State v. Guilford

Citation219 N.W. 770,174 Minn. 457
Decision Date25 May 1928
Docket NumberNo. 26696.,26696.
PartiesSTATE ex rel. OLSON, Co. Atty., v. GUILFORD et al.
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota (US)

Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County; Mathias Baldwin, Judge.

Action by the State, on the relation of Floyd B. Olson, County Attorney of Hennepin County, against Howard A. Guilford, J. M. Near, and others. From an order overruling a demurrer to the complaint the named defendants appeal, the question involved being certified as doubtful and important. Affirmed.

Latimer & Latimer, of Minneapolis, for appellants.

Floyd B. Olson and Wm. C. Larson, both of Minneapolis, for respondent.

WILSON, C. J.

Appeal from an order overruling a demurrer to the complaint, the question involved being certified to this court as doubtful and important.

Action to abate and enjoin a nuisance based upon Laws 1925, c. 285, which in part reads as follows:

"Any person who * * * shall be engaged in the business of regularly or customarily producing, publishing or circulating, having in possession, selling or giving away * * * (b) a malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, * * * is guilty of a nuisance, and all persons guilty of such nuisance may be enjoined, as hereinafter provided. * * * In actions brought under (b) above, there shall be available the defense that the truth was published with good motives and for justifiable ends."

The complaint specifically alleges a violation of the statute in nine issues of the paper between September 24, 1927, and November 19 1927, inclusive, in which such attacks were made upon one Charles G. Davis, the mayor of Minneapolis, the chief of police of Minneapolis, the county attorney of Hennepin county, the Jewish race, and the members of the grand jury of Hennepin county. For present purposes we must consider the allegations of the complaint to be true. Defendants challenge the validity of this statute.

1. The word "nuisance" is sufficiently comprehensive to include the alleged unlawful business which necessarily works harm, injury, and prejudice to the individual and is prejudicial to the public welfare. Since it annoys, injures, and endangers the comfort and repose of a considerable number of persons, it is a nuisance within G. S. 1923, § 10241, subd. 1. Perhaps it also endangers safety within the meaning of the statute. Moreover, the people speaking through their representatives in the legitimate exercise of the police power have declared such acts a nuisance. Our Legislature has declared the following to be nuisances: Places where intoxicating liquor is illegally sold (G. S. 1923, § 3200); houses of prostitution (G. S. 1923, § 10199); dogs (G. S. 1923, § 7287); malicious fences (G. S. 1923, § 9581); itinerant carnivals (G. S. 1923, § 10242); lotteries (G. S. 1923, § 10209); and noxious weeds (G. S. 1923, § 6146). This legislative power has been used as to various things constituting nuisances. 21 Cent. L. J. 305.

2. We are not here concerned with the power of equity to enjoin libel or otherwise to protect personal rights. The statute is directed at an existing nuisance arising out of a continued and habitual indulgence in malice, scandal, and defamation. Such is the declared purpose of the statute. Equity has always had jurisdiction to enjoin and abate public nuisances. Township of Hutchinson v. Filk, 44 Minn. 536, 47 N. W. 255; City of Jordan v. Leonard, 119 Minn. 162, 137 N. W. 740; State ex rel. Wilcox v. Gilbert, 126 Minn. 95, 147 N. W. 953, 5 A. L. R. 1449; City of Marshall v. Cook, 169 Minn. 248, 211 N. W. 328; Town of Linden v. Fischer, 154 Minn. 354, 191 N. W. 901; 29 Cyc. 1219; 35 C. J. 171, § 45. Even sports may sometimes be enjoined as private nuisances. 21 Yale L. J. 414.

3. In the exercise of the police power of the state the Legislature must resort to measures which tend to accomplish the desired purpose and, on the other hand, must not exceed the reasonable demands of the occasion. Police power involves the imposition of such restrictions upon private rights as are practically necessary for the general welfare, i. e., the public interest, and it must be limited to such matters. State ex rel. Beek v. Wagener, 77 Minn. 483, 80 N. W. 633, 778, 1134, 46 L. R. A. 442, 77 Am. St. Rep. 681; State ex rel. Wilcox v. Gilbert, 126 Minn. 95, 107, 147 N. W. 953, 5 A. L. R. 1449; Grisim v. So. St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, 152 Minn. 271, 188 N. W. 729; State ex rel. Lachtman v. Houghton, 134 Minn. 226, 158 N. W. 1017, L. R. A. 1917F, 1050; Dunnell's Minn. Dig. (2d Ed.) §§ 1603, 1605.

