Court Opinion

ID: 9807563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:09:38.968378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:44:51.910981
License: Public Domain

Connor, J.
The sole question presented by this appeal, as stated in tbe briefs filed in this Court, botb for the State and for the defendant, is whether or not the ordinance set out in the special verdict is valid and constitutional. If this question be answered in the negative, in accordance with the opinion of the court below, the judgment must be affirmed; otherwise, the judgment must be reversed.
It is conceded that on the authority of Wake Forest v. Medlin, 199 N. C., 83, decided by this Court on 2 July, 1930, the question must be answered in the affirmative, and the judgment reversed, unless the ordinance involved in this action can be distinguished from the ordinance which we held valid and constitutional in that case.
The ordinance which we held valid in Wake Forest v. Medlin was adopted by the commissioners of the town of Wake Forest on 29 January, 1929. It prohibited the erection, maintenance or operation of a filling station in any part of the town of Wake Forest, west of the Seaboard Air Line Eailway tracks, on or after the first day of February, 1929. At the date of its adoption the defendant owned, and for some time prior thereto, had operated a filling station within the corporate limits of the town of Wake Forest, on the west side of the Seaboard Air Line Eailway tracks. He continued to operate said filling station after the adoption of the ordinance and after it became effective according to its terms. In the action by the town of Wake Forest to recover the penalty prescribed by the ordinance for its violation, the defendant contended that the ordinance was unconstitutional and void. This contention was not sustained, and the judgment in favor of the plaintiff was affirmed on defendant’s appeal to this Court. We held that the ordinance was valid, for that it operates on all alike within the territory affected and for that all within the prescribed limits are affected by its terms. It was not made to appear that the ordinance was unreasonable, arbitrary or unjust, because discriminatory. Turner v. New Bern, 187 N. C., 541, 122 S. E., 469, where the decision was by a unanimous Court, was cited as a direct authority for our holding. In that case Clark, O. J., says: “It is primarily for the legislative body clothed with the police power to decide when and under what circumstances such regulations as the one in question are necessary and essential, and its determination in this regard, in view of its better knowledge of all the circumstances and of the presumption that it is action with a due regard for the rights of all parties, will not be disturbed by the courts unless it can be plainly seen that the regulation has no relation to the purposes *14above stated, but is a clear invasion of personal or property rights, under the police power.”
The ordinance in the instant case was adopted by the board of commissioners of the town of Ahoskie on 10 February, 1930. It prohibited the erection, maintenance or operation of a filling station within a distance of 150 feet from the property of the Ahoskie Graded School District, on or after 1 April, 1930. At the date of its adoption, and for some time prior thereto, the defendant owned and operated a filling station within the prescribed limits of the town of Ahoskie. He continued to operate said filling station after 1 April, 1930. His violation of the ordinance, if the same is valid, is a misdemeanor under the laws of this State, O. S., 4174, for which he was guilty, and subject to a fine or imprisonment.
There is no distinction, in principle, between the ordinance in the instant case and the ordinance in the Wake Forest case. Neither is discriminatory on its face and, therefore, unjust; neither is unreasonable and, therefore, arbitrary. Both were adopted in the exercise of the police power of the State, conferred by the General'Assembly on the board of commissioners of said towns. In Wake Forest v. Medlin, sufra, Stacy, C. J., writing for the Court, says:
“It is clearly within the police power of the State to regulate the business of operating such stations, and to declare that in particular circumstances, and in particular localities (i. e., the residential section of a thickly populated town or city) a gasoline filling or gasoline storage station shall be deemed a nuisance in fact and in law, provided this power is not exercised arbitrarily, or with unjust discrimination, so as to infringe upon the rights guaranteed by the State and Federal Constitutions. Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S., 171, 59 L. Ed., 900. So long as the regulation is not shown to be clearly unreasonable and arbitrary and operates uniformly on all persons similarly situated, the district itself being selected in the exercise of that reasonable discretion necessarily accorded to the law-making power, it cannot be judicially declared that there is a deprivation of property without due process of law, or a denial of the equal protection of the law, within the meaning of the constitutional provisions on that subject.”
No facts appear in the special verdict from which it can be held that a filling station erected, maintained or operated within 150 feet of the property of the Ahoskie Graded School District is not a nuisance in fact, as declared by the law-making body of the town of Ahoskie. In the absence of such facts, or at least of evidence tending to show that the filling station operated by the defendant in violation of the ordinance is not a nuisance, the action of the commissioners of the town must be presumed to be well founded in fact as well as in law. The *15burden of showing that his filling station is not a nuisance was on the defendant. A filling station, although not a nuisance per se, may become so by its location. Barger v. Smith, 156 N. C., 323, 72 S. E., 376.
In each of the cases in which we have held that the ordinance involved therein, affecting filling, stations, was void, it has appeared on the face of the ordinance, or from facts shown by the evidence, that certain persons, firms or corporations operating filling stations within the prescribed territory were exempted from the provisions of the ordinance, thus resulting in discriminations, which were arbitrary and therefore unjust. Burden v. Ahoskie, 198 N. C., 92; MacRae v. Fayetteville, 198 N. C., 54; Clinton v. Oil Co., 193 N. C., 432, 137 S. E., 183; Bizzell v. Goldsboro, 192 N. C., 348, 135 S. E., 50.
On the facts set out in the special verdict in this case, the ordinance is-valid. It was duly adopted by the board of commissioners of the town of Ahoskie. It is not discriminatory on its face. No facts are found by the jury, and set out in the special verdict, which support the contention of the defendant that, if not discriminatory, in law, the ordinance is discriminatory in fact. That the ordinance adopted by the board of commissioners in the exercise of the police power, conferred upon said board by statute, will result in injury to the defendant did not deprive the board of the power to adopt the ordinance. Turner v. New Bern, supra.
The defendant is guilty of a violation of a valid ordinance of the town of Ahoskie and the verdict must be so entered. The judgment is
Beversed.
Adams, J., dissents.