Getto v. City of Chicago

This case presents the second interlocutory appeal filed by the Illinois Bell Telephone Company (Bell) and the city of Chicago arising out of a class action suit brought against both parties in July of 1977 by Charles A. Getto. In this suit, filed on behalf of Getto and all persons similarly situated, the plaintiff challenged the method employed by the defendants in calculating the city’s municipal message tax. This ordinance imposed a tax “upon all persons engaged in the business of transmitting messages by means of electricity at the rate of five per cent of the gross receipts from such…