Under modern authorities there can be no doubt that the police power includes all regulations designed to promote public convenience, happiness, general welfare, and prosperity, an orderly state of society, the comfort of the people, and peace, and that it extends to all great public needs as well as to regulations designed to promote public health, morals, or safety. It is the prerogative of the Legislature to determine not only what the public interests require but also the measures necessary to protect such interests. It has no right arbitrarily to declare something to be a nuisance which is clearly not one. But in that regard a great deal must be left to its discretion, and if the object to be accomplished is conducive to public interests, as it is here, it may exercise a large liberty of choice in the means employed. Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 140, 14 S. Ct. 499, 38 L. Ed. 385; State ex rel. Wilcox v. Gilbert, supra. The determination of the Legislature is ordinarily final, presumptively valid; but the presumption is not conclusive. Grisim v. So. St. Paul Live Stock Exchange, supra. For our purposes it is sufficient that a state of facts could exist which would justify this legislation. Our inquiry relates to the power, not to the expediency. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 24 L. Ed. 77. Every reasonable presumption must be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute. Unless its invalidity clearly appears it must be sustained. The courts will interfere only where the regulations adopted are arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable. Home Tel., etc., v. Los Angeles, 211 U. S. 265, 29 S. Ct. 50, 53 L. Ed. 176; People v. Weiner, 271 Ill. 74 110 N. E. 870, L. R. A. 1916C, 775, Ann. Cas. 1917C, 1065; State v. Morse, 84 Vt. 387, 80 A. 189, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 190, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 218; State ex rel. McBride v. Superior Court, 103 Wash. 409, 174 P. 973; People ex rel. Barmore v. Robertson, 302 Ill. 422, 134 N. E. 815, 22 A. L. R. 835; Town of Kinghurst et al. v. International Lbr. Co. et al. (Minn.) 219 N. W. 172 (filed April 20, 1928). It must be remembered that the police power is a governmental right in the state which authorizes it to prohibit all things harmful to the comfort, safety and welfare of society. It is to the public what the law of necessity is to the individual. State v. Mountain Timber Co., 75 Wash. 581, 135 P. 645, L. R. A. 1917D, 10. The constituent elements of the declared nuisance are the customary and regular dissemination by means of a newspaper, which finds its way into families, reaching the young as well as the mature, of a selection of scandalous and defamatory articles treated in such a way as to excite attention and interest so as to command circulation.

In State v. Pioneer Press Co., 100 Minn. 173, 110 N. W. 867, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 480, 117 Am. St. Rep. 684, 10 Ann. Cas. 351, a statute forbidding publication of details of execution of criminals, was sustained as a valid police measure.

In State v. Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 166 N. W. 181, L. R. A. 1918C, 304, it was held that the state may deny the right to publish and teach things injurious to society.

In the development and growth of the law and our institutions the tendency is to extend rather than to restrict the police power. State ex rel. City of Minneapolis v. St. P., M. & M. Ry. Co., 98 Minn. 380, 108 N. W. 261, 28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 298, 120 Am. St. Rep. 581, 8 Ann. Cas. 1047; C., M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. City of Minneapolis, 115 Minn. 460, 133 N. W. 169, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 236, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 1029; State ex rel. Twin City B. & I. Co. v. Houghton, 144 Minn. 1, 174 N. W. 885, 176 N. W. 159, 8 A. L. R. 585.

The business at which the statute is directed involves more than libel. Mere libel under the statute does not constitute the nuisance. The statute is not directed at threatened libel but at an existing business which, generally speaking, involves more than libel. The distribution of scandalous matter is detrimental to public morals and to the general welfare. It tends to disturb the peace of the community. Being defamatory and malicious, it tends to provoke assaults and the commission of crime. It has no concern with the publication of the truth, with good motives, and for justifiable ends. There is no constitutional right to publish a fact merely because it is true. It is a matter of common knowledge that prosecutions under the criminal libel statutes do not result in efficient repression or suppression of the evils of scandal. Men who are the victims of such assaults seldom resort to the courts. This is especially true if their sins are exposed and the only question relates to whether it was done with good motive and for justifiable ends. This law is not for the protection of the person attacked nor to punish the wrongdoer. It is for the protection of the public welfare. The courts have uniformly sustained the constitutionality of statutes conferring upon courts of equity power to restrain public nuisances although the acts constitute crime and the plaintiff's property rights are not involved. Ann. 5 A. L. R. 1476, and cases cited. The inherent nature of the business bears such a relation to the social and moral welfare that we hold that the Legislature was in the legitimate exercise of the police power when it declared such business to be a public nuisance. The right to do this was forced upon the state in the exercise of its functions, or rather duty, to...

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