City of Morgantown v. Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance
City of Morgantown v. Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance
Opinion of the Court
This case is here on certificate from the Circuit Court of Monongalia County. The plaintiff, the City of Mor-gantown, a municipal corporation, by a notice of motion for judgment, seeks to recover from the defendant, Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a corporation, the principal sum of $695.08, with interest thereon from the 1st day of July, 1953. The notice of motion alleges that this sum is due to the City
Subsection (i), Section 7, Article 4, Chapter 126, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1933, this Act being the charter of the City of Morgantown, reads: “The council may by ordinance require city license for persons conducting and carrying on any business or vocation in the city for which the state may now or hereafter require a license.”
The general statute, Code, 8-4-13, upon which the Circuit Court of Monongalia County based its ruling upon the demurrer, provides: “Whenever anything, for which a state license is required, is to be done within such town the council may, unless prohibited by law, require a municipal license therefor, and may impose a tax thereon for the use of the town.”
In Lewis, et al. v. City of Bluefield, et al., 117 W. Va. 782, 188 S. E. 237, this Court upheld the validity of a municipal gross sales tax on the business of selling coal and coke upon the theory that it was, in effect, a license tax. -However, in Shulick-Taylor Company, et al. v. The
In Walker, et al. v. City of Morgantown, et al., 137 W. Va. 289, 71 S. E. 2d. 60, this Court held that where a municipal tax ordinance contained no regulatory features, required no duties to be performed by the municipality except the collection of license fees, and contained no language indicating whether the proceeds thereof were to be paid into the general treasury of the municipality, or were to be used to pay the expense of carrying out the provisions of the ordinance, it is a revenue measure “and in no wise levies a license tax under the police power delegated to such municipality.”
It is true that under the provisions of Code, 8-4-13, the City of Morgantown may require a municipal license for anything whch is to be done within the city, and impose a tax thereon if for the same thing a State license is required. A State license is required by an insurance company before it can do business in this State by the provisions of Code, 33-2-6. Code, 33-1-8, as amended by Chapter 88, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1955 reads in part as follows: “* * * For annual fee for each license, fifty dollars; * * *.” Prior to this Amendment, the annual license fee was ten dollars, and the Section, both prior to and after the 1955 Amendment, also required payment by insurance companies of certain service charges. Code, 33-2-37, provides that: “Every insurance company licensed to transact business in this State shall make a return annually, * * * of the gross amount of premiums collected and received by it * * *
It is apparent from an examination of Chapter 33 of the Code, and the several amendments thereto since 1931, that the Legislature has placed insurance companies in a separate category from other corporations. That is true of both domestic and foreign insurance companies. Both are now required to pay a two per cent privilege tax upon gross premiums, and all such companies must satisfy the Insurance Commissioner, whose office was created for the sole purpose of regulating and enforcing the laws applicable to insurance companies, that they are qualified for a State license before they can transact business in this State. Certain fees for such license must be paid, which fees actually constitute a license tax, as will be observed from the language of Code, 31-1-8, as amended, the proceeds thereof being used for paying the expense of operating the Insurance Commissioner’s department. It is only such licensed insurance companies which are required to pay the two per cent on gross premiums, under
The question of whether a foreign insurance corporation is required to qualify with the Secretary of State and the Auditor, in addition to complying with the stringent regulations of Chapter 33 of the Code, as amended, by the Insurance Commissioner, was determined by this Court in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Sims, 1954, 140 W. Va. 49, 82 S. E. 2d. 312. In the Court’s opinion, written by Judge Lovins, this question was answered in the negative: “Are foreign insurance companies required to qualify under Code 31-1-79 and Section 80, Chapter 119, Acts of the Legislature, 1939, Regular Session, (Michie’s Code, 1949, Serial Section 935), as well as under Code 33-2-5, 6, as insurance corporations; * * *?” To avoid the “chaos and confusion” which may result from a careless citation of authority, it should be noted that the reference to “Code 31-1-79” is inaccurate since this section was amended by Chapter 29, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1951. Likewise, at the Regular 1951 Session, the Legislature, by Chapter 108, materially changed the provisions of “Code 33-2-5”. Judge Lovins, in his concurring opinion in Cochran v. Trussler, Superintendent of Upshur County Schools, 1955, 141 W. Va. 130, 89 S. E. 2d. 306, succinctly stated that: “Hitherto, it has been the practice and usage by this Court to accurately designate statutes as Acts of the Legislature when such statutes have been enacted after the adoption of the 1931 Code, which is the only official Code of the State of West Virginia. * * *” “The Bench and the Bar of this State are entitled to accurate citations of the authorities cited in an opinion. By such accuracy, chaos and confusion have been avoided. Otherwise, a careless citation of such authorities results in confusion. * * *”
Since the City of Morgantown has no authority, from the only source from which it could come, the Legislature, to impose a premium privilege tax upon insurance companies, which pay the State of West Virginia a tax upon
Ruling reversed.
