United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Lehon v. City of Atlanta, 242 U.S. 53 (1916)

Lehon v. City of Atlanta

No. 10

Submitted November 14, 1916

Decided December 4, 1916

242 U.S. 53

Syllabus

Ordinances of a city which subject the business of private detectives and detective agencies to police supervision, and provide that no person shall engage in such business without first obtaining recommendation by the Board of Police Commissioners, taking the oath prescribed for city detectives, and giving a bond in the sum of $1,000 to secure proper conduct, do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. A contention to the contrary is not, however, frivolous.

A state, under her police power, may supervise and regulate the police business within her limits and all that pertains to it, and this as regards the citizens of other states as well as her own.

Even though the ordinances were construed by local officials, in other cases, as excluding nonresidents from the detective business in Georgia, one who made no application to comply with them and thus failed to obtain a construction of them in his own case is not entitled to raise in this Court the question whether they discriminate against him as a citizen of another state. Gundling v. Chicago, 177 U. S. 183.

16 Ga.App. 64 affirmed.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Page 242 U. S. 54