Barnett v. City of Atlanta

Samuel Barnett, an attorney of the Atlanta bar,, was summoned before the recorder’s court of that city to answer to the charge of “doing business as a money-lender and negotiating loans on real estate for commissions, without registering and paying registration tax on such business in the City of Atlanta.” Barnett contended before the recorder that the City of Atlanta had no authority to tax an attorney at law, either as license fee or otherwise. The recorder adjudged him guilty and imposed a fine of $100, with an alternative sentence of thirty days confinement in the city stockade. Barnett…