Concurring Opinion
concurring:
I concur in the result reached in this case, but I do not concur in the use of the following language: “ * * * in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Sims, 1954, 140 W. Va. 49, 82 S. E. 2d 312. In the Court’s opinion, written by Judge Lovins, this question was answered in the negative: ‘Are foreign insurance companies required to qualify under Code 31-1-79 and Section 80, Chapter 119, Acts of the Legislature, 1939, Regular Session, (Michie’s Code, 1949, Serial Section 935), as well as under Code 33-2-5, 6, as insurance corporations; * * * ?’ To avoid the ‘chaos and confusion’ which may result from a careless citation of authority, it should be noted that the reference to ‘Code 31-179’ is inaccurate since this section was amended by Chapter 29, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1951. Likewise, at the Regular 1951 Session, the Legislature, by Chapter 108, materially changed the provisions of ‘Code 33-2-5’. Judge Lovins, in his concurring opinion in Cochran v. Trussler, Superintendent of Upshur County Schools, 1955, 141 W. Va. 130, 89 S. E. 2d 306, succintly stated that: ‘Hitherto, it has been the practice and usuage by this Court to accurately designate statutes as Acts of the Legislature when such statutes have been enacted after the adoption of the 1931 Code, which is the only official Code of the State of West Virginia. * * * ’. ‘The Bench and the Bar of this State are entitled to accurate citations of the authorities cited in an opinion. By such accuracy, chaos and confusion have been avoided. Otherwise, a care
First, the language quoted above is clearly obiter dictum and therefore unnecessary for a decision of the instant case. Second, I can attribute its inclusion in the instant opinion to no other reason except vindictiveness. I infer that the writer of the instant opinion is provoked because I filed a concurring note in the case of Cochran v. Trussler, Superintendent of Upshur County Schools, 1955, 141 W. Va. 130, 89 S. E. 2d 308. Third, the quoted language is evidently designed to create an inference that I, in my writings, say one thing and do another. I have no such intention.
I do not recede from anything I wrote in the concurring note filed by me in the Trussler case. I reiterate and reemphasize what was there written.
It was an oversight for me to improperly designate Code 31-1-79 as being part of the Official Code when it was amended by Chapter 29, Acts of the Legislature, Regular Session, 1951, and again by Chapter 26, Acts of the Legislature, 1955, Regular Session. Likewise, failing to properly cite Code, 33-2-5 when it should have been designated as Chapter 108, Acts of the Legislature, 1951, Regular Session.
I accept primary responsibility for such erroneous designations. As to secondary responsibility for such error, I do not explicitly say. These oversights could have been called to my attention before the opinion in Fidelity Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Sims, supra, was filed.
A simple statement in the instant opinion, correcting the citations, would have sufficed.
Since the language to which I object is in an opinion of this Court wherein I concur in the result, I am left no alternative except to file this concurring note.
I deprecate engaging in a controversy of this nature in public print, and while there are many things which could be said, I will say no more. I only write this concurring note to state my position.
Reference
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- City of Morgantown v. Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co.
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