Ex Parte Gordon

Citations

• 164 P. 1146
• 63 Okla. 305
• 1916 OK 982
• 1916 Okla. LEXIS 1396

Syllabus

<p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p> <p>1. Municipal Corporations — Ordinance-Partial Invalidity — Effect.</p> <p>Unless the invalid part of a city ordinance is so clearly severable from the valid portions thereof that it would be presumed that the lawmaking body would have passed the valid portion without the invalid, the entire ordinance must be held to be void.</p> <p>2. Same — license Tax.</p> <p>That part of the city ordinance of Oklahoma City providing for levying a license tax upon merchant auctioneers, designated as section 842, which attempts to exempt from the general operation of the ordinance any merchant or other person who has resided in and conducted a business in Oklahoma City, etc., being admittedly invalid, the balance of the act must also be held invalid, for otherwise a class of merchants or persons would be subjected to the payment of a license tax or be punished for nonpayment whom the lawmaking body of the city did not intend to be.</p>