Kittanning Borough v. American Natural Gas Co.

Citations

• 247 Pa. 65
• 93 A. 15
• 1915 Pa. LEXIS 782

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Boroughs — Natural gas companies — License fees — Reasonableness—Cost of inspection — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. Municipalities cannot impose a revenue tax under the guise of a police regulation.</p> <p>2. Whether an ordinance imposing a license tax be reasonable and consistent with the law is generally a question for the court. When the reasonableness of the ordinance turns upon the amount of a license charge it may rightly be left to the determination of a jury as a mixed question of law and fact.</p> <p>3. Prima facie an ordinance fixing an annual license charge upon a public service corporation for police supervision is presumed to be reasonable but this is a presumption only which can always be rebutted by facts showing it to be unreasonable. It devolves upon the complaining company to show that the ordinance is not reasonable.</p> <p>4. When the reasonableness of a license charge under an ordinance is tried before a jury the parties are entitled to a finding of the jury upon that question unless the testimony is such as to compel a decision one way or the other, in which event the court may in a proper case direct a verdict.</p> <p>5. In an action by a borough to recover delinquent annual license fees charged against a natural gas company, where it was alleged that the charges were unreasonable, in that they were largely in excess of the actual cost of inspection, the case was necessarily for the jury, where there was evidence, although contradicted, tending to show the cost of inspection and from which the jury might have drawn the conclusion that the fees were not unreasonable.</p>