Kittanning Borough v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

Citations

• 26 Pa. Super. 346
• 1904 Pa. Super. LEXIS 319

Syllabus

<p>Taxation — Telegraph companies — License tax — Poles and wires.</p> <p>A borough ordinance imposing a license tax on telegraph poles and wires is not void because it is not restricted in express terms to poles and wires maintained upon highways and public property. The court will either presume that such poles and wires were intended, or will restrict the operation of the ordinance to them.</p> <p>Statutes — Repeal—Re-enactment—Ordinances.</p> <p>The re-enactment of a previous statute is construed not to be an implied repeal of the enactment, but a continuation thereof, so that all interests under the original statute remain unimpaired. This principle is applicable to the construction of an ordinance.</p> <p>A borough ordinance providing for a license tax on telegraph companies of 11.00 per pole and $2.50 per mile of wire is prima facie reasonable, when it is shown that at least once a year the chief of police and the street commissioner made a tour of inspection counting the poles and calculating the miles of wires and that in addition to this, the officers of the police department, in connection with their other duties, kept a constant lookout for poles that might be in a dangerous condition and for wires that might be down, and when they found them in that condition reported it to the proper company.</p> <p>On an issue to. determine the reasonableness of the amount of such license tax, evidence as to the number of poles and miles of wire maintained by the company in the state, the amount of capital stock and bonded debt and net receipts of the company, are irrelevant and immaterial.</p> <p>The prima facie reasonableness of the tax is not overcome by evidence that the company spent so much per mile in a particular year for repairs and reconstruction, where such evidence does not cover the whole period for which the license fees are claimed, and is not accompanied by evidence as to the nature, extent and cost of the inspection and supervision of its lines which