Court Opinion

ID: 9570892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:27:19.236298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:20:50.173296
License: Public Domain

Bowles, Justice,
dissenting.
The City of Atlanta ordinance under attack in this case was declared to be unconstitutional by the trial judge and by the Court of Appeals of this state. Now a majority of this court has voted to reverse the Court of Appeals; thus holding that the ordinance in question meets constitutional muster. We are confined to the narrow question on which we granted certiorari, that being whether or not the ordinance in question violates Art. I, Sec. IV, Par. I (Code Ann. § 2-401) of the 1945 Georgia Constitution. That single issue will be addressed in this dissent, although the ordinance in question may be otherwise constitutionally infirm.
There are three paragraphs of the ordinance I deem necessary to quote here, namely: "Section31-41.3. Definitions (b). The word contractor whenever used in this ordinance is hereby defined as any person, partnership, corporation, association or joint venture which has been awarded a public contract and including every subcontractor on such contract, (c) The word subcontractor whenever used in this ordinance is hereby defined as any person, partnership, corporation, association, or joint venture which supplies any of the work, labor, services, supplies, equipment, materials or any combination of the foregoing under contract with the contractor on a public contract. Section 31-41.11. *659Minimum wage requirements. Where a construction project exceeds $10,000, the minimum wage paid shall correspond to the prevailing wages prescribed in the federal Davis-Bacon Act and such scale of prevailing wages to be paid shall be posted by the contractor in a prominent and easily accessible place at the site of the work.”
Thus, by ordinance, wages paid on any contract or subcontract performed for the City of Atlanta where the amount involved exceeds $10,000 shall meet the minimums of the federal Davis-Bacon Act. The ordinance is overly broad, in my opinion, and is in direct conflict with the minimum wage law enacted by the legislature of this state, Code Ann. § 54-1202, and thus violates the constitutional prohibition of Art. I, Sec. II, Par. I of the 1945 Georgia Constitution (Code Ann. § 2-401 which is now included in the 1976 Constitution as Code Ann. § 2-207).
The minimum wage law adopted by our legislature provides for a minimum wage of $1.25 per hour. In these days of inflation this appears to be strikingly low, but that is not the point. The legislature can increase this minimum at any time it elects to do so. The right and power to set a minimum wage has been undertaken by the legislature of this state for the state as a whole, and haying done so, a municipal ordinance cannot be enacted increasing the minimum set by the legislature.
Under the ordinance in question the word contractor includes all subcontractors and every subcontractor, includes by legal definition, any person, firm, corporation, etc. who supplies any of the work, labor, equipment, materials, etc. Thus, the employees of the contractor are not only subject to the Davis-Bacon minimums but wages paid employees of every equipment supplier and every materialman must also comply according to the city ordinance. Subcontractors furnishing material and equipment under this definition could include large nationwide corporations, sand and gravel people in nearby counties, lumber companies operating in other parts of the state, or in other states, prefabricators of components, and others. It matters not, if there is a supplier to any contractor on the projects he must comply *660with the Davis-Bacon Act minimum wage provisions. Thus, the City of Atlanta has attempted to legislate by ordinance what must be paid to such employees everywhere. The coverage is extremely broad, and in my opinion, beyond the authority of the city to enact.
A similar ordinance was declared unconstitutional in the case relied on by the majority, Wilson v. City of Atlanta, 164 Ga. 560 (139 SE 148) (1927), but for a different reason. That decision was approved by all the justices of this court except Justice Hines who wrote a twelve page dissent which I will not attempt to quote here but in which he concluded the court was not called upon to determine whether the state or a city could generally fix the hours of labor to be performed daily by laborers and whether the state or a city could generally fix a minimum scale of wages to be paid by employers to their employees. He said, "The narrow question for our decision is this: Can the city in erecting its public buildings and bridges and in making repairs thereon, when the work is done by the city ■ itself, or when it is done by contractors employed by the city, fix the number of hours which its employees or the employees of its contractors shall be required to work on such work daily, and prescribe the wages which the city or its contractors shall pay to employees in doing such work?”
The question there was considerably narrower in Justice Hines’ opinion, and at that time there was no legislative enactment by the state setting a minimum wage. The two additional problems in the present case, i.e., extremely broad coverage, and legislative enactment in the field, could well have changed Justice Hines’ minority view.
I not only feel that the ordinance in question violates or comes in conflict with the general law of this state on this subject matter, and thus violates our constitutional prohibition in that regard, but I feel that Wilson v. City of Atlanta, 164 Ga. 560, supra, is sound and should not be overruled. There are more interests than one to be protected. Where the state has entered the field and adopted statewide law on the subject, I do not think the City of Atlanta in fairness to all of its citizens can do so. Atlanta & W. P. R. Co. v. Underwood, 218 Ga. 193(2) (126 *661SE2d 785) (1962) is directly in point.1
Powell v. Bd. of Commrs. of Gwinnett County, 234 Ga. 183 (214 SE2d 905) (1975), on which the majority opinion relies, is clearly distinguishable. That case involved the authority of Gwinnett County to issue beer and wine licenses within its borders. It adopted an ordinance saying that no license shall be issued where an entrance to a place of business for the retail or wholesale of beer and wine is located within 1,700 feet from the entrance or main structure of any school or any church. The state law, Code Ann. § 58-724.1, made it a crime for any person to sell either beer or wine at a place within 100 yards of any school or schoolhouse in this state. The state was not setting standards for granting licenses or for sale of beer and wine, but was setting criminal standards for the illegal sale of beer and wine within a certain distance of any school. Indeed, the county could have elected not to license beer and wine at all in the county should its citizens have decided to do so. Justice Gunter points out that the state law does not set any regulatory distance for the sale of beer and wine with respect to churches, and therefore, that part of the ordinance relating to churches is not in conflict with any general law. The decision specifically holds: "We do not interpret this statutory restriction to mean that a local governing authority cannot establish, pursuant to its police power authority, a distance restriction that is greater than 300 feet.” (Emphasis supplied.) For example, the governing authority of Gwinnett County could have restricted the *662licensing of sale of beer and wine to any reasonable area it chose to so designate. As I read the decision, it stands for the rule that the police power authority is a power and authority granted in regard to licensing of beer and wine and really has nothing to do with the criminal sanctions imposed by the state in the sale of the beer and/or wine within certain areas.
To hold where the state has entered an area of the law and has set a minimum, a municipality may set a higher minimum is not the sense of the Gwinnett County case in my opinion. As previously stated, we considered the question on the narrow grounds contained in the grant of certiorari, and although the judgment of the Court of Appeals stands reversed, I do not conclude that that court is prevented from considering the other grounds presented to it such as unreasonableness as a matter of fact, etc. In my opinion, the judgment of the trial court, and the decision of the Court of Appeals were both fundamentally sound and correct, and I would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Justice Jordan joins in this dissent.

 See also City of Atlanta v. Hudgins, 193 Ga. 618 (1) (19 SE2d 508) (1942); Green v. City of Atlanta, 162 Ga. 641, 652 (135 SE 84) (1926); City of Atlanta v. Stein, 111 Ga. 789 (36 SE 932) (1900). Code Ann. § 69-1017 — "Same; home rule for municipalities (a) The governing authority of each municipality shall have legislative power to adopt clearly reasonable ordinances, resolutions or regulations relating to its property, affairs and local government for which no provision has been made by general law and which are not inconsistent with the Constitution or any charter provision applicable thereto...”