Act under attack is local applying to the City of Mobile.
The most serious challenge to the Act is that it violates subdivision 6 of § 104 of the Constitution which prohibits the Legislature from passing any special, private, or local law granting a charter to any corporation, association, or individual. In our view, the argument supporting this challenge is well taken and we will pretermit discussing the other constitutional proscriptions argued as invalidating the Act.
Said Act 631 was obviously intended to supplant Chapter 2, Title 25, of the Code of Alabama of 1940' by authorizing the creation of another agency should it be deemed advisable by the governing body of the. City of Mobile, to carry out substantially the *376duties and responsibilities formerly exercised by the Mobile Housing Board, a public corporation created and established pursuant to the provisions of said Chapter 2 of Title 25, Code. The Mobile Housing Board created pursuant to the authority contained in Chapter 2 as amended is a public body and body corporate and politic. Section 7, Title 25, supra. The Mobile Urban Renewal Agency, created under the provisions of Act 631, is likewise a public corporation, but a local act applying to the City of Mobile alone.
As stated, subsection 6 of § 104 prohibits the. passage of any special, private or local law “granting a charter to any corporation, association, or individual”. It is contended by appellant that Act 631 does grant a charter to a corporation and is admittedly a local law applying only to the City of Mobile. Appellees take the position first that the constitutional prohibition does not apply to' a corporation of the type here involved, and in the second place that Act No. 631 does not grant a charter to the corporation designated as Mobile Urban Renewal Agency.
There is no merit in the suggestion that the constitutional prohibition does not apply to corporations such as the one designated in Act 631. The subsection says any corporation, which necessarily includes public as well as private corporations. It has been in terms applied to a municipal corporation. State ex rel. Britton v. Harris, 259 Ala. 368, 373, 67 So.2d 26. According to the accepted classification of corporations, they are first divided into public and private. Municipal corporations are public corporations. Black’s Law Diet., 1891 Ed. Act 631 itself declares the Mobile Urban Renewal Agency, when created, to be a “public body politic”. The first contention of appellee, therefore, is without merit.
 Does the Act “grant a charter” to the corporation in violation of said subsection (6) ? An act of the legislative department of government under which a corporation is created becomes a part of the charter of the corporation. State ex rel. Britton v. Harris, supra; Trailway Oil Co. v. City of Mobile, 271 Ala. 218, 122 So.2d 757. Otherwise stated, the charter of a corporation consists of its articles of incorporation taken in connection with the law under which it was organized; or a charter is an act of a legislature whereby a corporation is created and its franchise is defined. See Black’s Law Diet., Words and Phrases.
Section 1 of Act No. 631 reads:
“If the governing body of the City of Mobile (hereinafter called City) by resolution declares that there is need for a separate authority to plan and carry out redevelopment projects and urban renewal projects as defined by Act No. 491 of the Acts of the Legislature of 1949, page 713, approved August 30, 1949, and Act No. 553 of the Acts of the Legislature of 1955, page 1213, approved September 9, 1955, respectively, a public body corporate and politic shall exist in such city and shall be known as the Mobile Urban Renewal Agency (hereinafter called Agency).”
Clearly the Act authorizes the creation of the Mobile Urban Renewal Agency by name. Granted that such corporation comes into existence only at the instance of the city governing body, it may only exist by virtue of the statute. Its franchises, its powers are either conferred by the statute or by other statutes adopted by reference. As stated, the Act is clearly a local law. And as also stated, creation of and granting of a charter to a corporation cannot be accomplished by local law. Const. § 104(6).
As we interpret Act 631, the effect of it is to do away with an existing corporate body, created by general law, and authorize the creation of (create) an entirely new one in its stead, by local law. It is provided that after formation of the Urban Renewal Agency, the existing municipal housing authority (or Housing Board) of the *377■City of Mobile “shall no longer have power to plan, undertake, or carry out any redevelopment project”, and that the Mobile Urban Renewal Agency “shall thereafter liave sole power to plan”, etc.
In State ex rel. Britton v. Harris, supra ;[259 Ala. 368, 67 So.2d 30], we said:
“A city now cannot obtain a charter by special or local law. Section 104 (5 and 6), Constitution. If a law controls its form of government or prescribes its powers, it is a part of the charter of the city. Such charter may be incorporated in many general laws * * *»
These observations, it seems to us, apply with equal force to the corporate agency here attempted to be created by local law. For, as we have said, the inhibition prescribed in subsection (6), § 104 is the granting of a charter to any corporation.
We perforce conclude that Act No. 631 is void as in violation of § 104(6} of the ■Constitution.
Reversed and remanded.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and GOODWYN and COLEMAN, JJ., concur.